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

amazes me how the original *extended DJ mix* of Stayin Alive eluded me for so many years. didn't even know it existed until last year.

I voted another Grace Jones track into my top 10, but there's no way in hell it's gonna place here. Her first album Portolio is her most disco-ish.

Portfolio that is

if carrie lucas doesn't make it I just won't know what to say

YES. I voted for both the original and the Cowley mix, and I'm stoked Cowley's version made it. At this point I'm assuming the original will be a top fiver here.

Night Fever lost out due to my 'three per artist' limit. It is so slick, but other than the title phrase section I can't really love it.

The Pull Up To The Bumper rhythm track is extraordinary. I could listen to just that on an endless loop, but the track is so sparse that I kind of am. I had been uneasy about nominating it in case it wasn't really disco as such, but listening to the 12" it clearly is. It pulls the genre into some weird shapes.

25. Diana Ross - I'm Coming Out (1980)
373 points, 8 votes.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v655/lixnixn/R-652069-1348057436-7241_zps8df6402c.jpeg

http://youtu.be/4rKJcA3I5Fg

Now "I'm Coming Out" might give IFL a run. One of the best singles of the 80s.

― Mark (MarkR), 23. kesäkuuta 2006 12:51

Who cares about the verses. The beginning has that guitar and just the 3 words of the title and it's plenty. Actually, my favorite part might just be 2 words--Diana's 'I'm coming' (with no 'Out').

― Carlos Keith (Buck_Wilde), 23. kesäkuuta 2006 13:18

I think part of what makes Diana Ross such an awesome figure for me is her place in gay history: in the mode of Judy Garland & Liza Minelli & Babs, Ross spends a fair bit of her career acknolwledging her core audience (sometimes gigantic-stage-winkingly as on "I'm Coming Out," sometimes with slightly more code in place a la "It's My Turn"). Donna Summer also knew which side her bread was buttered on, but doesn't seem to have had as much fun with it. I think Ross engaging her public like this (if you accept that that's what she was doing, which naturally you needn't) makes her one of those transcendent pop figures in the mode of Garland or Streisand: somebody whose material is both awesome on its own & rich as social text.

― Thomas Tallis (Tommy), 23. kesäkuuta 2006 21:10

i actually don't know the difference between mixes, &c, but the first minute of this is such a teasing triumph, and the moment it kicks in as satisfying as most anything

― (oboe interlude) (schlump), 3. elokuuta 2011 14:31

I do think that "I'm coming out" by la Diana is one of the best dance tunes ever written. Best tunes ever written, period, but, hey, its purpose really is dancing. And I'm not even gay. But I just feel so good everytime I hear...

― Simon, 11. syyskuuta 2001 3:00

According to the Nile Rodgers autobiography, Diana Ross had no idea at the time that "coming out" had a gay meaning. But Nile did, of course.

all right. made some calculations and it's official: several major classics will be left out completely. which ones I have no idea

"I'm Coming Out" obviously fantastic, was a casualty of my one-track-per-artist rule but glad it could join us.

That whole Diana album is perfect. I ended up going with My Old Piano but would be surprised if that placed over this and Upside Down which I'm assuming is still to come. There's still around 10 Chic songs/Productions I can still see making it.

24. Blondie - Heart of Glass (1979)
384 points, 10 votes.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v655/lixnixn/R-358367-1322679506_zpsda902670.jpeg

http://youtu.be/WGU_4-5RaxU (music video)
http://youtu.be/Jy8U1ExvunM (12" version)

i have nothing but love for "heart of glass".

― stirmonster, 11. maaliskuuta 2009 4:28

Heart of Glass is pretty much a perfect song, guys. That neat beat-missing trick is some good icing, too.

― a passing spacecadet, 11. maaliskuuta 2009 11:59

Clem Burke's drumming in "Heart of Glass" outro = best ever.

― The Screaming Lobster of Challops (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), 12. maaliskuuta 2009 17:59

When I was quite young I really really liked Blondie's "Heart of Glass" but didn't hear it that often. It got played on the radio and I was too slow to tape it off the radio and I cried and cried because I was convinced I'd never get to hear it again..

― electric sound of jim (electricsound), 14. toukokuuta 2003 5:1

Is this a perfect song? It sounds that way to me. From the minute Debbie Oo oo oo ohs us into it it is apparent that you're in for something pretty special. Then the tune kicks in and we're off, flying on the wings of Harry.. The lyrics may be equivocal - he's a pain in the arse, but, sometimes, what I find is pleasing...love is so confusing - but the tune? Sunshine, or ice cream, or both together.

