Disco
Get Lucky was one of those songs that soundtrack an entire summer, blaring out of car windows and shop doorways on the longest hottest days of 2013.
Funkytown is a slice of cheesy disco fun that’s almost perfect in its simplicity – and the only hit for disco group Lipps Inc.
I can’t pretend I was listening to disco music in 1979: I was parading around in a leather jacket festooned with badges proclaiming punk bands and anti-social slogans.
In the pantheon of disco music there are two moments that tower above all others. The first is Donna Summer’s I Feel Love – surely the greatest disco song of all time – and this is the second.
Linda Lewis was the first female black British singer I ever saw on TV. They were a rarity in the early Seventies – in fact she’s the only one I can think of.
I never thought I’d be singing the praises of disco tunes, least of all from a period when I was plunged deep in punk and post-punk. Until I remembered this hit by Odyssey.
London collective Hi-Tension flew the flag for the disco offshoot of Brit-funk with their self-titled hit single. I have to confess the song – and entire genre – passed me by completely at the time.
You didn’t have to like disco to like Chic, who always claimed to be a rock band for the disco generation. And you didn’t have to like Le Freak to find yourself singing along.
Has there ever been a more perfect match of a song to the opening scene of a movie? It’s impossible to think of Saturday Night Fever without the bouncy rhythm of Stayin’ Alive coming into your head.
The first time I came across Grace Jones was in 1977 with her radical disco-meets-bossa nova take on Edith Piaf’s signature song La Vie En Rose.