I’m counting down my 100 favourite songs of all time. To keep this from becoming a Bob Dylan / Tom Waits love-in, only one track per artist is allowed.
Go to 82: Bump by Spank Rock
Go to 84: All My Friends by LCD Soundsystem
By the summer of 1977, The Clash had released White Riot, The Sex Pistols had shocked the nation with God Save the Queen and punk was a legitimate music and cultural force in the UK. Yet that July, a shimmering, sequined electronic disco song called I Feel Love hit number one in the charts and would go on to have a much greater influence on the future of music than the ragged knitwear stylings of punk.
Not that Donna Summer had any interest in the future. She had just made an album called I Remember Yesterday, which merged disco with music from the past. When her producer, Giorgio Moroder, played her a demo of a song created on synthesizers she said, "What the hell is this, Giorgio?" and claims she only "finished it sort of as a joke".
Summer hadn’t even been that interested in disco. Recalling his own first foray into the sound of the 70s when he produced Love to Love You Baby—a disco Je t'aime—for the singer, Moroder said: "Donna originally didn't want to do dance music at all. Ballads and musical numbers were more her style."
Even after the futuristic, machine-gened I Feel Love became a hit, Summer seemed to distance herself from the song. She followed it up with a concept album based around the Cinderella story, exchanging heady sensuality for a bland fairytale, while moving decisively away from electronic music. A year later, she was performing I Feel Love as a gospel standard.
Donna Summer may not have cared about the future but Giorgio Moroder did. He wanted to close the I Remember Yesterday nostalgia-fest with a song that looked forward. Having just seen Star Wars, he decided that the band in the cantina scene completely failed to represent the music of the future. For that, Moroder would need electronics.
The story of I Feel Love could be seen as less about art and more about technology. And like any good story about technical innovation, the myth highlights a lone genius inventing the future, even if the reality was much more collaborative.
Moroder was first introduced to the Moog synthesizer in 1972 by Eberhard Schoener. Being a serious progressive classical composer, Schoener limited his use of the instrument to changing a bass note every 30 seconds, which Moroder the club performer found boring. Fortunately, so too did Schoener’s engineer Robbie Wedel and, when the composer packed it in for the day, Wedel showed Moroder the true potential of Moog’s magnificent machine.
Moroder went on to write a song using the Moog—Son of my Father—which became a number one hit for UK band, Chicory Tip. But Schoener was unhappy with his machine being used to create pop music and cut off Moroder's access, so despite this success, the Italian abandoned the synth.
Moroder's initial interest in disco was similarly reliant on collaborators. During rehearsals for one of Summer's pop tracks, session drummer Keith Forsey played a four-on-the-floor beat along with the "pea soup" hi-hat from the 1974 hit, Rock the Boat, inspiring Moroder to turn Love to Love You Baby into a disco track. However, Forsey wasn't available for recording, so another drummer, Martin Harrison, was drafted. But Harrison's timing wasn't great, so Moroder and co-producer Pete Bellotte added a drum machine to help keep the beat, which would soon prove significant.
Enter Neil Bogart, owner of Casablanca Records and a living caricature of everything you’d imagine a 1970s music industry mogul to be. Bogart first heard Love to Love You Baby in the middle of a coke-fuelled orgy, whose eager participants enjoyed the track so much, they called for it to be played over and over again. This gave Bogart the idea that the song should take up the whole side of a record, presumably so he wouldn't have to interrupt his compound coitus so often.
After acquiring the rights to distribute Summer’s records in the US, Bogart contacted Moroder to explain his idea for an extended remix. Fortunately, the drum machine track—only added because the real drummer wasn’t that good—made the task relatively simple and Moroder and Bellotte turned around a new 16-minute mix in a week.
Bogart’s orgy-fuelled instincts proved correct and the extended version of Love to Love You Baby became a hit in the US. He would have a similar impact on the final mix of I Feel Love. After finishing that track, though pleased with their work, Bellotte admitted “it didn't feel at all revolutionary”, while Moroder simply thought it was a good sound. Bogart's first listen (possibly during another orgy) led him to suggest three edits, which, according to Bellotte, "immediately improved the fluidity of the track. He was that kind of a record man."
Other key contributors include Rob Wedel—the guy who showed Moroder the real potential of a Moog—who came up with a technique that even Bob Moog didn't know about, which helped keep the synthesized bass line in sync with the track. Another engineer, Jurgen Koppels, added an echo to the bass line which took the song to a whole other level. "That was the key moment," according to Moroder. "Thank God for that guy."
When faced with the finished song, few people in the music industry seemed to know quite what they had on their hands. One of Summer’s international distributers only released it as a B-side, while some critics were appalled by the "dehumanizing" electronics and claimed Moroder was more of factory worker than a musician.
Brian Eno got it. Holed up in Berlin with David Bowie, Eno told the singer that he'd just heard the sound of the future. And crucially, the public got it and instantly assimilated the song’s unfamiliar electronics and pulsing beats, making it an international hit.
