Post-disco is a term and genre to describe an aftermath in popular music history 1979–1987, imprecisely beginning with the backlash against disco music in the United States, leading to civil unrest and a riot in Chicago known as the Disco Demolition Night on July 12, 1979. During its dying stage, disco displayed an increasingly electronic character that soon served as a stepping stone to new wave, old-school hip-hop, Euro disco, and was succeeded by an underground club music called hi-NRG, which was its direct continuation.
An underground movement of disco music, which was simultaneously "stripped-down" and featured "radically different sounds", took place on the East Coast that "was neither disco and neither R&B".Kellman, Andy. "Unlimited Touch" artist biography. Retrieved 2014-10-01 This scene, known as post-disco, catering to the New York metropolitan area, was initially led by urban contemporary musical artists partially in response to the perceived over-commercialization and artistic downfall of disco culture. It was developed from the rhythm and blues sound exemplified by Parliament-Funkadelic, the electronic side of disco, dub music techniques, and other genres. Post-disco was typified by New York City music groups like "D" Train and Unlimited Touch who followed a more urban approach while others, like Material and ESG, followed a more experimental one. Post-disco was, like disco, a singles-driven market controlled mostly by independent record companies that generated a cross-over chart success all through the early-to-mid 1980s. Most creative control was in the hands of record producers and club DJs which was a trend that outlived the dance-pop era.
The term post-disco is often conflated with individual styles of its era, such as boogie, synth-funk, or electro-funk. Other musical styles that emerged in the post-disco era include dance-popSmay, David & Cooper, Kim (2001). Bubblegum Music Is the Naked Truth: The Dark History of Prepubescent Pop, from the Banana Splits to Britney Spears: "... think about Stock-Aitken-Waterman and Kylie Minogue. Dance pop, that's what they call it now — Post-Disco, post-new wave and incorporating elements of both." Feral House: Publisher, p. 327. . and Italo disco, and the genre led to the development of the early alternative dance, club-centered houseRiley, Marcus & Trotter, Lee Ann (Apr 1, 2014) Chicago House Music Legend Frankie Knuckles Dead at 59 WMAQ-TV. NBCUniversal. Retrieved 2014-04-24 and techno music.[ AllMusic - explore music ...] House: "House music grew out of the post-disco dance club culture of the early '80s." Retrieved on 12-27-2009St. John, Graham George Michael, (2004), Rave Culture and Religion, p. 50, , " house music. As a post-disco party music, house features a repetitive 4/4 beat and a speed of 120 or more beats per minute ...""Though it makes sense to classify any form of dance music made since disco as post-disco, each successive movement has had its own characteristics to make it significantly different from the initial post-disco era, whether it's dance-pop or techno or trance." — Allmusic
Characteristics
Drum machines, synthesizers, sequencers were either partly or entirely dominant in a composition or mixed up with various acoustic instruments, depending on the artist and on the year. Electronic instruments became more and more prevalent for each year during the period and dominated the genre completely by the mid 1980s.
Darryl Payne argued about the minimal approach of post-disco, saying:
The main forces in post-disco were the 12" single format and short-lived collaborations (many of them one-hit wonders) while indie record producers were instrumental in the musical direction of what the scene was headed to. The music that mostly catered to dance and urban audiences later managed to influence more popular and mainstream acts like Madonna, New Order or Pet Shop Boys.Reynolds, Simon (2009) Grunge's Long Shadow - In praise of "in-between" periods in pop history (Slate, MUSIC BOX). Retrieved on 2-2-2009"
Musical elements The music tended to be technology-centric, keyboard-laden, melodic, with funk-oriented bass lines (often performed on a Minimoog), synth riffs, dub music aesthetics, and background jazzy or blues-y piano layers.Kellman, Andy (review). Anthology (1995) - Aurra. Allmusic. Rovi Corporation. Retrieved 2014-04-24. For strings and brass sections, synthesizer sounds were preferred to the lush orchestration heard on many disco tracks, although such arrangements would later resurface in some house music. Soulful female vocals, however, remained an essence of post-disco.
Term usage
The term "post-disco" was used as early as June 1979, predating Disco Demolition Night, when an Associated Press editor deployed the term in a headline to describe the band Foxy; drummer Joe Galdo opined that disco music was evolving and that the band's sound was moving away from a traditional disco sound toward one of "soulful pop". In 1984, Cadence magazine defined post-disco soul as "disco without the loud bass-drum thump." New York Magazine used the word in an article appearing in the December 1985 issue; it was Gregory Hines's introduction of post-disco and electronic funk to Russian-American dance choreographer Mikhail Baryshnikov "who has never heard this kind of music". AllMusic states that the term denotes a music genre in the era between the indistinct "end" of disco music and the equally indistinct emergence of house music.
