The disco sound has soaring, often reverberated vocals over a steady " four-on-the-floor " beat, an eighth note ( quaver ) or 16th note ( semi-quaver ) hi-hat pattern with an open hi-hat on the off-beat, and a prominent, syncopated electric bass line sometimes consisting of octaves.

In most disco tracks, strings, horns, electric pianos, and electric guitars create a lush background sound.

Summer would become the first well-known and most popular disco artist — eventually having the title " The Queen of Disco " bestowed upon her by various critics — and would also play a part in pioneering the electronic sound that later became a prominent element of disco.

While performers and singers garnered the lion's share of public attention, producers working behind the scenes played an equal, if not more important role in disco, since they often wrote the songs and created the innovative sounds and production techniques that were part of the " disco sound.

The early disco sound was largely an urban American phenomenon with producers and labels such as SalSoul Records ( Ken, Joe and Stanley Cayre ), West End Records ( Mel Cheren ), Casablanca ( Neil Bogart ), and Prelude ( Marvin Schlachter ) to name a few.

Other influential DJs and remixers who helped to establish what became known as the " disco sound " included David Mancuso, Nicky Siano, Shep Pettibone, Larry Levan, Walter Gibbons, and Chicago-based " Godfather of House " Frankie Knuckles.

Electric Light Orchestra's 1975 hit Evil Woman, although described as Orchestral Rock, featured a violin sound that became a staple of disco.

Of the handful of groups not taken down by disco's fall from favor, The Jacksons — and Michael Jackson in particular — stand out: In spite of having helped define the disco sound early on, they continued to make popular and danceable, if more refined, songs for yet another generation of music fans in the 1980s and beyond.

Producers Giorgio Moroder, whom Allmusic described as " one of the principal architects of the disco sound " with the Donna Summer hit " I Feel Love " ( 1977 ), and Jean-Marc Cerrone were involved with Eurodisco.

Diana Ross was one of the first Motown artists to embrace the disco sound with her hugely successful 1976 outing " Love Hangover " from her self-entitled album.

House music, based partly on disco rhythms, was by 1992 challenging the relatively upbeat, syncopated freestyle sound.

White is sometimes credited with ushering in the " disco " sound, seamlessly combining R & B music with classical music.

Some also regard " Love's Theme " as the first hit in the actual " disco era ", but Nino Tempo and 5th Ave. Sax's song " Sister James " had already reached the Billboard Hot 100 a few months before and had a disco sound in its own right.

Notable residents include the well respected film maker Joseph Emms, nominated for an Oscar for sound effects in the 2005 ' Finding Neverland ' and disco diva Stuart Leyland.

* a more " live band " sound, with little of the mechanistic precision of disco and post-disco dance forms.

Italy's Giorgio Moroder paired up with Donna Summer in 1977 to release the electronic disco song " I Feel Love ", and its programmed beats would be a major influence on the later synthpop sound.

In mid-1975, while working on another album, Summer passed on an idea for a song that Moroder was working on for another artist in the then-nascent disco sound, writing part of the song and labeling it as " Love to Love You ".

Maurice was less influential in the disco Bee Gees sound of 1975 to 1979, when he played mostly bass guitar.

This decline coincided with the rise of New Wave in Europe around this time, and it was also stated by Russell Thompkins Jr. ( in the re-issue sleevenotes for the 1976 album Fabulous ) that the group began to feel that the music they were recording was becoming increasingly dated, and not in keeping with the popular disco sound of the late 1970s.

In the mid-1970s, the band incorporated jazz elements and moved more towards a disco sound resulting in the singles, " Keep On Steppin '", " Yum, Yum ( Give Me Some )", and "( Are You Ready ) Do The Bus Stop ".

The band had a powerful pop sound flavoured with disco, funk and electronics, built on a solid rock rhythm section, and all they needed was a charismatic singer with a distinctive voice.

One of the other songs from the project called " European Boy " was recorded in 1987 by disco group Splash.

According to the music guide, there is disagreement as to what the first disco song was.

The first article about disco was written in September 1973 by Vince Aletti for Rolling Stone magazine.

According to music writer Piero Scaruffi, the disco phenomenon spread quickly because the " collective ecstasy " of disco was cathartic and regenerative and led to freedom of expression.

A few artists still managed to score disco hits in the early 1980s, but the term " disco " became unfashionable in the new decade and was eventually replaced by " dance music ", " dance pop ", and other identifiers.

The Hues Corporation's 1974 " Rock the Boat ", a U. S. # 1 single and million-seller, was one of the early disco songs to hit # 1.

