Disco? Duck!

I’m going to do something semi-suicidal here. I’m going to go to bat for disco.  

Now, a couple of disco acts are in the Rock Hall, including some of the biggest of this short-lived genre. But several more still deserve to get in, and there feels like maybe there is a pushback, a sense of, “OK, that’s enough; we’re done, here.”

Uh, no. Disco, despite active attempts to kill it (including public burnings of its LPs!), will not die.

Disco has “remained a key influence in the development of EDM, house, hip hop… the style has had several revivals since the 1990s, and the influence of disco remains strong across American and European pop music,” and I almost never quote Wikipedia like that, but if I didn’t, you wouldn’t believe me.

Disco has changed, morphed, and evolved, but it has never really gone away. Think of it like sugar. No matter how many substitutes they come up with, nothing has the addictive quality of the real thing. If even a few molecules of the authentic stuff are in the mix, your body will react intensely and start craving more.

As I said, disco lasted maybe ten years— from the late ‘60s to the late ‘70s— so there aren’t an infinite number of acts worth inducting which have not gotten in. But let’s not slam the door on them yet.

My fear is that the Boomers won’t induct them because they are focused on the rest of the classic rock acts that still need induction (and they should also turn their eye to the last of the early and pre-rock pioneers). The Xers, once we take over, will want to get the New Wave and other ’80s acts in, and maybe recognize punk’s influence on New Wave but not be aware of disco’s.

And after that, the generation that will want to induct the Britney Spears, et al and boy band acts of the 1990s will be too far removed to really know how much disco influenced that whole decade’s pop music and everything that came after.

The upbeat cheerfulness, the neon color palette, the freeform dancing, the loose and comfy clothes… it goes from sock-hop (’50s) to bubblegum (’60s) to disco (’70s) to New Wave (’80s) to boy bands (’90s) to electronica (’00s). And it spread worldwide, from bands like Menudo in Puerto Rico to the Sugarcubes in Iceland, from Europop to J-Pop and K-Pop.

It’s the music of young fun (as opposed to young angst), and it’s infectious. Disco is also a time-capsule of an era in which, finally, no repression could contain the explosive fabulousness of millions of marginalized people. 

So, the next four or five years are really crucial for getting any last deserving disco acts in. Otherwise, how will our grandkids know what those mirror-covered balls are for?

https://www.quora.com/Should-disco-be-part-of-the-Rock-and-Roll-Hall-of-Fame

Update: Billy Preston was inducted in 2021 with a Musical Excellence induction and, if all of his music was not disco, some of it was. Same with Lionel Richie, Inducted in 2022.

2023 saw the Induction of George Michael. His music was post-disco, but (to me) clearly influenced by it.