When Rock Met Disco

Disco began as a gay, black, and brown underground New York City party music scene, which alone was enough to ward off most rockers. The difference between rock and disco was as sociological as it was aesthetic. At its best, disco was galvanizing and affirmative. Its hypnotic power to uplift a broad spectrum of the populace made it the ubiquitous music of the late '70s. Disco was a primal and gaudy fanfare for the apocalypse, a rage for exhibitionism, free of moralizing. Disco was an exclamatory musical passageway into the future. 1978 was the apex of the record industry. Rock music, commercially and artistically, had never been more successful. At the same time, disco was responsible for roughly 40% of the records on Billboard's Hot 100, thanks to the largest-selling soundtrack of all time in Saturday Night Fever. The craze for this music by The Bee Gees revived The Hustle and dance studios across America. For all its apparent excesses and ritual zealotry, disco was a conservative