― Amiii Stewart (Amiii Stewart), 28. toukokuuta 2005 19:39

Great drumming, yes. Same on Atomic.

huh

I've never really been into to Blondie, and I never considered this to be disco, but now that I listen to it... I guess it is? Nice tune, but didn't vote for it, I guess I still feel it's out place in this poll, as irrational as that is.

when one hears the pre mike chapman version of "heart of glass" it's fairly apparent that it was a blatant disco bandwagon jump, but it's a glorious one. 100% disco.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QS_6LLam0Qs

yeah one for the they weren't disco but they went disco s/d thread. there's a disco ball at the start of the video and suchlike..

is there any hope that machine's "there but for the grace of god go i" polled?

Yeah, there doesn't seem to be much room left for the underground monsters, but I deeply hope that one polls highly. It was near the top of my ballot.

It must place. Doesn't even have a wikipedia entry though ffs.

i missed the actual polling for this (as I seem to do w/ every ILM poll, since I tend to go away from the board for weeks/months at a time) but yeah that one would make my top 3 easily.

also did the poll allow slow jams/ballads from disco acts (which are more just R&B than "disco" I guess) because:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HeqAqmsBIo

machine probably made it and Darnell is already represented twice (and thank god he is). I'm more worried about shalamar. since no one agrees what is their greatest song top 20 seems unlikely.

Worried about Sylvester & MFSB as well as Shalamar re: vote-splitting. I guess Cerrone or Hot Chocolate are the last Euro-ish things to have a chance of placing.

Also,

It's pretty amazing. I like starting it in the middle where it's just the Cowley part so you can't even tell it's I Feel Love at first.

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), 19. joulukuuta 2003 3:46

is excellent advice.

no chance of You To Me Are Everything by The Real Thing as this stage i'm guessing.

yeah, no more room for the Brits I presume. Sylvester probably wasn't hurt by vote-splitting, his key song is pretty obvious isn't it?

I fear for Manilow at this point

Sylvester probably wasn't hurt by vote-splitting, his key song is pretty obvious isn't it?

Not really. I voted for "Over and Over," which came in second in djhistory.com's poll of the 25 greatest disco tracks ever.

Some huge hits showing up. I never found the time to vote so I can't complain, but I hope people love "More, More, More" as much as I do.

23. Chic - Everybody Dance (1977)
395 points, 9 votes, one 1st place vote.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v655/lixnixn/chic-everybody-dance-atlantic-2_zpsa87aa7a9.jpg

http://youtu.be/czvtXjj4tqk

"Everybody Dance" might be my favorite song ever.

― djdee2005, 21. huhtikuuta 2004 6:28

i love the 'doo doo doo doo' hook on "Everybody Dance" so much

― some dude, 24. elokuuta 2012 4:03

Think I might have to go for Everybody Dance, that bassline is unbeatable.

― Kitchen Person, 20. elokuuta 2012 6:40

So faultless it's hard to think of anything to say about it.

xp Re: I'm Coming Out, I love this story I got from Nile Rodgers:

Did Diana know I’m Coming Out was a gay song?
No, of course not! She brought it up and we denied it. The last thing I want to do is lie to my artist but it was so brilliant. I always say I’m hired to give you the record you want, not the one that I want — even if you don’t know this is the record you want. I’m Coming Out happened as an accident. In the course of interviewing Diana we never once said, well Diana, how do you feel about being part of that gay, diva, idol-worship culture? But when I went out to this transvestite club one night, The Gilded Grape, I’m at the urinal and there are three of four Diana Rosses around me. I kept thinking, this is some message. The next day I told Bernard, man, you won’t believe what happened last night. I explained it in detail and we’d laugh and he’d say, great let’s write that. It’s a hysterical story and it makes sense.

Nile Rodgers has a wonderful story about the reaction that an acetate of Everybody Dance got in a New York club. Go to the last 4 paras on this page - http://www.waxpoetics.com/features/articles/the-hitmaker-part-1- then open the second page for the end of the story.

and the Chic onslaught begins

mike, thanks for the link. that is great. nile <3

should probably post this on the actual Chic thread, but I don't think I've ever been as happy since early childhood as I was this summer when I saw Chic live.

I saw Chic at The Forum in June. It was a birthday treat for my sister. Amazingly enough, she was... oh, hang on, I'll save this story until the track in question places (which it most surely will).

Did Diana know I’m Coming Out was a gay song?
No, of course not! She brought it up and we denied it.

