1974 Disco Anthem Was a Total Flop Before It Made History as a No. 1 Hit
It could be said that disco is perhaps the most cheerful, upbeat genre of pop music in history. (Can you even think of a sad disco song?) Considering disco's roots are in underground dance clubs, it makes sense that pretty much every hit tune is designed to make listeners get up and boogie. But what was the first disco song to top the charts?
That depends on who you ask, but many music fans and historians believe it was "Rock the Boat" by The Hues Corporation. Released in early 1974 as the third single from the group's debut album, Freedom for the Stallion, the song wasn't a huge success...at first.
As Stereogum reported, "Rock the Boat" was popular in the NYC club scene months before the rest of the country caught on, finally sending it to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 on July 6, 1974, where it stayed for one week.
Even though it helped to usher in the whole disco movement, some think "Rock the Boat" sounds more like pop than disco. In an interview with Classic Bands, singer St. Clair Lee addressed the issue of the track's true identity.
"It was a song that you could do anything on," he said. "You could cuddle or you could get crazy if you wanted to. It was a love song without being a love song. But, it was a disco hit and it happened because of the discos."
"When we first came out, we had a song called 'Freedom for the Stallion,'" Lee continued. "If you could get a copy of that and listen to that song, you would see that the group had a classic going there. Nobody knew The Hues Corporation. 'Freedom for the Stallion' was the most beautiful song. The Black stations wouldn't play it because they said we were too white. I'm serious when I say this. The white stations wouldn't play it because they said they didn't understand what we were talking about. They said no, we're gonna go out with 'Miracle Maker.' Then all of a sudden, 'Rock the Boat' took off."
'Rock the Boat' was The Hues Corporation's only #1 hit
Unfortunately, "Rock the Boat" was The Hues Corporation's last #1 hit, though a second song, "Rockin' Soul," broke the top 20 in 1974, landing at #18.
"The record company said 'you got to come up with something similar,'" Lee recalled.
"We didn't want to come up with something similar to 'Rock the Boat.' They didn't understand where we were coming from," he said. "They didn't understand what we were about. Then, we got into a fight with the record company, which was a shame and I don't put them down. Then we had another song after that called 'I Caught Your Act.' It goes on the chart. It goes in Billboard and all of a sudden...and this was on another record company, they killed it because they wanted to push somebody else. Why would they do that? Figure it out. It's politics. Politics is like music. I tell young kids coming up today, 'hey, you want to get into this business, you better be ready to starve.'"
All these years later, at least "Rock the Boat" is still getting plenty of airplay.
Copyright 2026 The Arena Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved
This story was originally published April 27, 2026 at 7:44 PM.