What and when was the last disco hit?

If not, it depends on whether you define all the "soul weekender" stuff of the early 80s disco or not (Shalamar, Imagination, Odyssey, D-Train, several Quincy Jones productions). I would say it sounded pretty much like disco, only with more synths and less strings.

Most disco songs have a steady four-on-the-floor beat (sometimes using a 16-beat pattern on the hi-hat cymbal, or an eight-beat pattern with an open hi-hat on the "off" beat) and a heavy, syncopated bassline. Disco also had a characteristic electric guitar sound, usually from the heavy use of the wah-wah pedal.

Generally, the difference between a disco, or any dance song, and a rock or popular song is that in dance music the bass hits "four to the floor", at least once a beat (which in 4/4 time is 4 beats per measure), while in rock the bass hits on one and three and lets the snare take the lead on two and four. Disco is further characterized by a sixteenth note division of the quarter notes established by the bass. This sixteenth note pattern is often supported by other instruments, and may be implied rather than explicitly present, often involving syncopation.

Like Daft Punk? :)

Shalamar: "Make That Move" and "A Night To Remember"
Odyssey: "Inside Out"
Falco: "Der Kommisar"

All of them very disco if you ask me.

But part of why I think this is that I lived in a predominantly black midwestern neighborhood in junior high school. The popular music was Diana Ross, Patti LaBelle, the Pointer Sisters, Kool & the Gang, Commodores, Tavares, Lionel Richie--slick usually-dancy pop that might have been classified as R&B or "urban contemporary," but which sounded to me like it was made by people for whom disco never really ended.

Didn't "Neutron Dance" have that characteristic disco hi-hat pattern?

I can't find it today :-(

You can answer this by following the paths that are Space Disco and more organic Disco.

Space Disco became Italo, HiNRG, and Madonna type stuff.

Organic Disco became more 80's Boogie (early 80's Funk) type dance stuff...as well as West End Records and Prelude Records kept rolling for a while. Paradise Garage closed in what, 1987?

House fell perfectly in between for a while. Colonel Abrams is almost all of it...funky, soulful, organic, and electronic dance music.

Indie-Dance / Punk-Funk - What Went Wrong The First Time?

All of them very disco if you ask me.

But not if you ask me. I think once you add in the New Wave sound, it's not disco anymore — thus eliminating these, "Let's Groove" and "Neutron Dance". "Funkytown", while not a very good song, has a few New Wave elements, but is grounded in disco by that guitar stutter.

But if we're talking about styles that were certainly limited to the production techniques and orchestrations, stark or otherwise, of the disco explosion in the late 70s, while "Funkytown" by Lipps, Inc. may be the last MAJOR charting song, I think the last one to make major radio was Kano's "I'm Ready"... (but I've been told this was specifically an L.A. charting and the song went nowhere outside the city.)

..but again, so many other songs were so blended into these styles, where do you stop, even then?

Shit was huge in both Detroit area, and Florida (I moved from one to the other in 83).

UHHHHHH, I am guessing that was just my imagination then.

WKTU ("Disco 92"), the all disco station starting in 1978, never switched to all-rock WXRK ("K-Rock") in 1985 with not a disco song to be heard?

Major labels didn't bail out on disco artists after '79?

K-Tel never had a post-'79 comp with all disco artists called "The Danceable Side of Today's Rock"???

Let me guess: 'It just went underground.'? Yeah, thought so.

I think this might be the site that PappaWheelie was talking about upthread. In any case, it lists a whole bunch of disco songs, some of them hits, all the way through the present year. Also, you disco-knowledgeable ILXors, he's offering $100 to someone who can come up with a disco track released in 1990.

That might be the site, although it seemes extremely revamped since I've last visited.

Regardless, that site is the answer to this thread.

Narrowing it down a bit:

http://www.discosavvy.com/disco80s.html

Paul McCartney really was a disco diva then. Loleatta Holloway best look out.

http://www.discosavvy.com/diversesounds.html

(Sorry I don't know how to make it into a link)

Not sure I agree with all their definitions, but serious points for trying!

Has electronica + lacks strings = electro-disco

Classic

Does anyone know what he's talking about here?

No, but I may try to make all my posts sound like this from now on.

You mean, "I Feel Love" was not disco?

I Feel Love has neither drum machines, nor vocoders.

No Geir, those are live drums. I promise.

Synths were not part of the EWF equation, nor the post regarding them.

I've read many articles on the making, and been part of many group discussions on it...that's whay I say this with confidence.

I thought I'd look for a blurb on it just due to the overwhelming nature of this myth:

Keith Forsey, later a top producer himself (Billy Idol, Simple Minds) was one of the most sought-after studio drummers in Munich, and Moroder kept him on after moving Donna Summer's production to Los Angeles. Rhythm machines were at first used as a metronome in the drummer's headphones "[Moroder says] so that when we did edits in long songs the rhythm would be constant. It was very hard at first for the drummer to keep tempo that way...The only sound I couldn't create on synthesizer was the bass drum, so we had Keith Forsey play. By coincidence I put a delay (digital echo) on the bass and, wow!--it sounded great when the delay doubled the bass line."

