...AND THE BEAT GOES ON! The GRAND ILM DISCO POLL results are revealed!

I know there's absolutely no chance of either of my Donna votes making it, so I'll say now that they were:

"Could It Be Magic"
"I Remember Yesterday"

Could It Be Magic could yet make it?

Okay, with the next tune I have to admit I made a bit of a mistake... For some reason I thought it was from 1984, and it wasn't until I was counting the votes that I realized it was officially released as a single in 1985. (Though from what I've understood it did appear on some kind of private pressing before that, so I guess technically it predates 1985.) However, people voted for it and it's undeniably disco, plus it's an awesome classic, so I hope you can forgive my error...

No. Repoll.

https://lh3.ggpht.com/cUZ5cmriTQ_kyIPDss4vMqf4-pVWYDvJV8QiqsfBJyn4vkTXlJENDYiKRy9Et2ri17Y=w300

The Joubert Singers - Stand on the Word (1985)
316 points, 9 votes.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v655/lixnixn/R-531296-1333484579_zps6b7c9911.jpeg

http://youtu.be/loxqSjjRoMQ

this song's growing omnipresence - friday night was the first time i HAVEN'T heard it out this year - is an unexpected development.

― fahn fahn fahn on the suggest bahn (haitch), 16. huhtikuuta 2009 6:43

im tellin you joubert singers 7 inch is the hottest gospel track on the streets

― katie McDermott (lionbrand), 19. tammikuuta 2007 2:00

everything sounds better when you start it with that joubert singers track

― it was very clear that it's a sarcastic song (forksclovetofu), 11. helmikuuta 2013 8:23

Time was running through a disco playlist would've been a source of shame. I did fire it up at work yesterday with my headphones on but not plugged in, and nobody pointed it out for a couple of minutes - which could've been a massive faux pas in my rather staid workplace, but it was The Joubert Singers so I think I'm in the clear there.

― Ismael Klata, 28. marraskuuta 2013 23:44

Can't we just credit this to God?

― boxedjoy, 14. toukokuuta 2013 1:05

Can we reach a final consensus here? Was "Stand On the Word" by The Joubert Singers or Celestial Choir?

And that's 34.

Despite what the Youtube video says, this apparently tune was not remixed or produced by Larry Levan. The thread I linked to has more info.

Oh, well I'm cool with this (even though in my heart I don't really think it's disco)

I think says a lot about the power of disco (and gospel!) that whenever I play "Stand on the Word", the world finds this staunch atheist happily singing along to the lyrics "we must not question the good Lord!".

(xpost)

xps were Chic behind Spacer too?

Ah, I thought I didn't know this, but yeah, the lead vocals came in and yes I do. Yeah, the lyrics are a bit "hmm" but it's stomping enough to carry you through.

xp yes! I only found that out pretty recently (maybe the Glastonbury performance?)

my Summer vote went to "Try Me I Know We Can Make It"

One year off is totally excusable in the case of Stand on the Word. It would be tragic if this was left off the list. Even the atheist in me can't deny it, I stand on the word of disco.

Whatever version, I'm thrilled "Stand By the Word" made it. And, yes, it makes a Jesus Freak of me anew for about 5 minutes.

New York Community Choir is my favourite gospel disco but yeah you can't argue with SotW.

i regret not voting for try me.

stand on the word makes me very emotional

All gospel makes me emotional. If there's a genre that beats disco, gospel is it.

House and disco are the only things that get me praising His name.

I love "Ring My Bell" of course and it was a favorite of mine back when it first came out.

33. Gloria Gaynor - Never Can Say Goodbye (1974)
319 points, 8 votes.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v655/lixnixn/R-412327-1302498228_zps1cd52176.jpeg

http://youtu.be/4lirTZa_7SQ

Gloria's "Never Can Say Goodbye" is one of my five fave disco-era tracks, for sure

― dan fitz (danfitz), 26. helmikuuta 2003 5:08

Classic misheard lyric: my Methodist clergyman father once asked me: "Are they saying 'I never can say the Bible'?"

― _Rudipherous_, 5. joulukuuta 2013 6:58

Never Can Say Goodbye is a gorgeous gorgeous song

― I wish to incorporate disco into my small business (chap), 7. joulukuuta 2013 19:30

67. Gloria Gaynor/The Communards 'Never Can Say Goodbye'

usual suspects: disco, strings, heartbreak, resolve

― stevem (blueski), 15. tammikuuta 2004 18:51

OMG at the Rasputin track. That is amazing.

