The year 1976 was all about disco. Here are some tunes you definitely know, even if you weren’t alive at the time.
“Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” by Elton John and Kiki Dee
This song was Elton John‘s sixth No. 1 in the U.S., and his first with Kiki Dee. According to Dee, the iconic pair still keeps in touch decades later.
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“I think that we’re not what I call, um, everyday friends, you know. When I speak to him, it’s like it was yesterday, and I speak to him two or three times a year, yeah,” Dee shared with GBNews. “I mean, he’s very empathic. I lost my sister last year, and had a long chat with him about it, and yeah, so he’s my real friend.”
“You Should Be Dancing” by The Bee Gees
It doesn’t take a lot to understand this song. “You Should Be Dancing” asks only one thing of its listeners: get up, forget your troubles, and hit the dance floor.
Apparently, in Saturday Night Fever, during the scene where John Travolta shows off his moves in the club, the song playing was supposed to be “Night Fever”. Travolta lobbied for this song, though, and it ended up making the cut.
“Play That Funky Music” by Wild Cherry
“Play That Funky Music” is probably one of the most danceable songs of this era. As frontman Rob Parissi explained, though, it kind of emerged out of necessity for Wild Cherry.
Rock clubs were closing, and the band needed a song that was going to keep them relevant. After a club-goer asked the band if they were going to “play some funky music,” one night, inspiration struck.
“So I walked out and wrote down exactly what was going on with us,” Parissi told Harry Comick Jr. “I had the first two verses in the chorus written by the time I got to the stage, and I wrote the last verse in a car on our way home.”
He continued, saying, “Yeah, my joke’s always been if I knew how big that song was going to be, I would’ve stayed up that night and wrote 700 more songs.”
Photo by: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
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1972: (L-R) Jim Hodder, David Palmer, Denny Dias, Donald Fagen, Jeff "Skunk" Baxter and Walter Becker of the rock band "Steely Dan" pose for a portrait in 1972. (Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images) -
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Kyu Sakamoto. (1941-1985) Japanese singer, best known outside Japan for his international hit song "Ue o Muite Aruko" (known as "Sukiyaki" in English-speaking markets), which was sung in Japanese and sold over 13 million copies. It reached number one in the United States Billboard Hot 100 in June 1963, making Sakamoto the first Asian recording artist to have a number one song on the chart. (Photo by Sjöberg Bildbyrå/ullstein bild via Getty Images) -
Picture taken in 1974 in Stockholm shows the Swedish pop group Abba with its members (L-R) Benny Andersson, Anni-Frid Lyngstad, Agnetha Faltskog and Bjorn Ulvaeus posing after winning the Swedish branch of the Eurovision Song Contest with their song "Waterloo". – Sweden's legendary disco group ABBA announced on April 27, 2018 that they have reunited to record two new songs, 35 years after their last single. The quartet split up in 1982 after dominating the disco scene for more than a decade with hits like "Waterloo", "Dancing Queen", "Mamma Mia" and "Super Trouper". (Photo by Olle LINDEBORG / TT News Agency / AFP) / Sweden OUT (Photo credit should read OLLE LINDEBORG/AFP via Getty Images)
