Disco Makes a Comeback

The 1970s were a time of great political, social, and musical change in the U.S. DJs began making a major rise in the club scene, coinciding with the rapidly growing popularity of disco music, and marking a decrease of live band performances. Essentially, this was the beginning of the type of dance clubs that dominate many music scenes today. DJs spin records while the crowds dance and drink all night. The use of technology to make disco music caused quite a backlash with many rock fans (eg. Disco Demolition Night in Chicago, 1979). It seems that electronic music is making quite a comeback (or maybe it never really went away at all) these days, with rock/dance bands like Girl Talk (which features just one DJ who mixes together many different songs), Passion Pit (a heavily disco/electronic influenced band whose singer hails from Buffalo), and Settings (another Buffalo band which features electronic mixes in nearly all of their songs) to name only a few. On the other side of the spectrum, mainstream 21st century rap and hip hop rely almost entirely on computer technology to produce music, even altering vocals with filters like autotune and reverb. Go to most clubs down on Chippewa, and you will see masses of people dancing to whatever the DJ is spinning. Then, think about how much this resembles the massive popularity of disco in the 70's; it's easy to see that the apple of popular music doesn't fall far from the tree.