From its origins in New York City's gay, black, and brown underground party subculture to its dominance of the sonic landscape of the late 1970s, disco music aroused passionate opinions like few other genres. For every discomaniac in a leisure suit who embraced the music's metronomic beat and rage for exhibitionism, there was a die-hard rock fan who utterly despised it. Depending on who you asked, disco was an exclamatory passageway into the future, a primal and gaudy fanfare for the apocalypse, or simply a musical abomination. At the same time, as much as disco and rock fans seemed to hate one another, it was also a period of exciting musical collaboration and experimentation. When artists like Rod Stewart, Blondie, and even The Grateful Dead crossed over by "going disco," they smashed cultural conformity, brilliantly combining the elements of both genres and bringing intensity and personality to a faceless phenomenon. When Rock Met Disco takes readers on a fascinating tour of this moment in music history, a time when discotheques were multiplying throughout the world and their thudding bass beat became the soundtrack of an era. From the surprise success of Saturday Night Fever to the infamous 1979 "Disco Demolition Night" riot in Chicago, author Steven Blush unpacks the history, fashion, dance moves, and etiquette that made up the disco scene, showing how it inspired love and loathing in equal measure. As Blush reveals, at their best, rock and disco represented galvanizing, liberating cultural forces.

Together, they completely reshaped the history of pop music.