Is Disco Dying Out?

The light show was really hitting it’s stride and music was pounding out of the massive sound system. Dancers twirling fans had jumped atop the subwoofer boxes and were working up a sweat. My leather jacket was way too warm for dance apparel but it didn’t matter, the music and the motion of the crowd drove me to the dance floor.

Could have been last weekend, but it was 1979 and Donna Summer was singing “Bad Girls” over the speakers of the old Village Station disco. Yes, leathermen did dance back then.

Now, the voice that drove the mood of dance floors across the country is stilled. Donna Summer, the Queen of Disco died of lung cancer at age 63. That was a couple of weeks ago, then came news of Robin Gibb, one of the last two of the BeeGees had died as well. Another voice from the Disco era gone.

Some would be quick to declare Disco is now officially dead, yet with the exception of the songs, the beat of the music hasn’t changed much. The sound and lights are more sophisticated, but the dance floor is still crowded on most weekend nights and occasionally a voice from the past electrifies the crowd as Cher belts out another hit.

Disco is not dead, it just changes. The basic formula for disco is the same, great sound system, popular music, dazzling lights and the company of hundreds of sweaty dancing bodies. When that dies, the Mayans may be right.