Sorry, very late on that one

while we're on Rasputin, this belatedly made me laugh:

This could easily have been my no.1.

― Ramnaresh Samhain (ShariVari), Friday, 6 December 2013 19:41 (1 week ago)

posts very much in character, etc

I like this song approximately 2,583 times as much as "I Will Survive."

Pretty sure we could crowdsource a cool spacedisco playlist!

This is all you need really:
http://991.com/newgallery/Geoff-Love-Close-Encounters-588378.jpg

Nick Ingman (not Geoff Love, he just put his name on it to help it sell) at his grooviest. And spaciest obv.

32. Gloria Gaynor - I Will Survive (1978)
320 points, 7 votes.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v655/lixnixn/R-131082-1324233696_zps8bd06ec8.jpeg

http://youtu.be/zpVQFhRwWQw

Yeah, there's been a lot of this one song, but isn't that because there's still pretty much nothing else like it? Forget that it's a powerful anthem and it's sort of generally fantastic - just think about what this song does. When you've just had a break up it's all too easy to identify with songs about wallowing in self-pity or howling rage at the ex, but that doesn't make them good for you. A friend used to propose that there should be a compilation CD of all the break-up songs that aren't wallow and howl songs, but just focus on moving on. It would be the perfect thing to give to any friend who was suddenly readjusting to independence. She even wanted to call the record "I Will Survive." Problem was, that was the only song she could come up with that fit the bill.

― dad a, 13. heinäkuuta 2007 0:00

If you take it just as asking to be congratulated for not going into cardiac arrest anytime recently, then yeah that's kind of paltry. ("Staying Alive" -- yeah, me too, so what?)

But in the context of the rest of the lyrics I think she means something more like "I will get over this." One thing pop songs can do really well is crystallizing small realizations like, in this case, the moment when you realize that the heartache won't kill you. This song nails that moment.

And again, with AIDS ravaging the gay community, you'd think there'd be times when a sentiment like "I will survive" doesn't seem like such a modest claim.

― dad a, 13. heinäkuuta 2007 19:03

When a song attains that degree of notoriety it tends to become "compilation material". I bet that most people don't even know who the singer is. This is to say that "I will survive" is a classic song because it transcends its author's identity... the kind of music you alway hear at parties but nobody (except the dj maybe) can name the artist...

― Simone, 23. maaliskuuta 2001 3:00

Hmm...maybe it's a girl thing? Because I happen to like it too, and don't really get sick of it. Gloria Gaynor's version, that is -- if it happens to be someone drunkenly singing it on the way out of a club in a parking lot, then I *am* kind of sick of it.

― Nicole, 23. maaliskuuta 2001 3:00

"I Will Survive" is a total classic. heartbreaking and uplifting at the same time. beautiful lyrics and a gorgeous, sad, goddamn beautiful arrangement. those strings! the voice!

― jed_ (jed), 24. joulukuuta 2005 4:34

anybody who does not respond emotionally to "I'm not that chained up little person still in love with you" is broken inside imo

― les yeux sans aerosmith (underrated aerosmith albums I have loved), 11. heinäkuuta 2010 15:40

yeah. a lot of hit songs lose their luster -- and any sense of excitement or energy -- from being overplayed and overexposed. not this one.

classic.

― Daniel, Esq., 11. heinäkuuta 2010 15:42

LOL

It's worth hearing the extended version of this song, there is a nice extra bit that isn't in the single version people have heard 100000 times.

I was expecting that higher. I disagree with the comments pasted up there, it *is* overplayed. The sentiment is great, of course, but it's pretty rare that it gets any response from me these days.

Oy.

31. Emotions - Best of My Love (1977)
321 points, 10 votes.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v655/lixnixn/rejoice_zps57066532.jpg

http://youtu.be/WPefERS7EZs

"Best of My Love" all the way. Earth, Wind and Fire were the backing band, weren't they?

― Ned Raggett (Ned), 26. elokuuta 2004 19:35

Your Favorite Moment in a Song

The "Owww" bit from The Emotions 'Best of my Love' which De La Soul also used to great effect in 'Say No Go'

― Chewshabadoo (Chewshabadoo), 19. elokuuta 2006 1:50

i like the production/sound of "emotions", but i never liked it as much as best of my love. by the emotions.

