What's your favorite Disco song?

Far too many to mention (it’s my favorite genre), but this one might be my ultimate.

Disco will never die™

Sylvester, "("You Make Me Feel) Mighty Real."

Heaven Must Be Missing An Angel

The biggest and best gay anthem of all time.

The lovely Evelyn "Champagne" King, "Shame."

Great discovery story: she was a janitor, and a music producer heard her singing while she cleaned.

Alicia Bridges "I Love the Nightlife."

It's a classic song.

"If I Can't Have You."

Cherchez la Femme

It's so hard to pick just one, but my current favorite is this one:

My Feet Keep Dancing by Chic

Donna Summer - Lucky

Turn the Beat Around -- Vicki Sue Robinson

Blame it on the Boogie -- Jackson 5

Mmmmmmmmm. True 70s cheese. And good cheese.

Born to be Alive!

What were gay clubs like during the Disco era?

It must have been nuts. And fun.

^ pure hedonism.

Do You Wanna Funk? by Sylvester.

Also, Get Down Tonight (KC & The Sunshine Band)

Lost in Music by Sister Sledge

Ring My Bell

DADDY COOL

cocaine is a helluva drug...

R5, really?

I wasn't alive for Disco, but Sylvester and Diana Ross both had some top shelf songs. Donna Summers too of course. She always sounded great but a lot of her songs are too long and repetitive. Same with Grace Jones. I know they get the eldergay love, but their disco is kind of stale. Ha.

I love this discofied version of If You Could Read My Mind that was done for the movie about Studio 54. We dance to this all the time at our house. It helps when the bones of the song are this good - and it's also a banger.

Donna Summer "MacArthur Park"

All 17 minutes of it!!

OP good choice, easily one of the best if not the best disco song.

I miss Sylvester 🥲

Dance a Little Bit Closer

So many of that time but I seem to always want to hear this one.

Dee Tour by Karen Young

Jump The Gun by The Three Degrees

Burn by Melba Moore

Blow My Mind - Celi Bee

^^^oops

R9 Yes!

In 1975 I went into a Manhattan bar down in the Greenwich Village area after a boring drag of a day at work, ordered a white wine spritzer and though the bar was small and narrow at the end was a little area for dancing. The song The Hustle came on and these two came out and danced to it like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.

I could feel a wave coming and it was so welcome. I just loved those few years of dancing in the discos in NY.

Can't. Get. Enough.

R3 - That's the one. You beat me to it.

It’s either this

…or this

Upside Down

Funky Town

Sister Sledge

Cheryl Lynn "Star Love"

"Take me in your arms and ROCKET me!"

Lady Marmalade

You'll Never Find another Love Like Mine

make me queen for the night....

get the action going.....

There's nothing to it / Just say you want to do it

the best disco EP you haven't heard, the title track of which stands as possibly my all time fave disco tune...

and the night they invented love ain't too shabby either....

another great obscurity - everything I adore about later-period disco, with just a tinge of melancholy, and the twinkling keys are yummy

this. loud.

I smell poppers.

politics aside .... this is essential

The BEST disco song-

Nothing can come close to Madonna’s Hung Up

Don't know if it's been posted...

I Can't Stand the Rain by Eruption

I always liked Boogie Oogie Oogie

I first heard this on the beach in Lauderdale. I need a whiff of Coppertone.

First time I thew out my back..

r63 see r59

Second time...

Cher - Take Me Home

Heaven Knows by Donna Summer and Got to Be Real by Cheryl Lynn

Bette

This one

Forget Me Nots, Patrice Rushen.

First Choice's excellent "Hold Your Horses"

Odyssey "Native New Yorker"

I love them both - disco mashup.

you're welcome gays - Janette and Brandon🔥🔥

"Yes Sir, I Can Boogie."

By Baccara.

I hear this stupid song EVERYWHERE now.

“I Feel Love” is still hypnotic to me.

"Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" by Santa Esmeralda

Reach Your Peak by Sister Sledge

I feel love

donna summer

R49, that is my absolute favorite disco song of all time. LOVE it.

I'm going to add this one. Love it.

Souvenirs

Burn, Baby Burn! Disco Inferno.

OMG I just realized that's John Travolta dancing in the video at R82.

What the hell?

Hot Pants Rain Dance

R83, It's a clip from Saturday Night Fever. It says so right in the embed.