This would contradict what Mike T-Diva mentioned about Rodgers' autobiography though, that he said Ross didn't even know "coming out" had a gay connotation... I thought that sounded kinda unlikely; maybe your average Joe wouldn't have known what "come out" means back then, but for someone who worked in the music business and was doing disco music at the time, it seems a bit weird she would've been totally ignorant of the term.

Also, I could easily imagine Ross knew it was a gay song, but for whatever reason she let Rodgers and Edwards think they'd pulled a prank on her.

I was there Matt...I think I know how your story ends! How did you find Nicky Siano's set beforehand?

xpost Well, I might have misremembered - I don't have the NR autobiog to hand - but happy to yield to DL's first hand account!

Dwight: Nicky Siano's set would have been fine (if a tad predictable), if his sound system hadn't been so screwed. It looked as if he wasn't too happy with it either. Especially annoying, as the previous DJs had used separate kit, which sounded perfectly OK. Perhaps that why Siano's reverted to obvious choices, in a bid to rescue the floor.

It did sound terrible agreed...think me and my friends walked in just as he was playing Love Sensation which was pretty phenomenal. Dropping 'Funkytown' and 'Young Hearts Run Free' might have been a tad obvious but they WORKED!

22. McFadden & Whitehead - Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now (1979)
429 points, 11 votes, one 1st place vote.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v655/lixnixn/R-200419-1334736200_zps3c9f95cc.jpeg

http://youtu.be/RhaBFGOzgVA

The genius of the extended mix of "Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now" cannot be overstated -- I've forgotten which ILXer brought this great record to my attention, but thank you greatly.

― briania, 12. toukokuuta 2004 20:37

Smokey's singles run with the Miracles from Shop Around to Baby, Baby Don't Cry is the greatest thing ever

― gospodin simmel, 20. tammikuuta 2011 22:50

actually, second greatest thing ever. after Ain't No Stoppin Us Now

― gospodin simmel, 20. tammikuuta 2011 22:50

It is impossible to have lived for nearly 30 years in a developed nation without having heard Ain't No Stopping Us Now.

― Matt DC, 20. tammikuuta 2011 12:26

"i hear tears of a clown, i hate this song - i always feel like they're talking to me when it comes on"
"a house is not a home, i hate this song - is a house really a home when your loved ones are gone?"
"ain't no stopping us now, i LOVE that song - whenever it comes on it makes me feel strong"

Every one of those songs >>>>>>> this one

― Angrrau Birds (seandalai), 23. tammikuuta 2012 20:44

I love that record cover! So joyful! And the song itself is unstoppable, of course.

Sadly both McFadden and Whitehead died in the mid-00s. Whitehead I think was shot to death while changing a tire, which is not the way anyone should go. RIP.

voted for the risco connection version

One of those ones that only really made sense to me when I'd heard the full 12" version.

Wish I'd voted in this poll now.

22. Vicki Sue Robinson - Turn the Beat Around (1976)
437 points, 12 votes.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v655/lixnixn/vickisuerobinson_zps01689c65.jpg

http://youtu.be/devNnEA0AdU

i'm coming up from the subway on the brooklyn side. it's friday, about 5pm, hot summer evening, and i've just gotten home from work and i'm back in my neighborhood. as i ascend to the street, i hear "turn the beat around" blasting from someone's car speakers.

don't touch the hair.

― Maneating Leopards of India (Jody Beth Rosen), 31. heinäkuuta 2004 0:54

paens to anal sex

"Turn the Beat Around" Vicki Sue Robinson

― lovebug starski (lovebug starski), 8. marraskuuta 2004 0:38

Marcus on Vicki Sue Robinson's "Turn the Beat Around" (I don't know if it was part of a singles roundup, or just a column of some sort) would be a must-have.

Well, that's one!

― sw00ds, 13. syyskuuta 2009 22:38

It's not Robinson's fault that Gloria Estefan ruined this song for me but

It was really hard to find quotes on that tune, it seems there is loads more discussion on ILM on Peter Shapiro's book of the same name than the actual tune. (The same applies to "Last Night a DJ Saved My Life".)

Anyway, I think it has what is possibly the most wonderfully giddy vocal performance on any disco hit. I just love how Robinson sounds when she sings words like "nitty-gritty". Of course the fact that the backing band is incredibly funky helps a lot too.

How did Gloria Estefan ruin "Turn the Beat Around"?

voted for the risco connection version

― |$̲̅(̲̅ιοο̲̅)̲̅$̲̅| (gr8080), Monday, December 16, 2013 11:53 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

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