The Grammy Award for Best Disco Recording was an award presented at the 22nd Grammy Awards in 1980. The Grammy Awards, an annual ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards, are presented by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to "honor artistic achievement, technical proficiency and overall excellence in the recording industry, without regard to album sales or chart position".
Gloria Gaynor and producers Dino Fekaris and Freddie Perren won the Best Disco Recording award for the song "I Will Survive". However, because of a backlash against disco, the Academy discontinued the category before the 23rd Grammy Awards. In 1998, a similar category, Best Dance Recording, began being awarded to honor vocal or instrumental dance tracks, though there were concerns that the genre would be short-lived much like the disco category.
Background
Disco is a genre of dance music that emerged in the United States during the 1970s. The experimental mixing of records, combined with the newly acquired ability to play longer tracks, resulted in a genre well-suited for dance parties. During 1973–74, MFSB's "Love Is the Message" displayed "early rumblings of the disco sound", and shortly afterward the songs "Never Can Say Goodbye" by Gloria Gaynor, "The Hustle" by Van McCoy, and "Love to Love You Baby" by Donna Summer emerged. By the end of 1979, the disco industry was estimated to be worth more than $4 billion, "more ... than the industries of movies, television or professional sport".
left|thumb|alt=A man in a plaid shirt holding a microphone and wearing headphones on his head.|[[Disc jockey|DJ and Disco Demolition Night leader Steve Dahl in 2008]]
However, the disco fad soon began to decline. On July 12, 1979, just a few months after Newsweek had reported on the "[take] over" of disco music, a "tongue-in-cheek" promotional event known as Disco Demolition Night was held at Chicago's Comiskey Park baseball stadium. During a doubleheader intermission, disc jockey Steve Dahl set ablaze a bin full of disco records, causing a riot within the stadium and gaining international attention. Approximately 10,000 disco records were destroyed, and around 50,000 rioters participated in the event, staying on the field, forcing the Chicago White Sox to forfeit the second game.
Nationally, a "backlash" took hold, as public support for disco music faded. According to author Craig Werner, as quoted in the British newspaper The Independent, the "anti-disco movement represented an unholy alliance of funkateers and feminists, progressives and puritans, rockers and reactionaries. None the less, the attacks on disco gave respectable voice to the ugliest kinds of unacknowledged racism, sexism and homophobia."
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| Gloria Gaynor
| "I Will Survive"
| Dino Ferakis and Freddie Perren, producers
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| Earth, Wind & Fire
| "Boogie Wonderland"
| Al McKay and Maurice White, producers
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| Michael Jackson
| "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough"
| Quincy Jones and Michael Jackson, producers
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| Rod Stewart
| "Da Ya Think I'm Sexy?"
| Tom Dowd, producer
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| Donna Summer
| "Bad Girls"
| Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte, producers
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right|thumb|alt=A woman wearing a sparkling black outfit and orange jacket. Her eyes are closed and she is holding a microphone in one of her hands.|[[22nd Grammy Awards|1980 award winner Gloria Gaynor, in 1976]]
In 1979, the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences decided to add a Best Disco Recording category for the 22nd Grammy Awards, just as disco was "preparing to die". On February 27, 1980, during a live telecast from Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, Gaynor was presented the award for Best Disco Recording.
However, because of the decreasing popularity of disco, the Academy eliminated the award category before the 1981 ceremony was to be held. Despite the award's short span, the award helped solidify Gaynor as one of the best-known female disco artists from the 1970s and the song "I Will Survive" as one of the most recognized and top-selling songs from the genre.
Another dance category did not emerge until 1998 when the Grammy Award for Best Dance Recording began to honor vocal or instrumental dance tracks, though there were concerns that the award would be short-lived much like the disco category. In 2003, the Academy moved the category from the "Pop" field into a new "Dance" field, which currently contains the category Best Dance/Electronic Album as well.