Disco

Disco on vinyl: 12-inches, Chic and the dance floors of the seventies

In short: Disco is the dance music of the seventies: a steady beat on every count, strings, horns and long mixes for the clubs. The 12-inch single was born with disco. The Vinyl Room currently has 948 disco records, most of them from the seventies and eighties.

What is disco?

In the early seventies, DJs in New York clubs played soul and funk for dancers who wanted to keep going all night. A style of its own grew out of it: Van McCoy’s “The Hustle” (1975) became a worldwide hit, Donna Summer and Giorgio Moroder created the electronic disco sound in Munich with “I Feel Love” (1977), and the film “Saturday Night Fever” (1977) took disco onto every dance floor. Chic, with Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards, stand for its elegant peak. In the eighties disco lived on as Italo disco, and in Chicago it turned into house.

12-inches and mixes

For the clubs, longer versions came out on 12-inch records. With a suitable playing time, the bigger record leaves more room for a loud, bass-heavy cut. Tom Moulton is seen as one of the inventors of these mixes. Many disco 12-inches are sought after today because their versions only exist there.

From our stock

First pressings

Disco-funk

Still sealed

New in

→ Funk & soul on vinyl · Electronic on vinyl · How to spot a first pressing · Grading explained · Plattenparty on YouTube

FAQ

Why is there disco on 12-inch singles? Because the bigger record allowed longer mixes for the clubs and, with a suitable playing time, leaves more room for a loud, bass-heavy cut.

What is Italo disco? Electronic disco from Italy in the eighties, with synthesizers and drum machines.

What does disco have to do with house? House grew out of disco in eighties Chicago – DJs kept playing disco records with drum machines.