Regardless, getting back to the original point, I think you could almost argue "I Feel Love" isn't disco, yes. I mean, it's pointless to. But you could.

I was arguing agaisnt the Geirs statement that there was a drum machine used on I Feel Love. According to Morder's own words, there wasn't (what drum machine would've made those sounds in 77?)

Maybe we can dig deeper by addressing you proclamatin of a 'snare machine'? I've never heard of anything like that, and I've certainly spent a lot of time dwelling on the history of drum machines (not that I know it all or am above learning!)

The blurbs reprinted were Moroder's own words, and he says everything was done on synths, except the bass drum...so in other words, it was ALL synths, and a live drum. No drum machines.

I am part of the school that believes I Feel Love is undoubtably, universally, computer disco/space disco. That is a form of Disco, for sure, even if it inspred something else or doesn't share qualities of other forms of Disco.

But if Geir wants to say that it having synths makes it somewhat proto-New Wave, I can buy that on some level.

Level 42.

Many argue that Kraftwerk are more proto-New Wave than proto-Electro...

But still Keith played wahtever drums are on the song, and the rest of the sounds are synths. No drum machine.

This is my only point.

Well, I am a tenured professor at the College of Computer Disco!

No, seriously — it definitely is computer disco or whatever. But I think the thread here is the last disco disco hit. And while "I Feel Love" was performed by a disco artist and produced by a disco producer, it definitely pushed the genre's limits to the breaking point — kind of like Miles Davis's music in the late 1970's isn't really "jazz". S'all I was saying...

I read that to say he's only playing bass drum on that song.

Then again, there're already wars raging in the streets over 'what is, and what isn't Disco'. No need to reinvent that wheel.

We've agreed on that fact many times over. He played what live drums are on the song. Live drum, I should say...

At any rate, getting back to "Let's Groove", that's not disco disco — as defined herein.

I love EWF so much.

I'm not sure how I feel about the term Disco-Disco though. Better than "preggers", that's for sure.

This could probably splinter into a seprate thread trying to dig into the evolution and taxonomy of 70's Funk, Soul, and Disco...especially when you think how early 70's Funk was all wild and loose, whereas it smoothed out later, and became more uptempo and steady when Disco came around.

You have to admit, the cross-pollination makes the whole thing damned near impossible to decipher an absulute taxonomy.

Groove is in the heart, baby.

> Actually, I think it might be Cher's "Strong Enough," but then what do I know?

I was totally thinking of this song while reading this thread.

He's pretty strict about what qualifies as DISCO.

Looking at July 1981, I'd say that there were 4 disco hits on the chart:

Going Back To My Roots - Odyssey
Razzmatazz - Quincy Jones
Walk Right Now - The Jacksons
I'm In Love - Evelyn King (although that's a debatable one)

By August 1981, only "Walk Right Now" is left.

Therefore, the last disco hit was "Walk Right Now", by The Jacksons.

Could I direct you to another web site?

Perhaps dating.about.com would be more to your liking?

Self-flaggelation to commence.

I was thinking the same thing about Kool & the Gang's "Fresh" (1984), but when I saw it on that site and replayed it in my mind, I realized it totally was.

But I do want to clarify something...

Rob, take advise from the other thread...Czech yourself before you wzeck yourself.

...was referencing:

Man, I have been dissed by a rap group!

On that thread, where Rob and I contributed, Miccio said:

name it "Czech Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself"

I thought I was funny. I am not.

Sorry for any confusion that added to this.

If Disco Savvy does not answer the question, I bow out as that's all I can contribute, and we can let Kevin from Disco Savvy fill in for me.

On the American R&B chart, "Fresh" plus "Glow" by Rick James can be considered the last top-10 charting disco hits. When those two songs went off the radio is when the classic disco era definitively comes to a close.

Certain hit songs during the 1990s and 2000s, notably "Cosmic Girl" by Jamiroquai (1996), are pure disco in every respect, while others, like "Strong Enough" by Cher (1998), are disco too but the beat is not the sort of beat one would encounter on a classic disco track. But they are modern disco, not classic disco.

The Swedes might say that the last disco hit so far has been "Finally" by Fredrik Kempe (#18 Pop in March 2004). The Australians could point to that unfortunate remake of "Car Wash" by Christina Aguilera and Missy Elliott (#2 Pop in October 2004). Americans could reference Robin Thicke's "When I Get You Alone" (#29 Pop in November 2002). People in India would be able to say their last disco hit was sometime during the mid-1980s. By the way, a lot of modern disco is termed "disco" by the media and the artists themselves, as well as by listeners. The German compilation CD "Die Besten Disco-Hits" (2004) includes two modern disco hits, "Crying at the Discotheque" by Alcazar and "Murder on the Dancefloor", alongside classic disco.