In other historical instances the term had been used in a derisive manner. Spy implicitly mocked the usage of both the terms "post-punk" and "post-disco" in their Spy's Rock Critic-o-Matic article, whereas spoofing various music reviews published by Rolling Stone, The Village Voice and Spin. Cuban-American writer Elías Miguel Muñoz in his 1989 novel Crazy Love, in a passage where musicians after moving to America discuss what their "style" may be, used the term in a satirical manner.
History Background events United States
Shortly after the "Disco Sucks" movement of disco bashing throughout the United States, American radio stations began to pay attention to other popular formats of music such as reggae, punk rock or new wave while top mainstream labels and record companies like Casablanca, TK Records or RSO went bankrupt. Since disco music had been on the way of [its] electronic progression, it split itself into subscenes and styles like Hi-NRG, freestyle, Italo disco and boogie. The last one is closely associated with post-disco more than any other offshoots of post-disco.Serwer, Jesse (2009) XLR8R: Jesse Serwer in an interview with Dam-Funk. Retrieved on 2-2-2010.
Brazilian record producer and fusion jazz pioneer Eumir Deodato, well aware of current trends in American underground music, turned around the career of funk music group Kool & the Gang by adopting and pursuing a light pop–post-disco sound that not only revitalized the band's image but also turned out to be the most successful hits in their entire career. B. B. & Q. Band (Capitol) and Change (Atlantic) acts' creator Jacques Fred Petrus, a French-Italian hi-NRG Italo disco music record producer, reflects on his decision to shift from conventional disco music to post-disco "[our] sound changed to more of a funky dance/R&B style to reflect the times." French-born songwriting duo Henri Belolo and Jacques Morali, creators of the successful Village People act, moved their former disco act Ritchie Family to RCA Victor to release their next album co-produced by funk musician Fonzi Thornton and Petrus, I'll Do My Best, which mirrors their radical musical shift. On the West Coast, especially in California, a different approach lead to a different sound. Dick Griffey and Leon Sylvers III of SOLAR Records, who pioneered their own signature sound, produced Ohio-based group Lakeside's album Rough Riders which already displayed these new trends and, "instrumentally demonstrates economic arrangements (featuring brass, keyboards and guitar)," as noted by Billboard, praising the album. A watershed album of post-disco was Michael Jackson's Off The Wall, produced by Quincy Jones, which helped establish a direction of R&B/dance music and influenced many young producers who were interested in this kind of new music.The '80s Producers . Danceclassics.net.
Other examples of early American artists drawing from post-disco are Rick James, Change and Teena Marie.
Europe Disco in Europe remained relatively untouched by the events in the U.S., decreasing only in Britain, but this was mostly because of the emergence of the new wave and new romantic movements around 1981, and continued to flourish within the Italo disco scene although the interest for electronic music in general was indeed growing.
United Kingdom Unlike in the United States, where anti-disco backlash generated prominent effect on general perception of disco music, in Britain, the new wave movement initially drew heavily from disco music (although this association would be airbrushed out by the end of 1979) and took many elements from American post-disco and other genres, thus creating a characteristic scene. According to Billboard, American post-disco was merely a crossover of different genres, while focusing on the electronic and R&B overtones, whereas jazz-funk was a crucial element of the British post-disco scene that generated musicians like Chaz Jankel, Central Line or Imagination.
1980s: Golden age This section summary shows 1980s commercially successful records from the post-disco movement.
Compare "Jungle Boogie" (1974) with "Get Down on It" (1981) by Kool & the Gang; "Boogie Wonderland" (1979) with "Let's Groove" (1981) by Earth, Wind & Fire; "Shame" (1978) with "Love Come Down" (1982) by Evelyn "Champagne" King; "(Shake, Shake, Shake) Shake Your Booty" (1976) with "Give It Up" (1982) by KC & the Sunshine Band; and "Machine Gun" (1974) with "Lady (You Bring Me Up)" by Commodores (1981). Commodores allmusic.com Retrieved 20 January 2024
+Hits of the golden age of post-discoYearSongLabelArtist U.S. Dance U.S. R&B U.S. Pop[ Kool & the Gang: Billboard Singles] • [ David Bowie: Billboard Singles] • [ SOS Band: Billboard Singles] • [ Indeep: Billboard Singles] • [ Earth, Wind & Fire: Billboard Singles] • [ Michael Jackson: Billboard Singles] • [ Billy Ocean: Billboard Singles] • [ The Pointer Sisters: Billboard Singles] • [ The Whispers: Billboard Singles] • [ Madonna: Billboard Singles] • [ America: Billboard Singles] by Allmusic. Retrieved on August 24, 2014. U.S. M.R. U.K. Pop 1979 "I Wanna Be Your Lover" Warner Bros. Prince #2 #1 #11 ― #41 "And the Beat Goes On" SOLAR Records