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From Wondery, I'm Lindsay Graham and this is American Scandal.

In the summer of 1979, disco rained supreme in America.

Artists like Donna Summer and Anita Ward took the top spots and billboards hot 100 charts.

And disco had a profound influence across a range of musical acts.

The genre sound was everywhere in the music of Barbara Streisand and the Rolling Stones, even KISS to name just a few.

Disco sold countless records and was a dominant force in the music industry.

But despite its popularity, disco faced a backlash.

It was a response in part to the culturally diverse audience who made up disco's fanbase, including Black, Latinx, and LGBTQ people.

And it was a backlash that came to a head one night in July of 1979 at a Major League Baseball game.

It was an event that became known as disco demolition night.

At the time, a man named Steve Dahl was a rock DJ in Chicago.

But he'd been fired from his job at WDAI, a radio station that was switching its format from rock to disco and playing hits like Gloria Gainer's I Will Survive.

But Dahl would not go quietly.

He took to the airwaves at a competing station called the Loop and began scratching disco records on air.

He'd followed that by an explosion sound effect.

Dahl took the fight off the air, too, and started hosting what he called death to disco rallies where he destroyed records at nightclubs.

Dahl's contempt for disco wasn't just about losing his job, though.

He raged against the whole culture of disco and the look of men with quaffed hair and fitted jumpsuits who loved to dance.

Dahl maintained that disco demeaned the ordinary life that kids inhabited in favor of Manhattan glitz.

So Dahl has to plan. He partnered with a promotion manager from the White Sox baseball team.

And together they planned an anti-disco rally, which would take place in between back-to-back baseball games.

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