Radio LBB: When Rock Met Disco

There was a period in the late 1970s and early 80s when rock bands and artists reached across the dance floor and embraced the disco sounds that were dominating radio, record stores, and soundtracks. Whether it was from aging legacy artists like The Rolling Stones and The Kinks looking to reinvigorate lagging sales or hoping to find new fan bases many albums of this time period would have at least one disco influenced song on them.

This, of course, goes against much of the perceived knowledge of the time. When ‘Death Before Disco’ was a rallying cry and the Disco Demolition event in Chicago. While in Detroit, there was a radio station, WRIF, that made up a rock-loyalty program called DREAD  (Detroit Rockers Engaged in the Abolition of Disco) of which my dad was a card-carrying member of (hilariously it looked like an Amex gold card).

But the idea for this playlist came together a month ago with the passing of David Johansen. Known mostly for being the frontman of proto Punk pioneers The New York Dolls or possibly as his alter-ego Buster Poindexter, he put out a few solo records in the late 1970s and early 80s. When I heard that he had died I did a deep dive on some of those lesser-known solo albums and was surprised to find some heavily disco influenced songs.

Then, tracking back a couple months before that, watching the Ryan Gosling movie 'The Fall Guy' which uses Kiss’ “I Was Made For Loving You” repeatedly throughout. Which in turn took me back to my childhood, getting the Kiss album Dynasty with that song on it for Christmas, and listening to it over and over again. In a way you could say I’ve been thinking about this playlist for a long time.

So, put away any rigid judgments of rock or disco, get ready to dance and play air guitar and enjoy!