A Sucker for Disco

Disco couldn't begin to touch the live elegance and class of big band music from the 1930s, 40s and 50s, but its debut in the 1970s gave me a welcome break from 1970's rock music, which I found impossible to dance to. My body felt nothing when I heard rock music. The few rock songs I did like were from the 1960s and they were "head food" for me. Not dance music.

Anyway, Baby Boomer Boy and I already posted our official slant on disco music back in August 2007 when "we" wrote Disco's Fifteen Minutes for another blog of mine. So, I won't go into too many details here except to reiterate that Disco, unlike a lot of rock music that came before it and after it, was a celebration of life, not an angry denunciation of it.

Additionally, disco music also put a lot of women back into dresses again and, damn, if they didn't look good on the dance floor. People dressed up instead of down. Women showed a little cleavage and a lot of leg. All the more reason to want to dance. And, speaking of dancing, I couldn't dance worth a damn even though I loved the music. I looked like somebody who had to go to the bathroom really bad but who had no clue which way the restroom was. But I had fun anyway and that was the whole point.

Finally, I think the most positive thing about Disco is that it reminded men and women that there were a lot of wonderful, exciting differences between men and women, instead of being brainwashed by movies and television sitcoms of that era that men and women were somehow, unimaginably, interchangeable.

Here, then, are 25 songs that I feel represent the true spirit of Disco. These songs are in no particular order. Your opinions may vary about what songs best represent the Disco era and that's your perfect right. But this my blog, not yours.

Red numbers indicate my top ten personal favorites for representing what Disco meant to me. That doesn't mean I don't like the other 15 songs. I personally picked all 25 out of over 100 other Disco songs. In my opinion, they're all great. Headphones recommended.

1. Get Down Tonight - K.C. and the Sunshine Band - 1975 1

2. Night Fever - Bee Gees - 1977 5
3. Do the Hustle - Van McCoy - 1975 4
4. Low Down - Boz Scags - 1977
5. Disco Inferno - The Trammps - 1976
6. Good Times - Chic - 1979 7
7. Contact - Edwin Starr - 1978
8. Ladies Night - Kool and the Gang - 1979
9. (Shake, Shake, Shake) Shake Your Booty - K. C. and the Sunshine Band - 1976 2
10. Heart of Glass - Blondie - 1978
11. That's the Way (I Like It) - K. C. and the Sunshine Band - 1975
12. I Feel Love - Donna Summer - 1977
13. Don't Leave Me This Way - Thelma Houston - 1976
14. Born to Be Alive - Patrick Hernandez - 1979 10
15. More, More, More - Andrea True Connection - 1976
16. Heaven Must Be Missing An Angel - Tavares - 1976
17. Boogie Oogie Oogie - A Taste of Honey - 1978
18. You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real) - Sylvester 1978
19. You Should Be Dancing - Bee Gees - 1977 3
20. TSOP - MFSB featuring The Three Degrees - 1974
21. Shame - Evelyn Champagne King - 1978 9
22. Don't Stop Till You Get Enough - Michael Jackson - 1979
23. Let's All Chant - Michael Zager Band - 1978
24. Bad Girls - Donna Summer - 1978
25. Turn the Beat Around - Vicki Sue Robinson - 1976

Thank you, YouTube and YouTube members, for keeping Disco alive.

Author's Note: I selected these YouTube links for sound quality and not for video quality. I may have missed the best presentation, here and there, but I was only willing to give this posting the two days it took me to research, write, link to and post it. And then to test the links. I'll try to monitor these links and relink any ones that go dead over time (links repaired on 9-29-11). As usual, I advise viewers to ignore the comments by YouTube users. A lot of them have no respect for others or for moral decency on a public forum. Thanks for reading and watching.