Get Down Tonight; the Disco Explosion

The three-disc box set Get Down Tonight: The Disco Explosion was released just after PBS premiered the program of the same name, which featured new performances -- from Anita Ward, Thelma Houston, A Taste of Honey, KC & the Sunshine Band, and several others -- with archival footage from the disco era. Each of these 58 songs reached the pop chart, remarkable for a movement with most of its roots planted in clubs that were only a little like Studio 54, populated by marginalized blacks, Latinos, and gays -- a subculture avoided or barely acknowledged by many Saturday Night Fever fans. (The difference is also in the stark contrast between excluded people who were inclusive and included people who were exclusive.) Most of the songs here have appeared on scores of other disco compilations, but those discs are prone to flimsy packaging and poor sound. Distributed by Sony, this box has excellent sound, insightful liner notes, and plenty of bold photographs, all of which make it a helpful disco starter kit. The discs are broken down by geography, moving from the West Coast to the Midwest and East Coast to everywhere else. Freez was a U.K. group, so they appear on the "South and Across the Atlantic" disc, despite relying heavily on production from Americans Arthur Baker and John Robie. If you apply the same rationale, Midwesterners Diana Ross and the Jackson 5 should appear on the Midwest/East Coast disc, but they're on the West Coast disc due to Motown's L.A. base.