Young and Company - I Like What You're Doing to Me

Here's the thing about disco. After you list the top 100 songs of ALL time, there are no others worth listening to. Disco IS dead. It died. Donna Summers doesn't even have one of the top ten disco songs of all time. (Gloria Gaynor and KC and Miss Ross do, though:)

The same cannot be said of folk songs or indie music or C/W or classical, jazz, pop or Broadway. You're not gonna hit the quality ceiling after naming only 100 songs.

I was born after disco "died" but I remember discovering this and being sort of shocked that something so blatantly sexual got a lot of uncensored airplay in the 70s.

^^It always seemed like the flip side to this-- same genre, different holes

Meco - Star Wars and Other Galactic Funk

Disco Evita

Galaxy by WAR

Shalamar - Second Time Around (12" Extended )

Deniece Williams - I've Got The Next Dance (ARC Records 1979)

^^Ugh. Here's the right URL

Dan Hartman ft Loleatta Holloway - Vertigo/Relight My Fire (Blue Sky Records 1979)

Dan Hartman - Instant Replay (Blue Sky Records 1978)

Nile Rodgers & CHIC - Good Times (Glastonbury 2017)

Thelma Houston - If You Feel It (Original 12')

Peaches & Herb ~ Shake Your Groove Thing 1978 Funky Purrfection Version

Givin Up, Givin In

Those moves are on POINT!

Carol Douglas ~ My Simple Heart 1981 Disco Purrfection Version

Miquel Brown - So Many Men So Little Time

Madonna - Into The Groove (Official Video)

Laura Branigan ~ Gloria 1982 Disco Purrfection Version

The Sylvers ~ Boogie Fever 1975 Hot Tracks Purrfection Edit

After seeing Laura Branigan perform it live at Chaps in Boston it's been a favorite, Gloria.

Change - Paradise 1981

R85 you have excellent taste

Change - A Lover's Holiday [12" Extended Mix]

Brothers Johnson ~ Stomp! 1980 Disco Purrfection Version

Can’t forget the master of French disco, Cerrone

The first lady of French disco, the great Dalida

Got to Give It Up, Marvin Gaye.

I already posted my all-time favorite, but I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned what is probably my #2 fave.

One of the most positive, uplifting, feel-good recordings of all time, IMO. Never fails to lift my spirits.

"Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now" - McFadden & Whitehead

Il Valiero bitches!

Those who were in the clubs know this one

Eldergays - why were so many disco songs so long? What was the point of an 10 minute extended-play version?

Johnny Mathis - Gone Gone Gone

quaaludes, R124.

A lot of disco songs were plodding. Many were tooo extended and repetitive.

Really r124? Songs at a disco weren't formatted for the radio where a song would be 2 or 3 minutes long. It wouldn't only be at discos, rock concerts had full versions of their songs (compared with two versions), which were longer than 5 minutes. It was an experience to savor the entire song and to dance to it.

What do you get when you cross the son of jazz legend Thelonious Monk with the songwriter that gave us "Tie a Yellow Ribbon 'Round the Old Oak Tree"?

A friggin' classic, that's what!

Got to Be Real - Cheryl Lynn

As usual, I am a bad gay who doesn't love disco that much. But in the last month or so I've had the urge to really look into it and give it a chance. I've listened to podcasts on the rise and fall of disco which are very interesting, and I just love a lot of 70s history. On listening to a lot of disco, I'm still of the view that a lot of it is not for me, but I have discovered some real gems too, like:

"Good Times" - Chic

"Boogie Wonderland" - Earth, Wind and Fire

"I Feel Love" and "Love to Love You Baby" - Donna Summer

"Love Hangover" - Diana Ross

"Love Train" - The O'Jays

"Jungle Boogie" - Kool and the Gang

"A Fifth of Beethoven" - Walter Murphy

"Star Love" - Cheryl Lynn

and a number of others too. What I'm also discovering is that heaps of music from my generation owes a lot to 70s disco. A lot of songs I never realised are based on samples of these 70s songs or reference them in some way.

[quote] Eldergays - why were so many disco songs so long? What was the point of an 10 minute extended-play version?

Because, back in the olden days, people would actually go to clubs and drink and dance with each other on a dance floor. If a song was popular, you'd want to keep dancing longer than the 3 or 4 minutes (radio version).

