Disco Fever

Last day of "Fads of the 70's Week!"

Disco music first originated in the gay community dance clubs in the early 70's. It was later brought to the mainstream through the release of the film Saturday Night Fever in 1977. The Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, performed by a re-invented Bee Gees, became the best-selling soundtrack of all time and pretty much single-handedly introduced disco to the masses.

Saturday Night Fever (1977) starred John Travolta as Tony Manero, a troubled Brooklyn youth whose weekend activities were dominated by visits to a local discothèque. While in the disco, Tony was the king, temporarily forgetting the reality of his life. Here's the dance scene with Tony sporting his now famous white suit...


With the popularity of Saturday Night Fever a few parodies popped up in various forms of media. In Airplane! (1980) – filmed in 1979 so it counts as a 70's movie – Robert Hayes finds himself in a discothèque and does his best Tony Manero – including the white suit – in hopes to woo his love interest...with a little comedy thrown in. Here's that scene...


1979's Love at First Bite finds Count Dracula (George Hamilton) moving to New York to find his bride. There he stumbles through typical New York city night life and finds his bride to be (Susan Saint James) in a discothèque. There, he does his best Tony Manero on the dancefloor. Unfortunately, when they released this movie on DVD they switched the original song, "I Love The Nightlife", with a lame song due to copyrights. Here's the scene...


The Saturday Night Fever influence even found it's way to the small screen. This time on The New Adventures Of Wonder Woman (1978). Here Wonder Woman must fight off a group of mind-melding crooks using a discothèque as their lair – one of which is wearing the white suit. And yes, that's Wolfman Jack as the gun wielding DJ!...


The Saturday Night Fever influence even found it's way to children's television with Sesame Street's Disco Fever album (1978) – this time Grover donned the white suit.

The disco trend, in turn, led many non-disco artists to record disco songs at the height of its popularity. Many of these songs were not "pure" disco, but were instead rock or pop songs with disco influence or overtones. Notable examples include The Rolling Stones' "Miss You" (1978), The Grateful Dead's "Shakedown Street" (1979), Rod Stewart's "Da Ya Think I'm Sexy?" (1979), and Kiss' "I Was Made for Lovin' You" (1979).


Disco and the crossover trend led to a anti-disco backlash by many hard rock fans. They expressed strong disapproval of disco throughout the height of its popularity coining the popular slogan "Disco Sucks" by the late 1970's. Disco never really went away, it just evolved into other forms of music.

I'm ending this post with a disco compilation. You won't find the Bee Gees, Donna Summer or Village People here...that's not the Franklin Mint way. These cuts are a little more obscure. The first track sounds as if it could be the theme for Battle Of The Network Stars...In Space. And even Dennis Coffey (last weeks featured artist) got the disco fever!


[DOWNLOAD] Disco compilation
01- Conquest of the Stars -- Space Project
02- Wings Of Fire -- Dennis Coffey
03- Grooves -- Alec R. Costandinos
04- Wonderland Love Theme -- The Wonderland Band
05- Dancing In Outer Space -- Atmosfear
06- Caravan -- Rhythm Heritage
07- For The Love Of Money -- Disco Dub Band
08- Cocomotion (short version) -- El Coco
09- Mi Sabrina Tequana -- Ingram