avatarTerry Barr

Summary

The article discusses the author's favorite dance music from the 70s disco era and shares a list of 10 tracks along with their YouTube links.

Abstract

The author shares their passion for dance music and highlights the difficulty in selecting only 10 tracks for their list. They focus on the 70s disco era and share their favorite tracks from artists such as Donna Summer, Sylvester, Thelma Houston, The Isley Brothers, Chic, Rick James, Cheryl Lynn, T-Connection, and The Jacksons. The author emphasizes the power of the music to make people forget the present and past, and to feel free and easy on crowded dance floors.

Opinions

  • The author believes that disco music can allow a person to forget the present and past and feel free and easy on crowded dance floors.
  • The author is passionate about dance music and has a hard time narrowing down their favorite tracks to only 10.
  • The author believes that disco music relied on synth and sync, but all those emotions were always and fully on display.
  • The author encourages readers to accept the dance-off challenge and add their favorite tracks to the list.

Let’s Dance: 2024

A new/old party playlist

Photo by Greyson Joralemon on Unsplash

In our Riff Album discussion last Sunday, given the “Instant Crush” of Daft Punk, I suggested all participants write a story about their favorite dance music. I know Jeffrey Harvey (our able discussion leader) and Jessica Lee McMillan are working on theirs already.

And I?

I have been obsessing as usual, fully aware that there is no way to hold down the rhythms and beats to ten songs of my dancing lifetime.

So, while some of you good people are considering your favorite holiday songs — a most worthy enterprise — and while others are formulating their 2023 Best Album/Song lists (I’ll go with Wilco’s Cousin as my favorite LP), I’m busy remembering what it felt like to be free and easy on crowded dance floors in the days when underground clubs made life exciting, daring, and sometimes dangerous.

I’ve decided to do a three-part series so that I can more fairly represent different eras, styles, and tastes. And I know that just as soon as Kevin Alexander publishes this, I’ll think of five or ten more songs I wish I had thought of beforehand.

So, with all of these noted caveats in place, let’s face the music,

AND DANCE.

First, here is an assortment of tracks from the Pure 70s disco era (though there might be an 80s outlier included). Also, I’m on Apple Music, so I’ll link the individual tracks, and then you can download them at your pleasure.

  1. We’re going to start and end with pairs of tracks from the ultimate Disco Diva, Donna Summer. I loved her back then despite the groans from my hard rock pals. Give this pair a listen, please:

From strings to synths, how could anyone with a backbone not feel the backbeat and want to get out there with a potential love or friend?

2. Now, another pair of songs cause when it comes to Sylvester, it would be so wrong not to listen and dance to both. This is the point when I understood that disco dancing could allow a person to forget the present and past:

If you do feel mighty real, now you’re ready for some heat:

I loved how the DJs back then would put this on two turntables, do some backtracking, and pound the beat into us.

Okay, I think that’s my favorite disco anthem.

3. Now, this one, or at least the idea of this one, I stole from Nicole Brown, whom I feel like I must have gone dancing with at some point in our lives. Thelma Houston delivers a building power that caused epiphanies up and down the eastern seaboard when we listened and moved:

Or maybe this is the anthem I love best. Aaaaaagh. But then, why do I need to pick? “C’mon and dance.”

4. Onto a group who made the transition from R&B to a major Disco force, a power. Here are The Isley Brothers with…

Clearly there’s another song with this title, but you’ll have to keep dancing into a future installment to find it. For now, fight on with the Isleys.

5. We talked a lot about Nile Rodgers on Sunday, as he is prominent on the Random Access Memories LP. So allow me to not-so-randomly access two tunes from Chic. The first, a song that The Sugarhill Gang parlayed into perhaps the earliest Rap song:

I don’t know what to make of Doc Severinsen introducing them, but hey, Disco was contagious. Surely, he had his freak on:

6. And speaking of freaks, where were you — meaning which dance club — when you first heard this smash from Rick James?

One of Birmingham’s radio stations — Soul WENN-FM 107 — played this five times in a row while I was pricing jewelry one summer. Can’t explain.

7. I thought about including Hot Chocolate’s “You Sexy Thing” and The Bee Gees’ “You Should Be Dancing” (or “Staying Alive”), but see, this is how the beat goes on and on. So, I’ll stick with this standard from Cheryl Lynn:

Realness is a thing, and though Disco relied on synth and sync, all those emotions were always and fully on display.

8. I thought of this song at the last minute, and you tell me: is it the most obscure song on this dance floor? It’s T-Connection with:

9. And then, representing Motown, or by then, maybe Epic, The Jacksons offer this plea:

10. Which brings us back to Donna. Search out her Greatest Hits On the Radio double LP and listen to how these two segue:

So, if you want more or want to add more, please accept the dance-off challenge.

Soon, I will have a playlist of New Wave dance tracks and, later, the misfits that transcend time, distance, and any era.

Thanks for reading/listening and to The Riff for publishing.

Music
Dance
Disco
The Riff
1970s
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