Getting to Know Genres: Nu Disco
The foster child of 70’s dance music.
Nu Disco is a subgenre of the Disco. It is in many ways the foster child of 70’s dance music. It incorporates Disco’s live instrumentation and House’s love for repetition. In the early days, Nu Disco artists like Faze Action sampled traditional disco songs and modernized it with new production tools and synthesizers.
Over time, as all genres do, Nu Disco evolved. In its infant phase, Nu Disco abandoned the verse-chorus structure for arpeggio’s. By the late 2000s and early 2010s groups like Hercules and Love Affair and Justice brought back the verse-chorus structure.
By the late 2000’s and early 2010’s groups like Hercules and Love Affair and Justice brought back the verse-chorus structure.
This not only made the genre more accessible to wider audiences, but it invited mainstream artists to experiment in the sound. By the mid-2010s Daft Punk took the genre to new heights with their album Random Access Noise. Furthermore, artists like Calvin Harris and songs like “American Boy” made the 4/4 drum pattern a recognizable sound to pop fans.
The music is meant to be danced to. It has a lively feel and can generate the same euphoria as its Disco ancestor. Unlike Disco, when it incorporates arpeggio’s it takes that free feeling one step higher. Take the Justice remix to their own song D.A.N.C.E. for instance. The original verse-chorus version was already energic and bright, but the remix was psychedelic and otherworldly. Nu Disco, at its best, creates some of the best live music in today’s music scene.
