FEBRUARY 27th - Disco Survives



Did you know that there used to be a Grammy category for Best Disco Recording? The National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences watched as disco ruled the airwaves of the 70’s, but waited until 1980 to finally legitimize the genre with its own Grammy category. And on this very day, February 27th, in 1980 the first Grammy for Best Disco Recording was given to “I Will Survive” by Gloria Gaynor. You can’t fault the Academy for giving the award to that song (though I’ll give a special shout out to MJ’s “Don’t Stop Till Get Enough”) as it was, and still is a party standard. But you know what didn’t survive? The Best Disco Recording category. Perhaps the Academy was afraid. Maybe even petrified. Whatever the case, 1980 was the only year that disco was awarded at the big dance. They just waited a little too long. Or not long enough. It would be like getting in on the Z. Cavaricci craze in the early 90s or flannel trend in the early 2000s. Just a tad too late people. Timing people. It’s everything. Luckily disco didn’t spend so many nights thinking how it was done wrong. It survives--a fairly niche existence, but it survives. It survives as a costume party or an SNL skit on the Bee Gees or John Travolta. But it survives. And you have to admire that.

This day has been Marked.

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