10 Classic Rock Bands That Went Disco

For most rock enthusiasts, disco has always been seen as a bit of a dirty word. Since the '70s were supposed to be the decade that rock firmly took over the charts, the people that brought us acts like Donna Summer were laying siege to everything that the rock had to offer. Looking back on it though, there's a lot more disco flavored rock than people remember.

With years of hindsight, disco might not have been all that bad to begin with. Sure, it might have been legions away from rock and roll, but the four on the floor beat and music meant to get you away from your boring day job was the kind of thing that set rock and roll apart in the early days, so why should this be any different?

Along with having a lot more soul behind it, a lot of the biggest acts at the time tried to get on the ground floor of disco to see just what the kids were up to on the danceable side of the tracks. What we're gonna do here today is looking at the relics that these rock acts have hanging in their closets and seeing whether they actually held up or not. Disco saw its own revival years later, so can we make the same case that rockers knew how to dance too?

When rockers first started to get on the disco bandwagon, it was hard to see it as anything but cynical. Since this just looked like the new sound coming out at the time, this was the moment where rockers lost their innocence and followed the dollar signs instead of their inspiration. If you give a new genre to one of the greatest chameleons in rock history though, it actually makes for something a lot more interesting.

Coming up right after his glam era with Diamond Dogs, Young Americans was David Bowie paying tribute to one of his favorite genres: soul. Being much more of a danceable record than his last few, all of the rough and ragged guitars have been replaced with some disco hi hat grooves and songs that feel a lot more in tune with the soul scene, with Fame even being a crossover hit for him. For everyone thinking that this was just a cheap imitation of disco though, you have to pay attention to when this was released.

Recorded in 1974, this was actually years before disco had really started, with the superstars of the scene not really gaining traction until the late '70s. If anything, Bowie was probably on the ground floor for rockers turning to making dance music, even using a few more electronic sounds going into his Berlin period. Even when Bowie managed to write a love letter to one of his favorite musical styles, he still somehow managed to be ahead of his time.