ABSTRACT
The disco explosion that swept through the recording industry in 1978 was a true musical and cultural phenomenon symbolized by the unprecedented success of the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, an album whose international sales of 30 million copies made it the best-selling record in history at that time. “Disco,” like “rock,” is too large a type of popular music to characterize easily with one pithy phrase. Disco seems to bridge the cusp between the American Way and the Great Outside. The Village People’s disco jingles appeal both to those who think “Y.M.C.A.” is the most wholesome song since the Mormon Tabernacle Choir’s last release and those who wink knowingly at its gay appeal. Many black musicians complain they’ve had to jump on the disco bandwagon or be trampled by it. Many whites hope that New Wave or some other music will reassert rock—which would not hurt disco creatively, but would sap its music-industry bankroll.
