The word discothèque means "library of phonograph records" in French. The earliest discotheques of the late '60s were small dance clubs in Paris where deejays spun records. Discotheques were never intended to be live music venues. People went to discotheques to dance and to hear a certain deejay (or selector). In discotheques, the deejay was the star of the show.
The first American discos popped up in New York in the early Seventies and were mostly unlicensed underground venues that were after-hours dance clubs.
The modern day deejay movement grew out of the dance club tradition that began in disco clubs. Today's electronic music genre is largely built upon the use of studio techniques perfected by producers of disco music, like Nile Rodgers. Rap music originated at a disco club in the Bronx called Disco Fever, where Grandmaster Flash, the Furious Five, Kurtis Blow and the Sugarhill Gang were regular performers.
Nobody agrees what the first disco record was but Rock the Boat by the Hues Corporation, Kung Fu Fighting by Carl Douglas, Rock Me Baby by George McCrae, Love's Theme by Barry White's Love Unlimited Orchestra, and TSOP (The Soul Train theme) by MFSB are frequently mentioned and all of those songs appeared in 1974.
On the other hand, funk music was intended to be played live in a music club, hall or arena. The most successful funk bands, like the James Brown Band, Sly and the Family Stone, War and Parliament/Funkadelic were all playing the same concert halls and arenas as headliner rock bands like Led Zeppelin, the Who and the Rolling Stones in the Seventies. I don't think anybody disputes James Brown's claim that he invented funk music. He was playing funk music in the early Sixties long before anyone else.
I'm not sure why there was such a big backlash against disco music by rock music fans. The infamous "Disco Demolition Night" in Chicago in 1979 was a melee where rock deejays exploded disco records in Comiskey Park while fans wearing "disco sucks" t-shirts ran amok. It received national news coverage. It seemed like a good old fashion Nazi book burning to me. One rock music critic, Legs McNeil damned disco music as the unholy marriage of black music with homosexual music.
I was a punk music fan at the time and I'm sorry to say that many of my peers had the same racist and homophobic reaction to disco music. I got a lot of ridicule because I liked Chic, Blondie, Grace Jones, Grandmaster Flash, and other "disco" artists. My punk friends also trashed David Bowie as a disco sellout. When Rock Against Racism and the 2 Tone movement began in the UK, I finally parted ways many of my punk peer group because of their racist attitudes.
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There are two types of music: the first type is the blues and the second type is all the other stuff.
Townes Van Zandt
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