The 1970s File Feature
This Is It
This Is It — Dan Hartman In the early weeks of 1979, disco was at its commercial zenith and about to begin its precipitous fall from grace. The Bee Gees had …
01 The Story
This Is It — Dan Hartman
In the early weeks of 1979, disco was at its commercial zenith and about to begin its precipitous fall from grace. The Bee Gees had dominated 1978 as thoroughly as any act in the history of the pop chart, and the dancefloor remained the commercial gravitational center of American pop. Into this environment came Dan Hartman with This Is It, a single that debuted on the Hot 100 on February 24, 1979, and spent three weeks on the chart, reaching its peak of number 91 before exiting. Modest numbers for a record that appeared at the height of disco's commercial power, but a real entry for a musician whose contribution to the era's sound ran considerably deeper than his own chart history might suggest.
Dan Hartman: Writer, Producer, Performer
Dan Hartman was, by 1979, more established as a behind-the-scenes contributor to the Edgar Winter Group (most famously as a member of that band in the early-to-mid 1970s) than as a solo chart presence. His bass playing and songwriting had been central to Winter's commercial success, and that experience gave him a thorough grounding in rock-based production and arrangement. When he turned his attention to the disco sound that was dominating the commercial landscape in the late 1970s, he applied those skills with considerable craft. His most commercially significant work in this period was on the production and writing side rather than in his own recordings, but the solo releases documented his engagement with the genre as a performer.
The Sound of "This Is It"
The record inhabited the high-end disco production style that characterized the best commercial releases of the period: a strong four-on-the-floor rhythm foundation, prominent bass, layered keyboard textures, and a production approach that prioritized the dancefloor. Hartman's rock background inflected the arrangement with a slightly harder edge than the most polished disco productions of the era, giving the track a specific character within the genre while remaining firmly on the commercial side of the stylistic boundary. The production quality reflected his studio experience as both a musician and an increasingly active producer in the late-1970s New York recording world.
The Chart Run
This Is It debuted at number 93 on February 24, 1979, moved to its peak of number 91 during the week of March 3, 1979, then slipped to 99 and exited. Three weeks total. The chart arc documents a record that generated initial commercial activity without sustaining the momentum needed for an extended run. In the crowded disco market of early 1979, breaking through the noise required either extraordinary production, a recognizable artist name, or a promotional investment that not all releases received.
The Disco Market at Its Peak
By February 1979, the Hot 100 disco competition was formidable. Chic, Gloria Gaynor, Village People, Earth Wind and Fire, and numerous other acts were commanding significant radio and retail attention. An independently positioned artist without a major label's full promotional apparatus behind a release faced structural challenges that the quality of the music alone could not overcome. Hartman's three-week chart presence in this environment represents a genuine commercial showing, even if the peak position fell well below the upper reaches of the chart.
The Disco Backlash and What Came After
The commercial collapse of disco following the infamous Disco Demolition Night in July 1979, which occurred just months after This Is It exited the chart, dramatically reshaped the commercial landscape that Hartman and his contemporaries had been operating in. Many artists whose careers had been built around the genre found themselves in need of rapid repositioning as the format's radio and retail support evaporated almost overnight. Hartman managed this transition more successfully than most, eventually scoring significant solo success in the mid-1980s with "I Can Dream About You," a number one hit in 1984. That later success demonstrated the resilience and adaptability of a musician who had always been more than any single genre could contain.
A Footnote with a Sequel
The three-week Hot 100 appearance of This Is It in early 1979 looks different when you know what came after. The career that would eventually produce a number one record was still developing its commercial identity in these years, and the modest disco chart entry is part of that developmental arc. Hartman was learning the commercial recording landscape from the inside, and the experience of making and releasing records in the late-1970s environment shaped the production instincts that would serve him well in the decade that followed. Some careers are linear and some are circuitous, and Hartman's was the latter kind, building slowly toward a commercial breakthrough that arrived several years after this initial chart appearance.
Spin it and let the bass find the floor.
"This Is It" — Dan Hartman's singular moment on the 1970s charts.
02 Song Meaning
The Declaration of the Moment: What "This Is It" Says
Three words in the title, and they carry a specific grammatical and emotional weight. "This is it" is an assertion of presence, of arrival, of the current moment as the culmination of something or the beginning of something else. In the disco context of 1979, the phrase was most naturally read as a declaration of dancefloor intensity: this moment, this music, this room, right now is the thing itself, not a rehearsal or an approximation.
The Philosophy of the Dancefloor
Disco at its philosophical core was a music of presence, of radical insistence on the now. The dancefloor demanded full physical and emotional engagement with the current moment, which was partly why it functioned as such an effective space of liberation for its most devoted communities. To say "this is it" in that context was to affirm the dancefloor as a complete world, sufficient in itself, requiring no justification by reference to anything outside its own boundaries. The phrase carried the weight of a small manifesto about what mattered and what was worth full investment.
Music as Complete Experience
The declaration embedded in the title suggests a relationship to music as experience rather than as product or entertainment. When something is "it," it is not a means to an end but an end in itself, the destination rather than the road. Disco made this argument structurally, through its repetitive rhythm structures and its long track lengths designed for sustained dancefloor engagement, and a song that made the argument explicitly in its title was doing what the best disco always did: aligning the lyrical content with the form's inherent claim about what music was for.
The New York Scene's Energy
In 1979, the New York recording and club scene that had generated disco's most interesting and commercially powerful material was at a specific moment of creative intensity. The clubs that had developed the genre's aesthetic, its production conventions, its audience expectations, were operating at their peak influence. Records made in this environment carried the energy of that scene, a sense of creative people working at the height of their ambition in a milieu that rewarded excellence and punished the merely competent. Hartman's record belonged to this world, whatever its modest chart showing.
The Transience of It
There is an inherent melancholy in declaring that "this is it," because the phrase acknowledges that the moment has an end. If this is the thing itself, then when this moment passes, so does the thing. Disco's energy has always had this quality of intense transience, of pleasure that is inseparable from the awareness that it will not last. The best disco records gave that transience a beauty rather than a regret, celebrating the moment precisely because it was momentary, finding in impermanence not a reason for sadness but a reason to be entirely present while it was happening.
Dan Hartman's Artistic Claim
For Dan Hartman, the modest commercial performance of this early solo release was not the final statement about his artistic capabilities. The resilience he showed in adapting to the post-disco landscape, eventually finding significant commercial success in the mid-1980s, suggests a musician whose investment in the music went beyond the immediate commercial returns. The declaration "this is it" applies equally well to the career arc: each release, whatever its chart position, was its own assertion of the artist's presence and intention, the ongoing claim that the music was worth making and worth hearing on its own terms.
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