Boogie Down With This Disco Quiz

New York City in the 1970s was the epicenter of fashion and disco. The city’s dance clubs provided the perfect environment for people to show off both their moves and threads. Electric Circus featured trapeze artists, mimes, and jugglers; Empire roller disco had space for more than 1,000 skaters; and Le Clique brought decadence with its acrobats swinging above the dance floor.

Chaka Khan adopted her new name in 1969 after being inspired by the Black Panther political movement. Khan had many hits with the funk band Rufus, including the hit “Ain’t Nobody” in 1983, and she continued to record with them over the years. Khan released her first solo record in 1978, which included the disco and R&B fusion song “I’m Every Woman,” which was famously re-recorded by Whitney Houston in 1992.

In 1978, Janice Marie Johnson of A Taste of Honey wrote the song “Boogie Oogie Oogie” after her bandmate Hazel Payne yelled at the crowd for not dancing during a gig at a U.S. military base. The lyrics go, “If you’re thinkin’ you're too cool to boogie / Boy oh boy have I got news for you / Everybody here tonight must boogie / Let me tell ya, you are no exception to the rule.” The song sold more than 2 million copies worldwide.

“Heart of Glass” was a hit for Blondie in 1979, but it was dreamt up many years earlier. The track, initially called “Once I Had a Love,” was recorded as a demo in 1975. It featured a slow, basic disco beat, so the band referred to it as “the disco song.” Inspired by Donna Summer’s more upbeat sound, Blondie reworked the track into the disco-infused “Heart of Glass” and it became their first big hit in the U.S.

When “No More Tears (Enough is Enough)” reached No. 1 on the U.S. Hot 100 in 1979, it was the first time that a duet between two women had reached the top spot. The hit was written by Paul Jabara, who brought together disco queen Donna Summer with diva Barbra Streisand to record the song. The song was featured on Streisand’s 21st studio album, “Wet” (1979).

Kool & the Gang were formed in 1964 by brothers Robert “Kool” and Ronald Bell. They had 12 U.S. Top 10 hits, but only one song reached No. 1: “Celebration.” The song came about after they won two awards at the American Music Awards for their 1979 disco hit “Ladies’ Night” and were inspired to write a celebration song. Released in 1980, “Celebration” spent two weeks at No. 1 and 30 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100.

David Mancuso was not only a pioneering DJ, he also established the birthplace of disco, a club called The Loft. In 1970, Mancuso began holding invite-only parties at his loft apartment at 647 Broadway for an ethnically diverse and LGBTQ+ crowd. As Mancuso moved around New York, he took The Loft with him, creating an inclusive space where disco music ruled the dance floor.

KC and the Sunshine Band was established in 1973 and took its name from its founding member Harry Wayne Casey. The Sunshine Band was named after Casey’s native state, Florida. The group’s first major hit was “Get Down Tonight,” and “That’s the Way” hit the No. 1 spot in 1975. The band’s final chart topper was “Please Don’t Go,” which was also the first No. 1 hit of the 1980s.

Patti LaBelle’s 1974 disco hit “Lady Marmalade” was inspired by New Orleans’ red-light district. The famous French chorus "Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir?" means “Do you want to sleep with me tonight?” Thanks to its provocative lyrics, the song was considered scandalous. When LaBelle performed the song on television, she had to switch “coucher” to “danser” (“dance”) to make it more socially acceptable.

During the Nazi occupation of France in the 1940s, underground clubs sprang up in Paris where people could meet to listen to the latest American jazz records. In a play on the French word for library, “bibliotheque,” these clubs became known as “discotheques” (the French word for record is “disque.”) Shortened to "disco," the word became synonymous with nightclubs and the music they played.

Bernard Edwards and Nile Rodgers of Chic wrote “Le Freak” after they failed to convince a doorman that they were in the band and were denied entry to Studio 54. The resulting song was the No. 1 record in the U.S. for six weeks in 1978. In 2018, “Le Freak” was selected for inclusion in the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry due to its lasting cultural impact.

The Bee Gees — consisting of brothers Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb — were a popular band in the 1960s and ’70s. However, their band reached even higher levels of success when they began releasing disco music in the mid-1970s, most prominently on the soundtrack for the 1977 movie “Saturday Night Fever.” Three of the songs from the soundtrack — “How Deep Is Your Love,” “Stayin’ Alive,” and “Night Fever” — all reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Donna Summer’s soulful, synth-infused songs earned her the “Queen of Disco” moniker in the late 1970s. Her first hit was 1975’s “Love to Love You Baby” — a seductive, 17-minute track that was initially banned by many U.S. radio stations. Further hit records “I Feel Love” and “Bad Girls” soon cemented Summer’s worldwide reputation as a disco diva.

The Village People were formed in 1977, born out of New York’s thriving LGBTQ+ disco scene. They were named after Manhattan’s Greenwich Village neighborhood, which was then a hub for the gay community. Each member of the group dressed up as a typically macho persona, including a cowboy, GI, construction worker, Indigenous American, biker, and police officer. The group’s hits included “Y.M.C.A.” and “In the Navy.”

In 1917, a Cincinnati-based man named Louis Bernard Woeste patented his “myriad reflector” mirror ball, and began selling them to nightclubs in the 1920s. In the 1970s, mirror balls saw a big resurgence thanks to the flashy disco scene, and the balls’ appearance in “Saturday Night Fever” forever ensured their association with the music genre.

The early years of the 1960s were dominated by rock bands, and disco music emerged in the mid-‘60s as a reaction to the mainstream. Disco has its roots in the Latin American, Black, and LGBTQ+ communities of New York and Philadelphia, who embraced the dance-centric vibe of the music. The trend spread, and by the late 1970s, most major U.S. cities had a vibrant disco scene.

In 1978, Earth, Wind & Fire had a hit with “September.” The song reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot R&B and No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts. In the song, lead singer Maurice White reminisces about a magical night spent dancing during the month of September. In 2019, the city of Los Angeles declared September 21 — the date mentioned in the song — as Earth, Wind & Fire Day.

The famed, star-studded Studio 54 was established in 1977 by Ian Shrager and Steve Rubell in a converted former TV studio in what was then a red-light district in Midtown Manhattan. It was an immediate success, and the club became a defining location of the disco era.

Roller discos were a popular fad in the 1970s, with roller rinks providing fun for the whole family. The trend took hold across many major American cities, and hubs such as New York and Chicago were deemed roller disco meccas. Roller disco scenes even appeared in cult film classics of the time, such as 1979’s “Roller Boogie” and 1980’s “Xanadu.”

“Saturday Night Fever” was a huge hit in 1977, launching John Travolta to stardom. When the film was nearly complete, the Gibb brothers were brought in to record a track for the opening scene, and they quickly repurposed an existing song to create the now-iconic “Stayin’ Alive.” The film soundtrack sold over 15 million copies in the U.S. alone and is the only disco record to have won the Grammy for Record of the Year.

Today, “I Will Survive” (written by Freddie Perren and Dino Fekaris) is Gloria Gaynor’s most iconic song. But when it was first released in 1978, it was hidden away as a B-side to the first single, “Substitute,” off her album “Love Tracks.” Clubs and radio stations soon picked up on the track, which became an anthem for female empowerment, propelling it to worldwide success.