York art/music scene. The release of The Velvet Underground & Nico in 1967, featuring singer-songerwriter Lou Reed and German singer and collaborator Nico was described as "most prophetic rock album ever made" by Rolling Stone in 2003. Other New York based singer songerwriters began to emerge, using the urban landscape as their canvass, a backdrop for lyrics in the confessional style of poets like Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath. In July 1969, Newsweek magazine ran a feature story, "The Girls-Letting Go," describing the groundbreaking music of Joni Mitchell, Laura Nyro, Lotti Golden and Melanie, as a new breed of female troubadour: "what is common to them are the personalized songs they write, like voyages of self discovery, brimming with keen observation and startling in the impact of their poetry." The work of these early New York based singer-songwriters, from Laura Nyro's New York Tendaberry (1969), to Lotti Golden's East Village diaries on Motor-Cycle her 1969 debut on Atlantic Records, has served as inspiration to generations of female singer-songwriters in the rock, folk and jazz traditions. i Disco music developed from the funk, soul and jazz of the 1960s, becoming a distinct genre of music, eschewing the raw sound of a four piece garage band and embracing a new technology that employed driving synthesizers with booming a bass drum that defined the disco sound with a steady quarter note beat, or Four on the floor (music). It was not unusual for producers to contract local symphony and philharmonic orchestras as well as session musicians to further refine the sound. Disco, a musical idiom that was strongly associated with minorities (primarily black and gay audiences), became a phenomenon in dance clubs and discothèques in the 1970s. Many of the major disco nightclubs were in New York, including Paradise Garage, Danceteria and Studio 54, attracting notable followers from the art world, such as Andy Warhol, the fashion industry like Karl Lagerfeld, as well as socialites, musicians and intellectuals. This tradition continued in the 1980s with Area, Danceteria, and Limelight. In the 1970s, punk rock emerged in New York's downtown music scene with seminal bands such as the New York Dolls, Ramones and Patti Smith. Anthrax and KISS were the best known heavy metal and glam rock performers from the city. The downtown scene developed into the "new wave" style of rock music at downtown clubs like CBGB's. The 1970s were also when the