{"id":739314,"date":"2026-08-15T23:52:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-15T23:52:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/739314\/"},"modified":"2026-08-15T23:52:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-15T23:52:11","slug":"the-unlikely-story-of-the-eagles-1975-disco-cross-over-hit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/739314\/","title":{"rendered":"The unlikely story of the Eagles&#8217; 1975 disco cross-over hit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <img width=\"1140\" height=\"855\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Eagles-1975-Far-Out-Magazine-1140x855.jpg\" class=\"attachment-single-feature size-single-feature wp-post-image\" alt=\"Eagles - 1975\" layout=\"fill\"  style=\"object-position: 50% 20%\" loading=\"eager\" fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Credit: Far Out \/ Asylum Records<\/p>\n<p> Sat 15 August 2026 22:00, UK <\/p>\n<p>While it\u2019s easy to place the <a href=\"https:\/\/faroutmagazine.co.uk\/tags\/eagles\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" title=\"Eagles\">Eagles<\/a> into many different musical brackets, with them having crossed over from country into soft rock at various intervals, one sphere that people often don\u2019t associate with the band is disco.<\/p>\n<p>The genre, born from a mutation of funk, soul and R&amp;B, was taking the charts by storm towards the latter half of the 1970s, with many disco hits immediately landing at the top of the charts upon release. At the same time, Eagles were occupying a different market, charming their listeners with their refined brand of rock and roll that strayed away from the overt macho nature of the bands who had previously dominated this lane. The two, to be frank, didn\u2019t seem to have much room for overlap, and they didn\u2019t need to either.<\/p>\n<p>And yet, despite having conquered the charts with \u2018Best of My Love\u2019 in 1974, a song that stayed true to the band\u2019s origins, the temptation to cross over into uncharted territory for the lead single on their next album proved to be too strong, and despite there being little margin for error as they attempted to capitalise on their success, their unexpected foray towards the chequered dancefloors proved to be a stroke of genius.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018One of These Nights\u2019, the lead single from their 1975 album of the same name, while not strictly disco, possesses something of a disco-inflected beat, and given how inescapable the genre was around this time, it\u2019s hardly surprising that it would find itself seeping into other areas of music subconsciously. Eagles may not have been everyone\u2019s first choice of act to try and produce a crossover hit of this ilk, but they somehow managed to <a href=\"https:\/\/faroutmagazine.co.uk\/what-song-was-number-one-when-jaws-broke-the-box-office\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" title=\"What song was number one when \u2018Jaws\u2019 broke the box office in 1975?\">get it straight to number one<\/a> in the US.<\/p>\n<p>To further emphasise just how much disco was taking over the charts in the summer of 1975, the song that immediately preceded \u2018One of These Nights\u2019 at the top of the Billboard charts was Van McCoy and the Soul City Symphony\u2019s \u2018The Hustle\u2019, the sole hit for McCoy as a lead artist rather than a songwriter. Immediately after \u2018One of These Nights\u2019 was dethroned after just one week at the top, <a href=\"https:\/\/faroutmagazine.co.uk\/stayin-a-lie-how-saturday-night-fevers-disco-origin-was-a-con\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" title=\"Stayin\u2019 a lie: how the disco origin of \u2018Saturday Night Fever\u2019 was a con\">the Bee Gees\u2019 \u2018Jive Talking\u2019 went to number one, marking the start of their disco era<\/a>. Disco was, intentionally or not, in full swing.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps even more remarkably, this had made the Eagles the first band not considered a disco act to have achieved a crossover hit in this regard, with only Elton John before them having beaten them to the outright claim with \u2018Philadelphia Freedom\u2019 a few months prior.<\/p>\n<p>What the band had created was arguably their masterpiece to date, and while it still ostensibly sounded like they were the ones behind the song, with plenty of the same country-tinged elements, close harmonies and blues rock guitar soloing strewn everywhere, the way they\u2019d managed to combine the two disparate styles was truly groundbreaking for the time.<\/p>\n<p>Further reading: From The Vault<\/p>\n<p>While many modern country acts do still appear to want to stay in their lane and play by the strict rules of the genre, there are also many who have chosen to incorporate some of the same driving grooves in the way the Eagles did. Sturgill Simpson\u2019s Johnny Blue Skies alter ego has dipped into disco country in a similar fashion, but it\u2019s ultimately taken five decades for someone else to try and repeat the merger of country, rock and disco. <\/p>\n<p>The Eagles hadn\u2019t just fluked their way to the top; they were trendsetters, and while <a href=\"https:\/\/faroutmagazine.co.uk\/the-one-genre-that-don-henley-couldnt-stand-listening-to\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" title=\"The genre that Don Henley couldn\u2019t stand listening to: \u201cTime separates the men from the boys\u201d\">Don Henley and Glenn Frey may have been laughed off<\/a> for even suggesting they could do such a thing, they ultimately emerged as the victors in this situation.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>  <a class=\"fw\" href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=https:\/\/faroutmagazine.co.uk\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" style=\"\"> ADD AS A PREFERRED SOURCE ON GOOGLE <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"28\" height=\"28\" src=\"https:\/\/faroutmagazine.co.uk\/wp-content\/themes\/far-out-magazine\/img\/google-discover.svg\" alt=\"\"\/> <\/a>   <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Credit: Far Out \/ Asylum Records Sat 15 August 2026 22:00, UK While it\u2019s easy to place the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":478007,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[42201,193281,153217,49367,30948,27602,96,27603,128,218684,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-739314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-1970s","tag-193281","tag-country-rock","tag-disco","tag-don-henley","tag-eagles","tag-entertainment","tag-glenn-frey","tag-music","tag-soft-rock","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/739314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=739314"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/739314\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/478007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=739314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=739314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=739314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}