A great way to appreciate what those people would have experienced upon first hearing I Feel Love is to listen to the entire I Remember Yesterday album. The record’s lush orchestration and wholesale appropriation of the past does little to prepare you for what happens when the plodding drums and cheesy sax of Can We Just Sit Down (And Talk It Over) are gone.
First there is the slow fade in of synths then a 4/4 beat comes in. With little or no build, polyrythmns are layered on giving the song an immediate kick. The synths float, the progressive bass line chugs furiously and Summer’s pitch perfect high register sings, “Oooh, it’s so good, it’s so good, it’s so good, it’s so good, it’s soooo good.”
By 1:45 you’ve essentially heard everything the song has to offer but the repetition is entrancing. There are subtle key changes, intricate additions to the rhythms and a captivating fade-out that lulls you into thinking the song is ending, before a whiplash beat comes in to lift it to even greater heights. It’s the template for every great dance track and its influence runs deep.
Chic’s Nile Rodgers was playing jazz fusion and admitted he wasn’t interested in making people dance until he heard I Feel Love. Marc Almond believes the song “changed the face of music”. And of course, there’s Daft Punk, whose machine music is like a contemporary take on Moroder’s sensibilities and who paid tribute to the man on their hugely successful album, Random Access Memories.
But just as all these artists are keen to acknowledge this building block of their own music, so we shouldn't forget the people who helped Moroder create the sound of the future: Pete Bellotte, Robbie Wedel, Neil Bogart, Jurgen Koppels, Keith Forsey and, of course, Donna Summer.
The singer may have been been a reluctant innovator who thought I Feel Love was a joke. She may have found the song’s sensuality problematic and resented the Lady of Love image it helped promote. But—as you might expect from the woman who, according to TIME, performed 22 orgasms on Love to Love You Baby—she sure could fake it.
And this is the real triumph of I Feel Love. Though this story is driven by men and their machines, at its heart is one woman’s artistry. It is Summer who turns invention into innovation and elevates the song from an interesting experiment into an influential experience. Moroder and co’s techniques, tricks and technology have been repeated endlessly, but Donna Summer’s ability to feel love (even if it’s not really there) ensures I Feel Love remains an enduring classic.
Follow me on Twitter
If you like this, try:
Love to Love You Baby
On the Radio
Chase - Giorgio Moroder
Giorgio by Moroder - Daft Punk
Go to 82: Bump by Spank Rock
Go to 84: All My Friends by LCD Soundsystem
Go to 82: Bump by Spank Rock
Go to 84: All My Friends by LCD Soundsystem
By the summer of 1977, The Clash had released White Riot, The Sex Pistols had shocked the nation with God Save the Queen and punk was a legitimate music and cultural force in the UK. Yet that July, a shimmering, sequined electronic disco song called I Feel Love hit number one in the charts and would go on to have a much greater influence on the future of music than the ragged knitwear stylings of punk.
Not that Donna Summer had any interest in the future. She had just made an album called I Remember Yesterday, which merged disco with music from the past. When her producer, Giorgio Moroder, played her a demo of a song created on synthesizers she said, "What the hell is this, Giorgio?" and claims she only "finished it sort of as a joke".
Summer hadn’t even been that interested in disco. Recalling his own first foray into the sound of the 70s when he produced Love to Love You Baby—a disco Je t'aime—for the singer, Moroder said: "Donna originally didn't want to do dance music at all. Ballads and musical numbers were more her style."
Even after the futuristic, machine-gened I Feel Love became a hit, Summer seemed to distance herself from the song. She followed it up with a concept album based around the Cinderella story, exchanging heady sensuality for a bland fairytale, while moving decisively away from electronic music. A year later, she was performing I Feel Love as a gospel standard.
Donna Summer may not have cared about the future but Giorgio Moroder did. He wanted to close the I Remember Yesterday nostalgia-fest with a song that looked forward. Having just seen Star Wars, he decided that the band in the cantina scene completely failed to represent the music of the future. For that, Moroder would need electronics.
The story of I Feel Love could be seen as less about art and more about technology. And like any good story about technical innovation, the myth highlights a lone genius inventing the future, even if the reality was much more collaborative.
Moroder was first introduced to the Moog synthesizer in 1972 by Eberhard Schoener. Being a serious progressive classical composer, Schoener limited his use of the instrument to changing a bass note every 30 seconds, which Moroder the club performer found boring. Fortunately, so too did Schoener’s engineer Robbie Wedel and, when the composer packed it in for the day, Wedel showed Moroder the true potential of Moog’s magnificent machine.
Moroder went on to write a song using the Moog—Son of my Father—which became a number one hit for UK band, Chicory Tip. But Schoener was unhappy with his machine being used to create pop music and cut off Moroder's access, so despite this success, the Italian abandoned the synth.
