HEART OF GLASS [DISCO ROCK PARTY]

Description

It is difficult for us to comprehend today the prevalence of disco in its heyday. In ’79, during its peak, every Billboard #1 record June through August was a disco track.

Although seemingly diametrically opposed to each other, rock and disco began to come together as punk, post-punk and rock’n’roll bands succumbed to the lure of the disco beat. Blondie, Queen, The Rolling Stones, Kiss, Rod Stewart and Pink Floyd produced some high profile crossover hits. And many other rock artists followed suit – The Beach Boys, Bowie, The Grateful Dead, Neil Diamond, Led Zeppelin, Squeeze, The Clash, ELO, The Kinks, The Doobie Brothers, Red Ryder, Lou Reed, Styx andExile (to name a few), bringing new flavors to the disco genre. It’s a little known fact that when John Lennon was tragically shot in New York in 1980, he was returning from the studio where he and Yoko Ono were recording her disco track “Walking On Thin Ice”.

In addition to the capitulation of these rock greats, bands and artists such as Talking Heads, Roxy Music, Donna Summer, ABBA, Michael Jackson, Fleetwood Mac and The Bee Gees regularly blurred the lines between rock and disco with songs which have stood the test of time on the dance floor. And disco rock lasted into the early years of New Wave with artists such as PiL, New Order, Duran Duran and Missing Persons combining the indie aesthetic of post punk with disco bass lines, guitars, synths and a four to the floor beat.