"A Fifth of Beethoven": Disco, Classical Music, and the Politics of Inclusion

By Ken Mcleod

After the social and political turmoil of the 1960s and early 1970s, North America was fertile ground for an escapist, nonthreatening music that could transcend geographical, racial, gender, and class boundaries. Various authors have lauded disco and the disco era for having "obsolesced isolation" and for creating a "magical dance floor" that included a m³lange of gays, straights, business executives, working-class heroes, whites, blacks, and latinos, all boogying to a disco beat. Though baby boomers were by far the largest market, disco appealed to a wide range of age groups and was often the music of choice at many cross-generational gatherings such as weddings and bar mitzvahs.