Disco Collections at BGSU
BGSU's Bill Schurk Sound Archives has one of the largest collections of disco music at an academic library in the United States. This guide will help you explore this portion of the collection. Please contact the archivist for additional help navigating our collections.
What is Disco Music?
Disco is a form of dance music that is known for its popularity and cultural impact in the 1970s. The term derives from the French word “discothèque.” In the late 1960s, disco music grew out of the R&B and soul music scene in Philadelphia and the dance scene of LGBTQ+ communities in New York City. As disco music scene continued to grow in the 1970s, singers and groups like Donna Summer, Gloria Gaynor, and Earth, Wind, and Fire became popular and disco was seen as a reaction to the growing rock scene. In the late 1970s, disco began to lose its steam and the infamous Disco Demolition Night riot took place on July 12, 1979 at a baseball game in Chicago, Illinois, which helped end disco's popularity as a radio and commercial genre. Researchers and fans have posited that the virulent reactions to disco music had as much to do with disco's gay, black roots and ethos as it did with the actual sound of the music
While record labels and artists may have moved away from marketing themselves as disco, genres as diverse as house, EDM, R&B, hip hop, and new wave owe a debt to the sound, techniques, performers, and general aura of 1970s disco.
Image by Sarah from Brizzzzzle, UK - Disco ball in blueUploaded by TheCuriousGnome, CC BY 2.0
Selected Disco Books
Hot Stuff by Call Number: ML3526 .E34 2010ISBN: 9780393066753Publication Date: 2010Phys. Description: xxvi, 338 pages, illustrations, 25 cm.
Legends of Disco by Call Number: ML394 .A76 2016ISBN: 9781476664965Publication Date: 2016Phys. Description: viii, 236 pages, illustrations, 26 cm
Disco Demolition by Call Number: ML3526 .D35 2016ISBN: 1940430755Publication Date: 2016-08-30Phys. Description 197 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 23 cm
To Disco, with Love by Call Number: MUL NC1882.7.D57 H36 2015ISBN: 9781250068453Publication Date: 2015-11-24Phys. Description: vii, 197 pages , illustrations, color, 25 cm
Songs of The 1970s by Call Number: M1630.18 .S76061 2015ISBN: 9781495000348Publication Date: 2015-02-011 score (471 pages); 31 cm- This Side of Midnight : Recovering a Queer Politics of Disco Club Culture byPublication Date: 2013M.A. Thesis
Disco by Call Number: MUL NC1882.7.D57 D57 2014.ISBN: 0957260024Publication Date: 2014(physical description) 383 pages, chiefly color illustrations, 31 cm
Searching for Disco books and periodicals
If you are searching for resources on disco, books and magazines at the music library can be found in our Library Catalog.
You can begin by viewing the books and periodicals that primarily deal with disco in our catalog.
Additional searches for disco performers or for related genres may yield additional items.
Search Summon for books and articles on disco
Search Tips for Specific Formats
When searching for a specific score, recording, book or DVD, an essential step any music library user must take is to designate the Material Type in the Library Catalog's Advanced Search menu:
Using this feature allows you narrow your search to ONE TYPE of item so you can browse through broad searches more easily, or improve the accuracy of refined search results.
Ask your sound archivist
Creator of Libguide
Natalie Stitak, intern. (She, her, hers)
Music Library & Bill Schurk Archives Intern, 2021
Disco on film
The Secret Disco Revolution by Call Number: MUSICDVD01306Publication Date: 2013The Secret Disco Revolution - the period of dancing, sex, drugs, white polyester, platform shoes, and disco balls. This era was nothing short of a revolution, liberating homosexuals, African-Americans, and female sexuality. The Secret Disco Revolution features these theories with revealing new interviews with the era's biggest stars, including: The Village People, Gloria Gaynor, KC and the Sunshine Band, and Kool and the Gang, plus a goldmine of rarely seen stock footage.