Disco

Disco is a genre of dance-oriented music whose origins are hard to define. Most agree that the first disco songs were released in 1973, though some claim Manu Dibango's “Soul Makossa” (1972) to be the first disco record. The first article about disco was written in September 1973 by Vince Aletti for Rolling Stone Magazine. In 1974, New York City's WPIX-FM premiered the first disco radio show.

The disco sound has a soaring, often reverberated vocals over a steady "four-on-the-floor" beat, an eighth note (quaver) or sixteenth note (semi-quaver) hi-hat pattern with an open hi-hat on the off-beat, and prominent, syncopated electric bass line. Strings, horns, electric pianos, and electric guitars create a lush background sound. Orchestral instruments such as the flute are often used for solo melodies, and unlike in rock, lead guitar is rarely used.

Well-known late 1970s disco performers included Bee Gees, Donna Summer and The Jacksons. Summer would become the first well-known and most popular female disco artist, and also played a part in pioneering the electronic sound that later became a part of disco.

Many non-disco artists recorded disco songs at the height of disco's popularity and films such as “Saturday Night Fever" and “Thank God It's Friday” contributed to disco's rise in mainstream popularity and ironically, the beginning of its commercial decline. However, disco was very important in the development of hip-hop music (especially the subgenres of crunk, snap and hyphy), British New Wave and disco's direct descendants – the 1980s and 1990s dance music genres of house music and its harder-driving offshoot, techno.

This description is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses materials from the Wikipedia article "Disco".