08/02/2018
IT'S SO GOOD, IT'S SO GOOD, IT'S SO GOOD, IT'S SOOO GOOD!
I was 11 years old in the summer of 1977. It was a boggy summer. Nothing but rain, political upheaval and change. Everywhere change.
Musically the latter was especially true. Punk had it's sights firmly set on destroying the establishment - short, angry bursts of anarchy taking a broadside at everything from the waning disco scene to the rock and prog rock royalty. Me, I loved it. All of it. That is probably why, all these years on, I am still motivated to write about it.
What I couldn't understand was why all these wonderful musical variants were taking swipes at each other. Why couldn't they all exist side-by-side? One thing became apparent, though, they were all going to change and merge and bastardize each other. Modern music was about, not for the first time, to swerve into new territory and a major factor in that swerve and the general chaos was a 7" single released in July 1977 by disco diva Donna Summer. Well, Donna was credited with it but there was a man in the background that probably deserved the lions share of the credit.
You have to understand that, in 1977, you didn't hear a song until it was released. You couldn't just "Spotify" it at will and it was purely by chance that I heard this in Woolworth's in Leicester. Ambling around aimlessly looking for something to blow my pocket money on my ears were hit with a bolt from the blue. A cranky, revolving and pounding sequencer driven exocet, the like of which I had never heard. It was true that I had a fairly good ear, even at 11, but not even early Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream could have prepared me for it. It sounded utterly magnificent. It was the future. It was the song that saved disco and changed the face of dance music and every other form of popular music in a five and a half minute ear crashing. "I Feel Love".
It laid the foundation for indie to collide with dance, for New Order to dare to release "Blue Monday" and for the Human League to, well, Dare.
I played the song countless times that summer. I still play it today. I completely love it and thought that it couldn't get any better. Until Patrick Cowley got hold of it and stretched it, overlay it with aggressive hoover sounds and lawn mowers and God only knows what else until it became a 15 minute slice of sublime vinyl listening. The original Cowley 12" now regularly fetches a vast sum of money in good condition and it is worth every penny.
One last little anecdote related to this song: about 17 years ago I had put it on the turntable to give it a spin and was unaware that my 1 and a half year old son was obviously listening to it wearing nothing but his nappy in the front room. When I noticed it was about 1 and a half minutes through. I alerted my wife and we watched in awe and silence as the boy whirled and danced around the room in some sort of toddler studio 54 moment. He genuinely didn't stop dancing like a mad thing for the entire 15 minutes. It was a special moment that I'll never forget.
Donna Summer provided me with some very special moments down the years and I was genuinely saddened when she died in 2012 although her most productive years were very much behind her. Her career took a major nosedive when she made some horrible AIDs comments, alienating her huge gay following with stunningly efficient effect.
Giorgio Moroder was the man behind the noises. Resolutely dance based he resisted any pressure to change. I recall hearing Richard Barbieri (ex-Japan) explaining how he had produced/mixed a Japan single (European Son?) and they had all basically stood aside as he did whatever he wanted to do with it. Everything he touched was good and still is. He is truly an innovator and it is sad how little you hear of him.
I'll pick up on this at a later date but, in the meantime, plunder his work and other collaborations with Donna Summer and others. They all sound great on vinyl, are usually easily available (FROM US)! And, finally, sorry about the anecdote, Liam! How that nappy stayed on I will never know.
