Book Review: Queens of Disco

From leading vocalists such as Gloria Gaynor, Donna Summer and The Pointer Sisters, who helped popularize disco music in the late seventies, to modern-day disco divas including Madonna and Kylie Minogue, Queens of Disco is an electrifying must-read for dance music enthusiasts.

This joyful book explores disco's emergence in the underground club scene and unpicks its influence on DJ culture and legacy in defining electronic dance music such as hip-hop, house and new-wave. Featuring complementary playlists alongside detailed profiles of ten female trailblazers and fully illustrated throughout.

Book Review: Fever

Whether you’re a brother or whether you’re a mother, it’s impossible to resist the throbbing disco beats and lasting cultural impact of Saturday Night Fever. Released in December 1977, the low-budget “disco movie” was the surprise gift that kept on giving. It made millions at the box office, earned an Oscar nomination for TV-actor-turned-movie-star John Travolta, catapulted the Bee Gees’ music career into the stratosphere with a record-breaking, Grammy-winning soundtrack album, and ignited a “disco inferno” that burns to this day. From Travolta’s iconic white polyster suit and legendary dance moves to the flashing lights and illuminated floor of the 2001 Odyssey disco in Brooklyn, Saturday Night Fever captured the era like no other film—and launched a phenomenon that changed the world forever.

Book Review: When Rock Met Disco

Disco began as a gay, black, and brown underground New York City party music scene, which alone was enough to ward off most rockers. The difference between rock and disco was as sociological as it was aesthetic. At its best, disco was galvanizing and affirmative. Its hypnotic power to uplift a broad spectrum of the populace made it the ubiquitous music of the late '70s. Disco was a primal and gaudy fanfare for the apocalypse, a rage for exhibitionism, free of moralizing. Disco was an exclamatory musical passageway into the future.

For all its apparent excesses and ritual zealotry, disco was a conservative realm, with obsolete rules like formal dress code and dance floor etiquette. When most '70s artists "went disco," it was the relatively few daring rockers who had the most impact, bringing their intensity and personality to a faceless phenomenon. Rock stars who "went disco" crossed a musical rubicon and forever smashed cultural conformity. The ongoing dance-rock phenomenon demonstrates the impact of this unique place and time. The disco crossover forever changed rock.

ABBA - Voulez-Vous (35th anniversary)

Today (April 23rd) marks the thirty-fifth anniversary of Voulez-Vous, the sixth studio album from the Swedish pop group ABBA.

Click here to read my full review of the album.

ABBA - Voulez-Vous

Welcome to another edition of Seventies Saturday.

On April 23rd, 1979, the Swedish pop group ABBA released their sixth studio album entitled Voulez-Vous. This Platinum seller peaked at number 19 on the US Billboard Hot 200, number 6 in Canada and France, number 5 in Australia, number 2 in New Zealand, and number 1 in Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the UK.

Thank God It's Friday (soundtrack)

Welcome to another edition of Soundtrack Sunday.

Continuing on with my birthday weekend celebration, I thought I would dig back into the movie music vaults for another disco classic. This time, we are looking at the soundtrack to the film Thank God It’s Friday which hit the theaters on May 19th, 1978.

The movie tells several intertwining stories of the patrons and staff at a fictional Los Angeles disco club called the Zoo (a real LA club called Osko's on South La Cienega Blvd. was used for the set). It starred Jeff Goldblum, Debra Winger, Valerie Landsburg (who would later star on the TV show Fame), Terri Nunn (of Berlin), and singers Paul Jabara and Donna Summer.

Remembering Donna Summer

Today we have a bit of sadness to mark this edition of Seventies Saturday.

To paraphrase from the title of her 1979 song that featured the Brooklyn Dreams, Heaven knows that this week it welcomed an angelic voice to its eternal chorus. LaDonna Adrian Gaines, best known across the globe by her stage name of Donna Summer, passed away on Thursday at age 63 following a battle with cancer. She is survived by her husband Bruce Sudano, their daughters Brooklyn and Amanda, and her daughter Mimi from a previous marriage.

Cheryl Lynn - Cheryl Lynn

We’re doing a little Seventies for this Sunday to celebrate the fifty-fifth birthday today (March 11th) to R&B, disco and soul singer Cheryl Lynn.

Lynn got her start as a professional singer as a backing vocalist in the touring company of The Wiz and moved up to the role of Evillene (the wicked witch) for six months on the national tour. She also appeared in an early 1976 episode of the Gong Show where she won with a performance of Joe Cocker’s “You Are So Beautiful”. When the episode aired, she got a call from a record company who was interested in signing her to a contract.

Village People - Village People

Happy fifty-eighth birthday today (January 12th) to Felipe Rose, a founding member of the disco group Village People. While part Puerto Rican on his mother’s side, the Indian attire he wears while performing is in honor of his Native American heritage on his father‘s side.

Village People was the creation of Jacques Morali, a French composer. Having penned a few dance tunes in the late 1970’s, he approached singer/actor Victor Willis to record them. The songs did very well, particularly in the gay disco scene.