50 Fun Facts About Disco

The beat of which Saturday Night Fever hit is used to teach the right rhythm for CPR chest compressions?

Stayin' Alive runs at about 103 beats per minute, inside the 100 to 120 chest compressions a minute that rescuers are trained to give.

Which band wrote the disco smash 'Le Freak' after being turned away from Studio 54 on New Year's Eve?

Chic's Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards had been invited by Grace Jones, who forgot to tell the door staff. Their revenge song topped the Hot 100 three separate times.

Which Village People hit got its famous arm-waving dance from an American Bandstand audience rather than the group?

Y.M.C.A. had the group simply clapping overhead until the studio crowd turned the move into letters, and host Dick Clark urged singer Victor Willis to keep it.

Which baseball team had to forfeit a game after its Disco Demolition Night promotion ended in a riot on the field?

Chicago White Sox fans stormed the field after DJ Steve Dahl blew up a crate of disco records between games, and the wrecked turf handed the second game to Detroit.

Which singer's 'I Will Survive' was released as a B-side until club DJs flipped the record over?

Gloria Gaynor's anthem went on to win the Grammy for Best Disco Recording in 1980, the only year that award was ever handed out.

Which celebrity was famously photographed on a white horse inside Studio 54 at her birthday party in 1977?

Bianca Jagger's widely circulated picture made the nightclub, then open for less than a week, famous almost overnight.

Which future pop superstar worked as a backup singer and dancer for disco artist Patrick Hernandez in 1979?

Madonna won the job at an audition and toured Tunisia and Europe with his troupe, four years before her own debut album made her famous.

Which blockbuster film's theme became a number-one disco single for producer Meco in 1977?

Star Wars got the disco treatment after Meco saw the film on its opening day, and his medley with the Cantina Band tune topped the Hot 100 for two weeks.

Which single by Memphis radio DJ Rick Dees reached number one on the Hot 100 in 1976?

Disco Duck topped the chart, yet his own station barred him from playing it and then fired him for merely mentioning the song on air.

What did writer Nik Cohn later admit about the magazine article that inspired Saturday Night Fever?

It was fabricated: new to America and baffled by the disco scene, Cohn modelled his Brooklyn hero on a mod he had known back in England.

Which trio of brothers wrote and sang most of the hits on the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack?

The Bee Gees were only brought in once filming was over, yet their three new singles from the album all went to number one in the US.

Which Boston-born singer topped the US charts in 1979 with both 'Hot Stuff' and 'Bad Girls'?

Donna Summer launched her career not in America but in Munich, after joining the German cast of the musical Hair in 1968.

Which actor earned an Oscar nomination for playing Brooklyn dancer Tony Manero in Saturday Night Fever?

John Travolta was best known for the TV sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter when the role made him the fourth-youngest Best Actor nominee up to that time.

Which singer teamed up with producer Quincy Jones for the 1979 disco-era album Off the Wall?

Michael Jackson met Jones while filming The Wiz, and their album made him the first solo artist with four top-ten hits from a single record.

Which 1976 single became Swedish group ABBA's only number one on the US Hot 100?

Dancing Queen had its first live performance at a televised pre-wedding gala for Sweden's King Carl XVI Gustaf and his bride, Silvia.

Walter Murphy's 1976 disco chart-topper was a dance-floor rework of a symphony by which composer?

Beethoven's Fifth Symphony became 'A Fifth of Beethoven', a title that puns on a liquor-bottle size, and the track later joined the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack.

Which animated TV series features Disco Stu, a character who never moved on from the 1970s?

The Simpsons introduced him through a rhinestone jacket: Homer had meant to spell a longer word on it but ran out of room for the final letter.

Which dance-floor fixture, a symbol of the disco era, was already common in nightclubs in the 1920s?

Mirror ball records go back as far as 1897, and the device was first patented under the far grander name of 'myriad reflector'.

Which roller-disco musical starring Olivia Newton-John flopped and helped inspire the Golden Raspberry Awards?

Xanadu shared a 99-cent double bill with Can't Stop the Music that sent one disappointed viewer home planning the Razzies, though its soundtrack still went double platinum.

Which figure from Russian history is the subject of a 1978 dance hit by the group Boney M.?

Rasputin, the mystic at the last tsar's court, gave the group a number one in Germany and Austria and a number two in Britain.

Which disco comedy, set over one evening in a Los Angeles club, won an Oscar for the song 'Last Dance'?

Thank God It's Friday unfolds at a fictional club called The Zoo, and critic Leonard Maltin's film guide still rated the Oscar winner a 'BOMB'.

Which partner dance, first seen in Bronx clubs around 1973, shares its name with Van McCoy's chart-topping instrumental?

The Hustle gave Van McCoy a Grammy for best pop instrumental, and the faster, flashier style danced in the clubs became known as the Latin Hustle.

Which record format, pioneered by disco remixer Tom Moulton, became the standard for club DJs' extended mixes?

The 12-inch single is said to have been discovered by accident, and Moulton is also credited with inventing the breakdown section of a dance track.

Which producer co-wrote the 1977 hit 'I Feel Love' in Munich, building it on a borrowed Moog synthesizer?

Giorgio Moroder had to record the Moog in bursts of 20 or 30 seconds, because the borrowed machine kept drifting out of tune.

Which crime sent Studio 54 founders Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager to prison and shut their club in 1980?

Tax evasion on a grand scale: a federal grand jury charged that the pair had skimmed $2.5 million, as much as 60 percent of the club's receipts.

Which TV network used the Manhattan theater that became Studio 54 as a broadcast studio until 1975?

