I must confess I'm not too much aware of the difference? 80's as in 1980's is what I'm referring to.
Perhaps it's a linguistic thing then (wherein disco is to refer to dance clubs themselves rather than a specific type of dance music), but disco music as a genre isn't a staple of the 1980's music in the US, dying out in the first two years of the decade but having been on the decline since a 1979 event at a double-header baseball game in Chicago that heralded the unofficial death of the genre stateside. It was pretty much a riot that ensued after a rock radio station DJ blew up a crate of unwanted disco records on the field between games as part of a promotion.
To this day the word disco without clarification represents (to a statesider) a generally reviled type of music that died a hideous death alongside bell-bottom pants, though I hastily point out that it spawned many later generations of pop and techno music that enjoyed continued popularity in the dance clubs. My dad was quite the fan if his old record collection is any indication.
I haven't much of an idea what the history of dance music in the UK is, but it would be no surprise to me if the genre that died out in the states lived on in the UK or that as the music evolved it kept the same genre sub-type because the word didn't carry the negative connotations it gained in the states in '79. I tend to just assume that period music in various countries is going to be different than music in the states at during the same time-frame. One of the most notable examples of which I'm aware is that 1980's dance and rock from the US was pretty much the template for the vast majority of the popular music in Japan in the mid to late 1990's, and it was a running joke among the anime and J-pop/rock nuts that I hung out with at the time that Japanese music was a decade behind (which was cool for us: we all loved 1980's music).
I really look forward to hearing some music I've probably never been exposed to.
