Disco
You didn’t have to like disco to like Chic, who always claimed to be a rock band for the disco generation. And you didn’t have to like Le Freak to find yourself singing along.
Has there ever been a more perfect match of a song to the opening scene of a movie? It’s impossible to think of Saturday Night Fever without the bouncy rhythm of Stayin’ Alive coming into your head.
The first time I came across Grace Jones was in 1977 with her radical disco-meets-bossa nova take on Edith Piaf’s signature song La Vie En Rose.
Say what you like about Boney M, they were an entertaining fixture in the singles chart all through the second half of the Seventies.
Like most music fans, I first set eyes on Amanda Lear in 1973 as the coquettish vamp on the cover of Roxy Music’s second album, For Your Pleasure, sheathed in black leather with a black panther on a leash.
This was a kind of guilty pleasure during my disco-hating days as a punk. It came out in 1978 and I probably noticed it because of Alicia Keys’s provocatively punky hairstyle – somewhere between Bowie and Billy Idol.
When it comes to the best disco song of all time, I Feel Love is surely in a class of its own. But if we exclude Moroder’s masterpiece, then Evelyn ‘Champagne’ King’s song Shame is well worth a shout.
Following my accidental discovery that Lene Lovich wrote the lyrics, here is French disco artist Cerrone’s electronic opus Supernature.
Everyone knows them best for Boogie Nights but the Heatwave single I have in my collection is the 12-inch version of this sultry slow jam from 1978. (more…)