Eurodisco

For the Bis song, see Social Dancing.
Not to be confused with Eurodance, Eurobeat, or Europop.
Eurodisco
Stylistic origins
Cultural origins1970s, Europe
Derivative forms
Other topics

Eurodisco (also spelled as Euro disco) is a genre of electronic dance music that evolved from disco in the middle 1970s.[7][8] The term "Eurodisco" first appeared in magazines geared towards popular music and was used by the UK magazine Blues & Soul to describe the music of Boney M.[9] Music producers such as Giorgio Moroder,[10] Frank Farian and Michael Kunze (Silver Convention) are credited as pioneers of the genre.[9][11]

History

The term "Euro-disco" was used during the mid-1970s to describe the non-UK based disco productions and artists such as D.D. Sound, West Germany groups Arabesque,[12] Boney M.,[13] Dschinghis Khan and Silver Convention, the Munich-based production trio Giorgio Moroder, Donna Summer and Pete Bellotte,[14] the Italian singer Gino Soccio,[15] French artists Amanda Lear, Dalida, Cerrone, Hot Blood, Banzai (single "Viva America") and Ottawan, Dutch groups Luv' and Eurovision song contest winners Teach-In. In Spain, disco took off after the death of Francisco Franco in 1975, with Baccara. Swedish group ABBA gained the big hit "Dancing Queen". 1970s Eurodisco soon had spinoffs and variations. The most notable spin-off is space disco. Another popular variation, with no specific name, appeared in the late 1970s: a "Latin"-like sound added to the genre, which can be heard in Italy's Raffaella Carrà, La Bionda (D. D. Sound), Easy Going and France's Gibson Brothers.

German pop duo Modern Talking was an icon of Eurodisco between 1985–1987 and became the most successful Eurodisco project. That style became very popular in Eastern Europe and remained popular until the early 1990s. In Poland, disco polo, a local music genre relying heavily on Eurodisco was developed at the verge of the '80s and '90s.[1] Meanwhile, a sped-up version of Eurodisco with dance-pop elements became successful in the US, under the term "hi-NRG".

By the early 1990s, Eurodisco was influenced by the emergence of genres such as house, acid house and the electro music styles, and replaced (or evolved) by other music styles. Technically, the last form of Eurodisco is French house, a music style that appeared in France during the mid-1990s and slowly became widespread in Europe. French house is more of a "back to the roots" music style with 1970s Eurodisco influences.

Influence outside Europe

The influence of Eurodisco had infiltrated dance and pop in the U.S. by 1983, as European producers and songwriters inspired a new generation of American performers. While disco had been declared "dead" due to a backlash there in 1979, subsequent Euro-flavored successes crossing the boundaries of rock, pop and dance, such as "Call Me" by Blondie and "Gloria" by Laura Branigan, ushered in a new era of American-fronted dance music. Branigan (produced by German producer Jack White) moved deeper into the Eurodisco style for further hits, alongside Giorgio Moroder-produced U.S. acts Berlin and Irene Cara. By 1984, musicians from many countries had begun to produce Eurodisco songs. In Germany, notable practitioners of the sound included Modern Talking, Arabesque, Sandra and C.C. Catch.

Among Vietnamese-diaspora community in the US, Eurodisco was referred as new wave.[16] In Mainland China, the Eurodisco was popularized through the spread of the Eurodisco mix album Hollywood East Star Trax (shortened as Hedong in Chinese) and Master Mix (Mengshi in Chinese), compiled by DJ Alex - who at the time was a DJ in the dance club "Hollywood East" in Hong Kong. As the album circulated, "Hedong" and "Mengshi" soon became a figurative term representing Eurodisco.[17][18]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b "A Short Guide to Four Decades of Disco". Culture.pl. Retrieved 2026-02-18. By the 90s, the country was flooded by its own brand of disco called disco polo – a genre between electronic music and party music, derived from disco, Euro disco and contemporary folk tunes, and influenced by Italo disco and Polish folk songs.
  2. ^ Le Menestrel, Sara (2007). "The Color of Music: Social Boundaries and Stereotypes in Southwest Louisiana French Music". Southern Cultures. 13 (3): 87–105. ISSN 1068-8218.
  3. ^ Schütte, Uwe (2017-01-11). German Pop Music: A Companion. Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. ISBN 978-3-11-042354-9.
  4. ^ "Italian Disco vs Italo Disco".
  5. ^ Borthwick, Stuart; Moy, Ron (2004). Popular music genres: an introduction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 978-0-7486-1745-6.
  6. ^ Cram, Preston (2019-11-25). "How Synthwave Grew from a Niche '80s Throwback to a Current Phenomenon » PopMatters". www.popmatters.com. Retrieved 2026-02-17.
  7. ^ Juusela, Kari (2015-05-01). The Berklee Contemporary Dictionary of Music. Hal Leonard Corporation. ISBN 978-1-4950-2854-0.
  8. ^ St. Joseph News-Press. St. Joseph News-Press. overall, the house looks like der's music sounds: streamlined, monal and classy, a combinationn gh-tech simplicity and European hness. "Eurodisco" was what sound was labeled when it first ged from Munich in the mid-'70s, Moroder was its master.
  9. ^ a b Seibt, Oliver; Ringsmut, Martin; Wickström, David-Emil, eds. (2020). Made in Germany: studies in popular music. Routledge global popular music series. New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-351-20077-6.
  10. ^ Allen, Jeremy (2015-08-14). "Giorgio Moroder – 10 of the best". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2026-02-17.
  11. ^ Michael Ahlers & CHRISTOPH JACKE (2017). Perspectives on German popular music. Internet Archive. Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group. ISBN 978-1-4724-7962-4.
  12. ^ "Arabesque - Biography, Albums, Streaming Links". AllMusic. Retrieved 1 February 2018.
  13. ^ "Whatever happened to Boney M?". BBC. 29 January 2002. Retrieved 11 September 2021.
  14. ^ Krettenauer, Thomas (2017). "Hit Men: Giorgio Moroder, Frank Farian and the eurodisco sound of the 1970s/80s". In Ahlers, Michael; Jacke, Christoph (eds.). Perspectives on German Popular Music. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-4724-7962-4.
  15. ^ "Gino Soccio | Biography, Albums, Streaming Links". AllMusic. Retrieved 7 January 2021.
  16. ^ "Documentary unearths personal trauma beneath 'New Wave' madness". San Francisco Chronicle. 2024-10-21.
  17. ^ "DJBA电音谱：电音英雄Jamaster A（杨振龙），叱咤岂止三十年". DJBA.com. 2018-05-15.
  18. ^ Feng, Zihan (2023). "Performing Plasticity: On Recycling, Prosthetic Memories, and the Precarious Working-Class Renaissance:—The Case of Disco Alaskan Wolves". Journal of Art, Media, and Visual Culture.
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