The song that officially put Disco on the map, much to people’s enjoyment or chagrin, “Love’s Theme” by Love Unlimited Orchestra showed that Disco music was here to stay, well for the next several years anyways. The Love Unlimited Orchestra served as the backing music for composer/singer Barry White and female vocal trio Love Unlimited. This song charted and then some.
It reached number one on this day(February 9th) in 1974, it was also the #3 song for the year 1974. The song was used the following year by ABC Sports for its golf coverage. Contemporary pop singer Andy Williams released a vocal version of “Love’s Theme” that would hit #16 on the adult contemporary charts, and it is widely classified as the blueprint and the architect for the arrangement of disco music for it’s orchestration, wah-wah guitars and its massive rhythms. The song even reached placement in Hong Kong for Cathay Pacific Airways, and was featured in the movies “Mean Girls”, “Despicable Me 2”, “Goodbye Bruce Lee: His Last Game of Death” and “The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water”.
The song is incredibly whimsical and catchy. For those that got into disco music, just look to this song as the pioneer for disco. The strings are incredible and the rhythms are undeniable. It also made me realize that Barry White was more than a deep voice, he was an incredible composer as well. I definitely need to dive in deep into Barry White’s catalog.
