46 Years Ago, Gloria Gaynor's 'I Will Survive' Made Grammy History as Disco's Only Winner

Andrea ReiherSat, February 28, 2026 at 2:52 AM UTC

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(kpa/United Archives via Getty Images)

Forty-six years ago today, Feb. 27, 1980, a disco anthem made Grammy history — and helped close the book on the genre’s brief reign at the awards show.

At the 22nd Annual Grammy Awards, Gloria Gaynor’s 1978 smash “I Will Survive” won Best Disco Recording—a category introduced that year and eliminated the very next, so it remains the first and only Grammy ever awarded specifically for disco.

The timing was almost surreal.

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By 1980, disco had already dominated radio, dance floors and pop charts for years. “I Will Survive” had topped the Billboard Hot 100 in March 1979, spending three non-consecutive weeks at No. 1 and eventually selling more than 15 million copies worldwide. Originally released as the B-side to “Substitute,” the song became a hit only after club DJs flipped the record and started spinning it instead.

Written by Freddie Perren and Dino Fekaris, the lyrics captured defiance and resilience—themes that resonated far beyond the dance floor. The track quickly became a cultural touchstone and an enduring LGBTQ+ anthem.

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But even as the Recording Academy formally recognized disco in 1980, backlash against the genre was already boiling over. The infamous “Disco Demolition Night” in Chicago the previous summer had turned chaotic. Rock acts were being marketed as antidotes to glitter and four-on-the-floor beats. Record executives were beginning to question disco’s commercial staying power.

Within a year, the Grammy category disappeared.

The song survived. The award did not.

More than four decades later, “I Will Survive” remains one of the most recognizable dance songs ever recorded—it was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2012 and preserved in the National Recording Registry in 2016, and in the 2024 update, Rolling Stone placed "I Will Survive" at No. 251 on its 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

The disco Grammy? That survived exactly one night.

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”