Euro Disco - History

History

Euro-disco is largely an off-shoot of contemporary American music trends going as far back as Jazz, Rock, Soul, Funk and Disco. In the 1950s and 1960s besides the heavy American influence, the French/Italian created pop music off-shoots, with a dance-oriented sound became prevalent in Europe. Those 1950s and 1960s euro-pop hits, spread around West Europe, because of the French Scopitone and the Italian Cinebox/Coilorama Video-jukebox machines. Another root is the Eurovision song contest, especially in the 1970s.

The Swedish European Pop Group ABBA, won the 1974 Eurovision song contest, with the song "Waterloo". The specific song is a typical example of a 1970s European pop song (euro-pop), with a dance manner. The success was huge and many European producers, instantly produced many pop hits that did not necessary sound the same, but kept that dance manner. That created, in a very short period of time, a whole new commercial music industry in Europe, to meet the demand for social dancing music. The Discofox dancing style was a result of that situation. It is reported that the American music journalist Robert Christgau used the term "Euro disco" in his late 1970s articles for The Village Voice newspaper.

Those Eurovision-like hits (with the dance manner) that followed ABBA's success, became popular on the European Discotheque, where clubgoers met to do social dancing. The birth of "Euro disco" became, when Germans took the "Euro" from the "Eurovision" and the "Disco" from the "Discotheques" and created the word "Euro disco", almost at the same time that the term "Disco" appeared in USA.

The term "Disco" in Europe, existed long before the Euro disco and the (US) Disco music styles but had a different meaning. It used in Europe during the 60s, as a short alternative to Discotheque. Discotheques existed in France since the early 50s and spread around Europe during the 60s. In Europe (and partly Canada), "Discotheques" and "Disco" was what at the time called "Clubs" in the UK. Even today (2007), the term Disco-Club exist as an alternative name for the mainstream clubs in Center, Southern and Eastern Europe. In Italy and Spain, the term "Discoteka" or "Discotheque" means mainstream clubs. In Greece, the term "Discotheque" describe the Retro-Clubs. In Germany, Poland and Romania, the term "Disco" is still used to refer to "Dance Clubs".

An example of the term "Disco" with no relation with a specific music style (and dance music in general), is the Disco (TV series) that aired in Germany on the ZDF network from 1971 to 1982. This show proves that the term "Disco" was enough widespread at the time, that the second national TV network of Germany used it for a general music TV show in 1971. Another later example, is the show "Discoring" on Italy's RAI channel (Started in February on 1977)