The Seventies and the birth of Disco music

The seventies are years of freedom, transgression and diferent politic views. Its a
decade of strong colours and big competitions in a range of various felds: the medias
presence in all days life is always more strong, protests are led by generations
tensions and aggressive behaviours. Se and drugs become lifestyle between the
youth. !n the other hand the "#s have been characterised by an incredibly intense
and creative music wave that hasnt had e$uals in the last forty years.
There were multiples musical genres in this decade, some of them carried on by the
previous years, some of them were new% we can see &eavy 'oc(, )isco, *a++ 'oc(,
,rogressive roc(, -lam roc(, .ol( roc(, ,un( and 'eggae.
Heavy rock was a high energy genre of music that combined elements of ,sychedelic
roc(, gospel, blues and soul music. .rom a technical point of view the guitar developed
the use of syncopated chords, the rif was usually played by both guitar and bass, the
vocal style was gospel and the lyrics theme was usually about fairy tale or blues based
with epressed seuality, thing previously owned by psychedelic roc(. /e get now to
Heavy metal that is a genre of music derived from hard roc(, characterised by an
aggressive rhythm and strong sound obtained by the amplifcation and distortion of
guitars, bass and often also voices. The musical themes are usually defned as angry
or violent and the 0lac( Sabbath were the bosses of this (ind of music. Jazz Rock
Fusion was a (ind of music that combined elements from *a++, roc( and fun( and it
uses especially electric instruments that helped to ma(e the sound more easy
listening, li(e a pop trac(. Proressive Rock or simply ,rog roc( was an attempt to
intellectualise roc( music. The aim was to bring roc( to a higher level of compleity
and harmonic and stylistic variety. Important artists were ,in( .loyd 1dar( side of the
moon2, 3merson, 4a(e and ,almer. !lam Rock was born as antithesis to the
seriousness of the time, one of the most famous artists of this genre was )avid 0owie%
this genre ta(es its name because of the way they used to dress up, they were very
well5groomed, with a coloured and garish style. The music was really easy listening
and really catchy, but -lam 'oc( didnt have much of a success in the 6S because of
his androgynous way of being% how did )isco music, that was the closest genre to
-lam 'oc( succeed on this would be a surprise7 Folk Rock too( its basis from the
0ritish fol( of the 8#s and one of the most important characteristics was the solo voice
and acoustic guitar based sound of singers li(e *ames Taylor and *oni 9itchell. Then we
can fnd Reae that was a genre of music born in *amaica around the late 8#s,
following the development of s(a and roc(steady. S(a was a style developed in the 8#s
with in:uences of ';0 and it had a strong rhythm, <a++y horn lines and emphasis on
the of5beat% on the other hand 'oc(steady was <ust a slower, more bass5 heavy
version of S(a. ,un( and 'eggae were a sort of way to carry on the protests of the 8#s.
The genre I will tal( about in the following paragraph is )isco, but this will be <ust an
appeti+er to the etended description I will be doing later on. So, )isco too( his basis
from fun( and soul and the most important aspect of this genre was that the )* and
sound system that would replace the live music in clubs.
&ere we go, )isco music originates its name from discote"ues in the ,aris of the =#s,
where ,aul ,acini creates >le /his(y a gogo? the frst local where young people could
dance and listen to music, followed by 'egine who found the >@he+ 'egine? and
became really famous in the late ffties. The two phenomena came out together and
)iscos eplicit aim was to be danced rather than listened to. It wasnt li(ed by people
who had a strict view of music that had to be Apolitic, committed and not really
commercial, but )isco became a proper musical genre during the years.
The precursors of this genre were the 'hythm and 0lues artists that bring their genre
to become danceable, li(e the success 'espect from Bretha .ran(lin. 0ut the
diference comes out in the Sities when you start to tal( about )isco with the Studio
=C, a )iscote$ue in Dew Eor(, that ma(e the people (now that theres music produced
<ust to the aim of ma(ing people dance in the discote$ues, diferent from the ';0 that
although danceable it wasnt written and produced with that aim.