― scott seward, 14. toukokuuta 2010 20:30

TS: Best Of My Love v. Got To Be Real

YESSSSSS

30. Cheryl Lynn - Got to Be Real (1978)
340 points, 8 votes, one 1st place vote.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v655/lixnixn/R-2594888-1292258001_zps7ca8808c.jpeg

http://youtu.be/Y7hwP6is47M

My roommate just got all these ridiculous remixes of Cheryl Lynn's "Got to be Real" and I'm not even remotely tired of it yet. Go disco!

nb My roommate is a raver and the reason I am not tired of CL yet is cause it keeps her from spinning Timo Maas all day.

― adam, 9. kesäkuuta 2002 3:00

Why did you stop playing Role Playing Games?

As Cheryl Lynn so aptly put it in 1978, it's Got To Be Real!

― Marcello Carlin, 23. elokuuta 2004 12:29

Cheryl Lynn's "To Be Real" mentioned years upthread. A couple of other big hits from that epoch that give me the same giddy, bursting-with-joy helium buzz:

Emotions - Best of My Love
Natalie Cole - This Will Be (An Everlasting Love)

― briania, 15. helmikuuta 2008 15:57

Cheryl Lynn "Got To Be Real"

Come on folks, I challenge you to present me with something, anything as good as this shit. Go ahead.

― Bimble, 4. kesäkuuta 2007 9:03

TS: Best Of My Love v. Got To Be Real

Was there ever any money that Bimble was not on?

one of the few songs in my life that a relationship gone South has pretty much ruined a tune i useda love

xpost

Voted for "Got to Be Real"... The Emotions track is cool too, and as someone said in the thread I linked to, having EWF as your backing band is certainly better than having Toto, but there's just something so uplifting, sincere, and, er, "real" about Lynns vocals on that track... I don't get that from "Best of My Love", as pretty as it is.

i'm just glad the emotions placed. i love their voices.

Hmmm, looks like Myonga von Bontee was exaggerating a bit in that thread, I checked the credits, and there appears to be only one member of Toto on "Got to Be Real", the keyboard player. The guitarist on that tune is Ray Parker Jr.!

Though IIRC Parker appeared on many 70s records as a session player, before his Ghostbusters fame. He's on some Herbie Hancock's funk albums from that era too.

whoever said upthread how great it is that we're getting a perfect mix of big hits and cult classics at all levels of this rollout otm

re: Donna Summer, I realized too late that "Dim All The Lights" was never nominated, but it should be on this list (I'll pretend it replaced Last Dance). The 12" version has never failed to kill, and dat 16 second vocal note!

If it had been a poll of 51 tracks, then "Got To Be Real" would have got my vote.

got to be real is amazing, i especially love the multitracked voices singing "TO be REAL"

29. Earth, Wind & Fire - Fantasy (1977)
345 points, 7 votes, one 1st place vote.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v655/lixnixn/R-3432956-1330195734_zps80f1ff7f.jpeg

http://youtu.be/6mV8ew_stNs

I distrust any man who doubts the buoyancy of "Fantasy" and "Serpentine Fire."

― Rich Lolwry (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), 17. maaliskuuta 2011 23:48

Their late-'70s move towards MOR strangely did very little to diminish their power as a band.

― Eric H. (Eric H.), 23. heinäkuuta 2003 0:30

That said, *classic* for their magma '70s output. My favorites are "Fantasy" (best use of Philip's falsetto) and "Boogie Wonderland" (for sheer memorability). P.S. I have had a giant poster of them c. 1980 hanging in my studio apartment for three years.

― Joseph McCombs (Joseph McCombs), 9. tammikuuta 2006 7:48

I often these days think, to myself, when listening to Earth, Wind & Fire: "this was the best fucking band in the world"

― get your bucket of free wings (underrated aerosmith albums I have loved), 7. kesäkuuta 2010 10:25

I think fantasy is just a miracle of songwriting... The arrangement is so tight and colourful, and it's quite rare to hear a song where not just the chorus but also the verses and the bridge all have such memorable and catchy melodies. Plus those falsettos!

aerosmith otm

I........I can't say anything about this song. It's staring at the face of god.

Saw "Thank God It's Friday" in the "Last Dance" picture and got excited...then swiftly crushed that it wasn't the title track placing. What are the chances that enough of you rated Love & Kisses enough for it to place?

Last fall I spent a lot of time with "Raise!" and, god, it's more consistent than some of tbe seventies stuff.

I hadn't thought of the EW&F as disco for some reason, but that's a fantastics song. Not much I'm not liking on this list, but the Euro disco stuff tends to be iffy for me.