Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2018 March 8

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March 8

Disco rockers

Disco became so omnipresent in the 1970s that even mainstream rockers got into the act. Most notorious is probably Rod Stewart's "Da Ya Think I'm Sexy?" (where, let's face it, the spelling alone can turn a stomach), but he was by no means alone: The Rolling Stones had "Emotional Rescue" and "Miss You", The Eagles had "One of These Nights", and even Led Zeppelin had "Carouselambra" (which we charitably characterize as hard rock/progressive rock). I'd like to find more examples of this. Specifically, artists primarily known for rock/pop that sold their souls to disco for a track or two. In comparison, the Bee Gees were certainly pop rockers for years before switching to disco, but that was a complete shift in style and they're now almost entirely identified with their disco music - that might be of interest, but it's not primarily what I'm after. Any suggestions? Matt Deres (talk) 00:35, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

Paul McCartney's "Silly Love Songs" had kind of a disco beat. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:26, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

There's a category for Disco, which might lead to many answers to your question. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:53, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

Heart of Glass is one of the most famous examples of this. --Viennese Waltz 09:27, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

I'm not sure that Blondie would qualify for the OP's criteria, if only because Blondie defies categorization into a genre (somewhat deliberately). They dabbled in just about everything at the time; so classifying them as a "mostly rock band doing one disco song" is harder than with other examples. I also considered nominating Bowie for his Let's Dance period; but similarly Bowie is so much all over the map, musically, it would not have been an uncharacteristic one-off thing. --Jayron32 14:23, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

I disagree completely. Blondie's first two albums were pretty much straightforward post punk/new wave. One of the reasons Heart of Glass was such a massive hit was that it was so completely different from anything they had ever done before. It's THE example of a rock band turning to disco. --Viennese Waltz 15:05, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

Fair enough; though I'd quibble that it marked the transition for Blondie to a more diverse musical style. I get your point on chronology, but looking at the bredth of Blondie's catalog shows a very eclectic set of influences. The band had 4 US number 1s: "Heart of Glass", "Call Me", "Rapture", and "The Tide is High"; of those only "Call Me" is a rock track. The others are clearly Disco, Reggae, and Hip-Hop. The band is really hard to pin down as "rock". Their earlier more punk albums notwithstanding, this was not an easy to categorize band. --Jayron32 17:20, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

• "Another One Bites The Dust" by Queen. --Jayron32 12:40, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

  Some other lists: [1], [2]. One thing to keep in mind, however, is that certain elements of disco were in rock before they were in disco, for example the hi-hat ride that is a characteristic of disco drumming was used extensively by Ian Paice of Deep Purple; you can hear it in songs like "Woman from Tokyo", a song that predates disco by several years. It isn't always clear that disco itself influenced a rock band to add elements like that. Other elements of Disco come from funk music, which may have independently influenced rock bands to add similar elements without direct reference to disco. --Jayron32 12:49, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the links and suggestions so far! I'd completely gapped on a couple of these. Good call out on the edge cases, though in most cases there's an element of knowing it when you hear it. Matt Deres (talk) 14:17, 9 March 2018 (UTC)