0y the beginning of the "#s with the success of clubs that were places were you could
have fun, there was also a transformation in the blac( music. In fact it became
sweeter and softer. Bll this re:ected a general wellbeing that we couldnt fnd in the
precedent decades.
)isco music was characteri+ed by the use of the orchestra <oined to set the rhythm,
sophisticated arrangements and the catchy melody.
0ut still in FG"8 the disco music was almost only played by blac( people: it had a great
success, but not yet as big as the following year, FG"H, when disco music invaded the
charts, the radio stations, it was soundtrac( of advertisement and it became so strong
to in:uence the production of already famous artists li(e the 'olling Stones , )avid
0owie, 3lton *ohn..etc. /hat was happeningI
It was happening <ust what had happened in the =#s with the developing of roc(nroll,
so that in order to ma(e famous a genre originally created in a blac( music
bac(ground it was necessary to be sang by white artists. /e had 3lvis in the ffties and
twenty years later it was the turn of the 0ee -ees. This group wasnt born as a disco
music band, but the single A*ive Tal(ing too( them to the top of the 6SB charts and the
following album @hildren of the /orld sold out millions of copies all over the world,
ma(ing )isco music as famous as they were getting. To fully understand how
important they were I will report a data that you can easily fnd if you loo( for 0ee
-ees in the Internet, that is the fact of being in the top ten for four wee(s in a row,
thing that had happened <ust once before J with the 0eatles J and never since them.
Bnother important moment in the )isco music story was when 'obert Stigwood
thought about a flm inspired by the phenomenon that was )isco music and meant to
have its soundtrac( sang by the 0ee -ees and this was Saturday Dight .ever. This
happened <ust after Stigwood, the 0ee -ees manager, read an in$uiry that reported
how the Bmerican youth changed drastically during those years J in fact if they used
to have long hair and smo(e mari<uana listening to roc( music then they spent their
nights in nightclubs dancing a new music born for the blac( people. The 0ee -ees are
considered the main group of the seventies, but they werent the only ones, in fact we
can see -loria -aynor, the Santa 3smeralda, 3arth /ind and .ire and others that
added a lot of success to the )isco music. In 3urope we can fnd ,atric( &ernande+,
@errone, the -ibson 0rothers and also Bmerican singers li(e )onna Summer or
'oberta Kelly. The B00B as well, although not being a disco orientated group,
produced some trac(s li(e )ancing Lueen and Moule+5vous that had a disco melody.
Dow I will do a brief deviation through the Italian )isco music that will become really
important in the H#s, so much to become the biggest eport of dance music between
the last years of the H#s and the beginning of the G#s and to in:uence 3uropean
artists li(e S.D.B.,. and Bmerican producers li(e Bfri(aa 0ambaataa.
.rom a technical view the developing of disco music was helped from various factors:
surely the length of trac(s that was getting longer, so that a lot of artists li(e Stevie
/onder could eplore their potentialities starting to use the moog and arp5
synthesi+ers in his wor(. This electric instrument had been used before by roc( bands
li(e the 9oody 0lues and 3merson, but it had never been used by blac( artists, so the
synthesi+er gave another spectrum to the ';0 sound. Bnother tool of disco music was
created in the 9unich recording studios for artists li(e )onna Summer that succeeded
on simulate NN orgasms in F" minutes of the trac( Alove to love you baby. The 'emi
was created by )*s and remiers to etend the song that was therefore re5edit from
eisting songs and that in:uenced other genres li(e pop and techno.
0ut soon, in the late "#s there was a )isco music )emolition. .ollowed, or better
contemporary to an anti5disco bac(lash from the radios that avoided paying music by
latin and blac( people to avoid to have the label of a radio that plays disco music. This
fall of success afected disco music lead by some social factors as the 6S bad
economy, the political chaos and the election of 'onald 'eagan and an emergency of
BI)S, but -loria -aynor says that the decline of disco music was lead by the fact that
producers were losing money and the roc( stars were not on the spot light anymore.