MFSB released " TSOP ( The Sound of Philadelphia )", a 1974 hit recording featuring vocals by The Three Degrees, which became the first disco song to reach number one, after " Love's Theme ", on the Billboard Hot 100 ; it was written as the theme song for Soul Train.

The disco fad was also picked up even by " non-pop " artists.

Classical music was even adapted for disco, notably Walter Murphy's " A Fifth of Beethoven " ( 1976, based on the first movement of Beethoven's 5th Symphony ) and " Flight 76 " ( 1976, based on Rimsky-Korsakov's " Flight of the Bumblebee "), and Louis Clark's Hooked On Classics series of albums and singles.

The punk subculture in the United States and United Kingdom was often hostile towards disco.

Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo said that disco was " like a beautiful woman with a great body and no brains ", and a product of political apathy of that era.

New Jersey rock critic Jim Testa wrote " Put a Bullet Through the Jukebox ", a vitriolic screed attacking disco that was considered a punk call to arms.

A recurring theme on the show WKRP in Cincinnati was a hostile attitude towards disco music.

Somewhat ironically, the star of the film was John Travolta, who only three years before had starred in Saturday Night Fever, a film that celebrated disco culture.

" He also said that disco was the result of an unholy union between homosexuals and blacks.

Euro disco was not as funky, more pop oriented, and less soul influenced than American styled disco.

By far the most successful Euro disco act was ABBA.

In France, Claude François who re-invented himself as the king of French disco, released " La plus belle chose du monde ", a French version of the Bee Gees hit record, " Massachusetts ", which became a big hit in Canada and Europe and " Alexandrie Alexandra " was posthumously released on the day of his burial and became a worldwide hit.

The name was derived from the Warehouse Club in Chicago, where resident DJ Frankie Knuckles mixed old disco classics and Eurosynth pop.

Bronski also remixed the track " Flowers in the Morning " by Northern Irish electronic band, Electrobronze in 2007, changing the style of the song from classical to Hi-NRG disco

Many original television theme songs of the era also showed a strong disco influence, such as " Keep Your Eye On The Sparrow " ( theme from Baretta, performed by Sammy Davis, Jr. and later a hit single for Rhythm Heritage ), Theme from " S. W. A. T.

The German group Kraftwerk also had an influence on Euro disco.

Gaynor also recorded a disco song called " Love Is Just a Heartbeat Away " in 1979 for the vampire movie Nocturna: Granddaughter of Dracula which featured a number of disco songs.

House songs may also include disco, soul, or gospel vocals and additional percussion such as tambourine.

Disco was an influence on house music, which was also influenced by mixing and editing techniques earlier explored by disco DJs, producers, and audio engineers like Walter Gibbons, Tom Moulton, Jim Burgess, Larry Levan, Ron Hardy, M & M and others who produced longer, more repetitive and percussive arrangements of existing disco recordings.

The emergence of disco also stopped Brown's success on the R & B charts as its slicker commercial style had superseded his rawer funk productions.

" A number of original recordings also were released in this way in the 1970s and early 1980s, such as " Gall in the Family Fare " ( a parody of All in the Family ), a single entitled " Makin ' Out ," the octuple-grooved track " It's a Super Spectacular Day ," which had eight possible endings, the spoken word Meet the Staff insert, and a six-track, 30-minute Mad Disco EP ( from the 1980 Special of the same title ) that included a disco version of " It's a Gas.

Although it produced his last Top 10 hit with the upbeat " Late in the Evening " ( also a No. 1 hit on the Radio & Records American charts ), the album did not sell well, in a music market dominated by disco music.

The format also included performances by local disco dancers and special guests such as Ottawa-based cartoonist Jim Unger.

In NATO ( 1994 ), Laibach also memorably re-work Europe's glam metal anthem " The Final Countdown " as a bombastic disco epic.

Bulgaria is popular with its night and disco clubs attracting tourist in the sea resorts and also in the capital Sofia ( to which Vitosha mountain is near ).

Soca has also been experimented with in Bollywood films, Bhangra, in new Punjabi pop, and in disco music in the United States.

They also borrowed from funk and disco.

Electroclash, also known as synthcore, retro electro, tech pop, nouveau disco, the new new wave, and electropunk, is a style of music that fuses 1980s electro and New Wave synthpop with 1990s techno and electronic dance music.

Another concept album, also released in 1977, was Once Upon a Time, a double album which told of a modern-day Cinderella " rags to riches " story through the elements of orchestral disco and ballads.