post-disco

Post-disco is a term and genre to describe an aftermath in popular music history 1979–1986, imprecisely beginning with the backlash against disco music in the United States, leading to civil unrest and a riot in Chicago known as the Disco Demolition Night on July 12, 1979. During its dying stage, disco displayed an increasingly electronic character that soon served as a stepping stone to new wave, old-school hip-hop, Euro disco, and was succeeded by an underground club music called hi-NRG, which was its direct continuation.

An underground movement of disco music, which was simultaneously "stripped-down" and featured "radically different sounds," took place on the East Coast that "was neither disco and neither R&B." This scene, known as post-disco, catering to the New York metropolitan area, was initially led by urban contemporary musical artists partially in response to the perceived over-commercialization and artistic downfall of disco culture. It was developed from the rhythm and blues sound exemplified by Parliament-Funkadelic, the electronic side of disco, dub music techniques, and other genres. Post-disco was typified by New York City music groups like "D" Train and Unlimited Touch who followed a more urban approach while others, like Material and ESG, followed a more experimental one. Post-disco was, like disco, a singles-driven market controlled mostly by independent record companies that generated a cross-over chart success all through the early-to-mid 1980s. Most creative control was in the hands of record producers and club DJs which was a trend that outlived the dance-pop era.