[Image description: a collage of photos of the 10 musicians and musical groups featured in this poll. In order from left to right, top to bottom: Wings, Elton John & Kiki Dee, Johnnie Taylor, The Four Seasons, Wild Cherry, The Manhattans, The Miracles, Paul Simon, Gary Wright, Walter Murphy & The Big Apple Band. End description]
More information about this blog here
Choose your favorite song from 1976
1. Silly Love Songs by Wings
2. Don't Go Breaking My Heart by Elton John and Kiki Dee
3. Disco Lady by Johnnie Taylor
4. December, 1963 (Oh, What a Night) by The Four Seasons
5. Play That Funky Music by Wild Cherry
6. Kiss and Say Goodbye by The Manhattans
7. Love Machine by The Miracles
8. 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover by Paul Simon
9. Love is Alive by Gary Wright
10. A Fifth of Beethoven by Walter Murphy and the Big Apple Band
Voting ended onMay 12, 2023
Disco has officially breached containment.
I've talked a bit about the stylistic origins of disco from the Philly soul scene and it's growing popularity in the Black and gay community. However, I haven't talked much about disco's presence in mainstream America. And now, since this is the year that Billboard started publishing their national Dance Club Songs charts (the previous two years gathered their data from dance clubs in major cities), this seems like the perfect chance.
To set the stage (or dance floor) for what will happen eventually, disco was everywhere at this moment in time -- not just in the clubs and also not just on the disco stations. As disco became the hot new thing, it seemed like everyone was scrambling to tear off a piece for themselves.
We're also seeing more disco fusions this year. Silly Love Songs by Wings is notable for its disco influence. However, the true sign of the times for me is Wild Cherry's Play That Funky Music. Twenty years before, there was a song on the Billboard Charts called The Rock and Roll Waltz, in which Kay Starr sings about seeing her parents try to dance the waltz to a rock and roll song. For the 1956 poll, I wrote about how this signifies the cultural shift in the mainstream (I like it when songs on here are about music. Gives me more to talk about). Play That Funky Music is notable for similar reasons, as even though it is a blend of these two styles. However, the lyrics seem to suggest that for a rock band to evolve, they had to incorporate funk and disco into their sound. Needless to say, not everyone was thrilled by that message. Parallel to the rise in disco's commercial popularity, the anti-disco backlash was growing as well -- and it was about to get ugly. But we'll get to that later.
Also, the first wave of punk rock was growing in popularity around this time in New York and London. Sadly, we won't see much of this movement represented in these polls. I still felt the need to mention it here, both for its place in music history, and we will be discussing the various descendants of this movement in due time.
