STACK NZ June 2015 Issue 63

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TIME TO GET
THE FEVER AGAIN
MUSIC
JUNE 2015 JB Hi-Fi
FEATURE
At 74, the pioneering producer Giorgio
Moroder should be slowing down, but in fact
he’s started again. His new album Deja-Vu
will be his first in 30 years and the renewed
interest in him was doubtless prompted by his
appearance on Daft Punk’s Random Access
Memory in 2013, which he spoke over an
archetypal Moroder piece entitled
Giorgio by Moroder.
Among the guests on the new album
are Sia (on the title track), Charli XCX, Mikky
Ekko, Kylie Minogue, Britney Spears, Kelis . . .
And on the album – in a nod to him connecting
with a young audience again – is a piece 74 is
Look through most history books on popular
music and one genre – hugely popular in its
heyday and still influential in many quarters
– gets either overlooked or diminished.There
will be plenty of space given over to punk rock,
but at the same time the charts were dominated
by music of a very different style.
Like it or not, disco was massive from the
mid- ’70s.The soundtrack to Saturday Night
Fever has sold in excess of 40 million copies,
the only double album to do so.That is big . . .
and the movie which spawned it returned
70 times its production cost.
Yet a disco act like Gloria Gaynor (who sang
the dance classics I Will Survive and Never Can
Say Goodbye, and whose debut album was the
first to put a disco mix medley on record) gets
less space in the history books than a band like
Happy Mondays.
There are reasons why disco has been mostly
ignored and was frequently derided at the time.
But, it’s uncomfortable for rock people to talk
about. Disco was a movement which came out
Graham Reid considers the enduring power of disco
of black and gay clubs so there was simmering
undercurrent of anti-black and anti-gay sentiment
prevalent, especially amongst mainstream,
white guitar-rock writers and radio people.
And disco – which was about fun and partying
on the dancefloor – appealed to women,
which further alienated those guys.
“Disco sucks” was the catch-cry and there
was a notorious 1979 burning of disco records
in a Chicago baseball stadium lead by a rock DJ.
These days, dance music has been
rehabilitated and you can hear its influence
everywhere– from Interpol, New Order and the
now defunct LCD Soundsystem – to of r’n’b, the
trickledown of house music and Daft Punk.
But there’s still something glitzy and glamorous
about the original ‘70s disco, so – assuming you
already have Saturday Night Fever and Donna
Summer’s Love to LoveYou Baby or Bad Girls
albums, produced by Giorgio Moroder – here
then are some worthwhile disco albums.
Turn up the volume, turn down the lights
and set that mirrorball spinning.
For more reviews, overviews and
interviews by Graham Reid see:
Trammps; Trammps (1975)
Their terrific soul-influenced debut was in fact
a singles colelction by this seminal Philadelphia
group. The classic string arrangements were
the blueprint for all that followed.
Sylvester; The Original Hits (1989):
Because disco was mostly about singles or
lengthy medleys, we are allowed to cheat and
go for a compilation. Oddly enough, it doesn’t
include his thrilling 10-minute Over and Over.
But this is gilt-edged disco.
Sister Sledge;WeAre Family (1979):
The title track is a disco milestone but this
also opens with He’s the Greatest Dancer.
Get the 1984 expanded edition with four
re-mixes, three of them at eight-plus minutes
to stretch to dancefloor requirements.
MFSB; Love is the Message,The Best of
MFSB (1995): They were the house band for
Sigma Sound Studio in Philly so backed the
best Philly soul stars, but also here presented
the theme to SoulTrain, instrumental covers of
Freddie’s Dead, Back Stabbers and Philadelphia
Freedom alongside their excellent Sexy,
TLC and the title track. Disco to listen to.
Silver Convention; Save Me (1975):
This German outfit were more featherweight
than their American counterparts but the
production elevates this, and though it seems
a bit same-same there are gems, not the
least Fly Robin Fly which was a major
crossover single.
OF THE BEST 5
the New 24. Italian-born Giovanni Giorgio
Moroder moved to Germany in his mid-20s
and immediately began making a name for
himself as a producer in the mid ’60s.
With lyricist Pete Bellotte, he began working
almost exclusively with synthesisers which
– in the hands of people like Donna Summer –
established not just his own reputation
and hers, but the genre which became disco.
Moroder was also the producer of Sparks’
glorious Number One Song in Heaven, Blondie’s
Call Me, Irene Cara’sWhat a Feeling (the theme to
Flashdance) and a number of soundtracks, most
notably those for Midnight Express and Scarface.
He’s been sampled, honoured, cited as a major
influence and has his name on more hits than you
might imagine. He even did an eight minute remix
of Coldplay’s Midnight.
He never really went away, but he’s
also back. And that album title Deja-Vu is
tongue-in-cheek. Because he certainly
must feel that these days.
THE GENIUS THAT IS
GIORGIO