CBS leased the building, opened in 1927 for opera, as a radio soundstage in 1942 and later turned it into a television studio it called Studio 52.

Which New York new wave band was accused of selling out when 'Heart of Glass' went disco and hit number one?

Blondie nicknamed an early, slower version 'The Disco Song', and its first draft was inspired by the Hues Corporation hit 'Rock the Boat'.

Which hard rock band surprised its fans in 1979 with the disco-flavored single 'I Was Made for Lovin' You'?

Kiss singer Paul Stanley has said he co-wrote it on purpose, to prove how easy it was to turn out a hit disco song.

Which Rolling Stones single from the album Some Girls gave the rock veterans a disco-tinged US number one?

Miss You also came out in an extended 'Special Disco Version', the band's first dance remix, and drummer Charlie Watts credited their nights out in discos.

Which band teamed up with vocal trio the Emotions for the 1979 dance-floor hit 'Boogie Wonderland'?

Earth, Wind & Fire got the song from writer Allee Willis, who wrote the words after seeing the bleak crime drama Looking for Mr. Goodbar.

English borrowed the word 'discotheque', the source of 'disco', in the 1950s from which language?

French discothèque first meant a record library and, by 1951, a nightclub with recorded music for dancing; English picked the word up in 1954.

Which group, formed by a record-store employee, scored five US number ones including 'Get Down Tonight'?

KC and the Sunshine Band grew out of Miami's TK Records, where founder Harry Wayne Casey worked part-time, and their fifth chart-topper was the first number one of the 1980s.

Which rock band gave 'Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2' a disco beat at producer Bob Ezrin's suggestion?

Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour had his doubts about the dance beat, yet the single even climbed to number 57 on the US disco chart.

Which deep-voiced singer wrote 'Love's Theme', the orchestral instrumental that topped the Hot 100 in early 1974?

Barry White had written the tune back in 1965; recorded by his Love Unlimited Orchestra, it became one of the best-selling pop instrumentals of all time.

Which group recorded 'Disco Inferno', a club hit inspired by a 1974 disaster film about a burning skyscraper?

The Trammps took the idea from The Towering Inferno, but the single only reached the pop top twenty after Saturday Night Fever used its 11-minute album version.

Which song gave Minneapolis group Lipps Inc. a four-week US number one in 1980?

Funkytown grew out of the members' dream of swapping Minneapolis for New York City, and it topped charts from Australia to West Germany.

Which TV music show had the MFSB hit 'TSOP (The Sound of Philadelphia)' written as its theme tune?

Soul Train host Don Cornelius refused to let the single carry his show's name, so writers Gamble and Huff had to give it a different title.

Which disco offshoot is said to be named after the Chicago club where Frankie Knuckles was resident DJ?

House is said to take its name from the Warehouse; in the early 1980s Chicago DJs began reworking old disco records to give them a more mechanical beat.

Which comedian took a rare dramatic role as Studio 54 co-owner Steve Rubell in the 1998 film 54?

Mike Myers, famous for Wayne's World and Austin Powers, played the club boss opposite Ryan Phillippe, Salma Hayek and Neve Campbell.

Which children's TV show released a 1978 disco album spoofing Saturday Night Fever, with a Muppet posing on the cover?

Sesame Street Fever put Grover in the famous dance-floor pose, and one of the real singers from the film's soundtrack even guested on the record.

Which San Francisco singer's 1978 dance classic 'You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)' began life as a mid-tempo gospel song?

Sylvester's piano-led original was remixed for the dance floor by producer Patrick Cowley, and in 2019 the Library of Congress added it to the National Recording Registry.

Which group won the Best New Artist Grammy on the strength of its platinum disco debut 'Boogie Oogie Oogie'?

A Taste of Honey spent three weeks at number one with the single, and bassist Janice-Marie Johnson, who fronted the band, co-wrote it herself.

Which record label, founded by Neil Bogart, rode the late-1970s disco boom with acts including Lipps Inc. and Cher?

Casablanca Records took its name from the film because its founder, born Neil Bogatz, had renamed himself after his favorite actor, Humphrey Bogart.

Which New York DJ began the invitation-only Loft parties in 1970 that later private dance clubs were modeled on?

David Mancuso called the first party 'Love Saves the Day', and he later won a ruling that, since he sold no food or drink, he needed no cabaret license.

Which African saxophonist's 1972 B-side 'Soul Makossa' sold out in New York after DJs played it at private parties?

Manu Dibango cut it as the flip side of an anthem for Cameroon's football team, and the original was so scarce that at least 23 cover versions rushed out.

Which American designer's Ultrasuede designs and jersey halter dresses became a signature look of 1970s discotheques?

Halston first made his name as a milliner, creating the pillbox hat that Jacqueline Kennedy wore to her husband's presidential inauguration.

Which Broadway legend, by then in her seventies, released a 1979 disco album of her classic show tunes?

Ethel Merman sang each number in a single take, exactly as she always had, and the disco backing was added afterwards.

Which German studio group topped the US chart with 'Fly, Robin, Fly', a hit whose entire lyric uses only six words?

Silver Convention became only the second German act to reach number one in America, after bandleader Bert Kaempfert, and held the top spot for three weeks.

Which 1979 number one sung by Anita Ward is said to have been written for 11-year-old singer Stacy Lattisaw?

Ring My Bell is said to have begun as a song about youngsters chatting on the telephone; reworked for an adult singer, it became the only major hit of Ward's career.

Which Philadelphia vocal group of four siblings scored a 1979 disco anthem with 'We Are Family'?

Sister Sledge had been singing together since 1965, trained by their grandmother, an opera singer, and managed by their mother.