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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about the music genre. For other uses, see Disco (disambiguation)
Disco
Stylistic origins:
U.S./Canada:Funk and soul music.
Europe: French and Italian Pop & Eurovision
Cultural origins:
U.S., United States, New York City/Los Angeles/Atlanta Early 1970s.
Canada: Toronto/Montreal Early 1970's
Europe: The Eurovision Song contest
Typical instruments:
Electric guitar, Bass guitar, Electric piano, Keyboard, Drums, Drum machine, horn section, string section, orchestral solo instruments (e.g., flute)
Mainstream popularity:
Most popular in the mid-1970s and early 1980s.
Derivative forms:
Post Disco, Hi-NRG, House music, Eurodisco, Space Disco, Italo Disco, Disco house, Techno
Subgenres
Fusion genres
Disco-punk
Regional scenes
In US:New York, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Miami, Los Angeles In Canada: Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver
Other topics
Discothèque Nightclubs, Orchestration
Disco artists
Disco is a genre of dance-oriented pop music. Disco songs usually have 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 a 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 mid-1970s disco performers included Evelyn "Champagne" King, Tavares, Chic, Bee Gees, Donna Summer, Grace Jones, Gloria Gaynor, Diana Ross, the Village People, Sylvester, the Jackson 5, and Barry White. While performers and singers garnered the lion's share of public attention, the behind-the-scenes producers played an equal, if not more important role in disco, since they often wrote the songs and created the innovative sounds and production techniques that were part of the "disco sound".[1] 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 it's commercial decline. While disco music declined in popularity in the early to mid 1980s, it was an important influence on the development of Hip hop music and Disco's direct descents -- 1980s and 1990s electric dance music genres of House Music and its harder driving offshoot Techno as well as 80's British New Wave and hip hop subgenres of crunk, snap, and hyphy.
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