Moroder's initial interest in disco was similarly reliant on collaborators. During rehearsals for one of Summer's pop tracks, session drummer Keith Forsey played a four-on-the-floor beat along with the "pea soup" hi-hat from the 1974 hit, Rock the Boat, inspiring Moroder to turn Love to Love You Baby into a disco track. However, Forsey wasn't available for recording, so another drummer, Martin Harrison, was drafted. But Harrison's timing wasn't great, so Moroder and co-producer Pete Bellotte added a drum machine to help keep the beat, which would soon prove significant.
Enter Neil Bogart, owner of Casablanca Records and a living caricature of everything you’d imagine a 1970s music industry mogul to be. Bogart first heard Love to Love You Baby in the middle of a coke-fuelled orgy, whose eager participants enjoyed the track so much, they called for it to be played over and over again. This gave Bogart the idea that the song should take up the whole side of a record, presumably so he wouldn't have to interrupt his compound coitus so often.
After acquiring the rights to distribute Summer’s records in the US, Bogart contacted Moroder to explain his idea for an extended remix. Fortunately, the drum machine track—only added because the real drummer wasn’t that good—made the task relatively simple and Moroder and Bellotte turned around a new 16-minute mix in a week.
Bogart’s orgy-fuelled instincts proved correct and the extended version of Love to Love You Baby became a hit in the US. He would have a similar impact on the final mix of I Feel Love. After finishing that track, though pleased with their work, Bellotte admitted “it didn't feel at all revolutionary”, while Moroder simply thought it was a good sound. Bogart's first listen (possibly during another orgy) led him to suggest three edits, which, according to Bellotte, "immediately improved the fluidity of the track. He was that kind of a record man."
Other key contributors include Rob Wedel—the guy who showed Moroder the real potential of a Moog—who came up with a technique that even Bob Moog didn't know about, which helped keep the synthesized bass line in sync with the track. Another engineer, Jurgen Koppels, added an echo to the bass line which took the song to a whole other level. "That was the key moment," according to Moroder. "Thank God for that guy."
When faced with the finished song, few people in the music industry seemed to know quite what they had on their hands. One of Summer’s international distributers only released it as a B-side, while some critics were appalled by the "dehumanizing" electronics and claimed Moroder was more of factory worker than a musician.
Brian Eno got it. Holed up in Berlin with David Bowie, Eno told the singer that he'd just heard the sound of the future. And crucially, the public got it and instantly assimilated the song’s unfamiliar electronics and pulsing beats, making it an international hit.
A great way to appreciate what those people would have experienced upon first hearing I Feel Love is to listen to the entire I Remember Yesterday album. The record’s lush orchestration and wholesale appropriation of the past does little to prepare you for what happens when the plodding drums and cheesy sax of Can We Just Sit Down (And Talk It Over) are gone.
First there is the slow fade in of synths then a 4/4 beat comes in. With little or no build, polyrythmns are layered on giving the song an immediate kick. The synths float, the progressive bass line chugs furiously and Summer’s pitch perfect high register sings, “Oooh, it’s so good, it’s so good, it’s so good, it’s so good, it’s soooo good.”
By 1:45 you’ve essentially heard everything the song has to offer but the repetition is entrancing. There are subtle key changes, intricate additions to the rhythms and a captivating fade-out that lulls you into thinking the song is ending, before a whiplash beat comes in to lift it to even greater heights. It’s the template for every great dance track and its influence runs deep.
Chic’s Nile Rodgers was playing jazz fusion and admitted he wasn’t interested in making people dance until he heard I Feel Love. Marc Almond believes the song “changed the face of music”. And of course, there’s Daft Punk, whose machine music is like a contemporary take on Moroder’s sensibilities and who paid tribute to the man on their hugely successful album, Random Access Memories.
But just as all these artists are keen to acknowledge this building block of their own music, so we shouldn't forget the people who helped Moroder create the sound of the future: Pete Bellotte, Robbie Wedel, Neil Bogart, Jurgen Koppels, Keith Forsey and, of course, Donna Summer.
The singer may have been been a reluctant innovator who thought I Feel Love was a joke. She may have found the song’s sensuality problematic and resented the Lady of Love image it helped promote. But—as you might expect from the woman who, according to TIME, performed 22 orgasms on Love to Love You Baby—she sure could fake it.
And this is the real triumph of I Feel Love. Though this story is driven by men and their machines, at its heart is one woman’s artistry. It is Summer who turns invention into innovation and elevates the song from an interesting experiment into an influential experience. Moroder and co’s techniques, tricks and technology have been repeated endlessly, but Donna Summer’s ability to feel love (even if it’s not really there) ensures I Feel Love remains an enduring classic.
Follow me on Twitter
If you like this, try:
Love to Love You Baby
On the Radio
Chase - Giorgio Moroder
Giorgio by Moroder - Daft Punk
Go to 82: Bump by Spank Rock
Go to 84: All My Friends by LCD Soundsystem
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