Some of those EPs were too long, though.

What Is Love, Haddaway.

Technically, post-disco, but I think it deserves a mention.

[quote]Eldergays - why were so many disco songs so long? What was the point of an 10 minute extended-play version?

Here's an interesting mini-documentary you might like:

r90, I'm confused by your post. Donna Summer (no "s" at the end) has had many memorable [disco] songs and is always a fixture of 10 ten lists when ranking the disco genre and would probably even earn an entry in any top ten list that ranks popular music of the 1970s in general. She not only had monster hit singles (e.g., Love to Love You Baby, I Feel Love, Last Dance, Hot Stuff, Bad Girls, On the Radio, etc.), but her albums were successful as well, which bucked the trend of it being merely a singles driven genre. Disco may have fallen out of favor for a time, but it never went away and the best songs and artists associated with the 70s disco era are still widely esteemed (Chic, Donna Summer/Giorgio Moroder, Bee Gees, ABBA, etc.).

Thank you R133--checking it out now.

And sorry R127, I like R126's answer better--it makes more sense.

R131 - isn't the job of the DJ to play a song immediately after that will keep people on the dance floor? It wasn't like there was only one disco song you'd dance to?

And thank you again R133-- just watched it. Really well done and interesting--learned a ;lot from it about the music scene in the 70s and 80s.

Much appreciated.

“Call me” by Skyy

R70 I never heard that song before. I really enjoyed that! Thanks.

This one for Steve Rubell, who unfortunately did not.

Harmony by Suzi Lane

Written and produced by Giorgio Moroder.

Ah, the memories...

Dazz by Brick.

You can’t think of all the wrong in the world….get dancin’

1970s philosophy

It’s so hard to pick just one! I was raised on Donna Summer & ABBA & love so many of the songs mentioned, so I’ll go with one I hadn’t actually heard back in the day,mits a bit obscure, but altogether wonderful.

OP, I never heard Thelma Houston's song until maybe 5 years ago (millennial here!) in the grocery store of all places. It was pretty funny because once that hook started (1:09 in your video) the old people in the store started dancing in the isles. And I have to admit, it was catchy!

My choice for best would be Thelma Houston's "Don't Leave Me This Way" and Santa Esmeralda's "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood".

What about the worst Disco song? I nominate Dee D. Jackson's "Automatic Lover" and the video from 1978 doesn't help to like it either. But watch it: I promise you will laugh!

Oops...

When faced with an important question such as this, one must always ask oneself

What Would Jesus Shake His Ass To?

The answer:

"Mighty High" by Mighty Clouds of Joy

The thread is way past the best 100 list at this point. Time to wrap it up. There just isn't that much good disco. And a lot of what's "good" was only OK.

If you can still dance through it, eldergays - it was probably not one of the good disco songs.

R148 = White Sox fan.

The extended version

Sharon Redd

This one always puts me in a good mood.

This one doesn't get mentioned enough.

Daft Punk, Pharrell and Nile Rodgers brought disco back to the pop charts in 2013.

Stormy Weather - Viola Wills

The chorus to this song gives me chills:

Best disco song of all time. I'm Coming Out by Ms. Ross.

Love Train

Biblical disco!

Heaven Must Have Sent You - Bonnie Pointer

Get Up and Boogie (That's Right) - Silver Convention

Mellow Lovin' - Judy Cheeks

Haven't You Heard? - Patrice Rushen

This

If you were born during disco, you're a Xennial.

"Loving You, Losing You" by Phyllis Hyman

"Native New Yorker," by Odyssey

^ yeah R &B but it's one helluva dance song, too

"Make Me Believe in You," Patti Jo

Better than Donna Summers! And Carrie doesn't condemn the gays.

Make That Feeling Come Again

R164 that sucks

Best of My Love by The Emotions

OOPS here's the video

Aw hell now I see it listed above. Sorry for the brain fart on this thread.

And once again, after 174 entries, 30 of them listenable - disco is DEAD!

For me, 70s disco falls into three categories.

- A small number of songs that are truly excellent songs. Usually ones that are a lot more bass heavy/funky.

- A larger number of songs that I can and do enjoy in the right place but always with tongue in cheek. I find myself enjoying, but in a self-aware way, those songs.

- The largest number of them which are just terrible and cheesy and sound like they were produced as part of the pop-music factory.