Covered: Giorgio Moroder, Volume 1: 1972-1982

I've been posting a lot of Motown songwriters recently as part of my Covered series. I have more of those to go, but to vary things up a bit I thought I'd post something quite different first, to hint at just how far I plan on taking this series. I have two albums of songs written or co-written by Giorgio Moroder.

I could try to describe him and his music, but I think the introduction to his Wikipedia entry does a better job. It states that Moroder "is an Italian composer and music producer. Dubbed the 'Father of Disco,' Moroder is credited with pioneering Euro disco and electronic dance music. His work with synthesizers had a significant influence on several music genres such as hi-NRG, Italo disco, synth-pop, new wave, house, and techno music."

Moroder grew up speaking both German and Italian. He had his first written hit with a song in Germany in the German language in 1967, when he was about 25 years old. He had an even bigger hit under his own name in 1968 with the song "Looky Looky," which sold over a million copies in Europe. I'm not including it here because I don't think it's a very good song, being kind of a Beach Boys rip-off. However, he was on his way with a successful music career. In the early 1970s, he got very interested in synthesizers, which were new at the time, including the Moog. Synthesizers became key to his sound from that point on, both as a very successful producer and very successful songwriter. Typically, he came up with music, arrangments, and melodies, and co-writers would supply the words.

His song "Son of My Father" was a Number One hit in Britain in 1972, although it didn't chart in the U.S. at all. But his really big breakthroughs were "Love to Love You Baby" in 1975 and "I Feel Love" in 1977, both sung by Donna Summer. They were extremely influential for dance music of all kinds. In fact, Rolling Stone Magazine has put both songs on versions of their too 500 greatest songs of all time list. (I don't have "I Feel Love" here because I've used a different version of the song in Volume Two.)

Time Out Magazine wrote a good review of "I Feel Love" in 2015 that shows how influential it was. "Sometimes a song comes along that’s so innovative that it changes the shape of the musical landscape for decades, whilst also getting you to shake yo bootay. This timeless, Giorgio Moroder–produced disco anthem from 1977 did exactly that, becoming the first purely electronic jam to make it big and pretty much inventing dance music in the process."

During the time period of this volume, Moroder had his best success producing and co-writing songs for Donna Summer. There are even more Summer songs I could have included here, but I didn't want to turn this into kind of a Donna Summer best of. But he also had success with others. For instance, "Call Me" by Blondie, which he both co-wrote and produced, was a Number One hit in both the U.S. and Britain in 1980.

In addition to producing and writing songs for others, Moroder put out many albums under his own name, usually mostly instrumental in nature. The 1978 song "Chase," included here, was one of his biggest instrumental hits. His synth-based instrumental music was great for setting moods in movies, so he was involved in many movie soundtracks. "Chase," for instance, was part of his score for the movie "Midnight Express." He won both the Academy Award and Golden Globe for best score for that one.

Speaking of scores, he co-wrote the song "Cat People (Putting Out Fire)" with David Bowie for the 1982 movie "Cat People." I've included the 1982 movie soundtrack version. It's significantly different than the version Bowie released on his 1983 hit album "Let's Dance," being slower and longer. I included this version because I figure it's less well known than the other one. Plus, it has more of a Moroder influence, since he did all the music for it and Bowie only sang the vocals on top when the music was done. 

Interestingly, even though Moroder is known as the "father of disco," and looks like a stereotypical disco party guy in his 1970s photos, apparently he totally avoided the disco lifestyle, including cocaine. He claims he never even went to a party where people were dancing to his music until the 2010s! It seems he preferred to spend most of his waking hours producing and recording in music studios instead.

Here's the Wikipedia entry about him:

Giorgio Moroder - Wikipedia

This album is 52 minutes long.

01 Son of My Father (Chicory Tip)
02 What's Your Name (Chicory Tip)
03 Love to Love You Baby (Donna Summer)
04 I Love You (Donna Summer)
05 Theme from Midnight Express (Chris Bennett & Giorgio Moroder)
06 Givin' Up, Givin' In (Three Degrees)
07 Chase (Giorgio Moroder)
08 Heaven Knows (Donna Summer)
09 The Number One Song in Heaven (Sparks)
10 On the Radio (Donna Summer)
11 Call Me (Blondie)
12 The Wanderer (Donna Summer)
13 Cat People [Putting Out Fire] [Soundtrack Version] (David Bowie)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17327898/COVRDGIGRIOMRDR1972-1982Vlume1_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/1rykELhe

 The cover photo is from 1981. I don't know more details than that.