Donna Summer - I Feel Love, released in 1977 (check wikipedia article containing an audio clip here, full track with contemporary video clips edited on top here).
I heard this track on the radio today and looked it up because I was intrigued by it. I remember this from way back in my childhood, but it has a very modern sound to it.
Apparently this was the first fully electronically produced club track, inspired by pioneering work by Kraftwerk and an international #1 hit.
It has the works: 4/4 kick with alternating hihats, repeating bassline and lead, nice vocal hook, and some very cool LP filtering and ADSR tweaking on the lead melody. This was completely ground breaking at the time, and it defined dance music for decades to come. Amazing, this is over 30 years old!!
some quotes from the wikipedia article:
quote:
Before "I Feel Love", most disco recordings were backed by acoustic orchestras. Although such mid 1970s bands as Kraftwerk had pioneered all-electronic music, it has been said that this song is the first disco-style song recorded with an entirely synthesized backing track, and has been enormously influential in the development of disco, electronica, house and techno thanks to Giorgio Moroder's innovative production. In particular, the song popularised the insistent, robotic bass line, which has been frequently imitated ever since.
quote:
According to David Bowie, then in the middle of his own groundbreaking 'Berlin Trilogy', its impact on the genre's direction was recognized early on:
"One day in Berlin ... [Brain] Eno came running in and said, 'I have heard the sound of the future.' … he puts on 'I Feel Love', by Donna Summer … He said, 'This is it, look no further. This single is going to change the sound of club music for the next fifteen years.' Which was more or less right."
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Originally posted by Phyella
Plus, its actually not a bad track (even though some may be rather embarrased to admit that)
I'm not, I love this sound.
It definitely sounds way ahead of its time. I didn't realise it was produced in the 70s. I would have put money on this being produced in mid 80s. Blondie must have been heavily influenced by this.
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I still think it's a great track, Moroder has done some fantastic shit over the years.
That bassline is simple yet effective. Can be made as a ringtone on a very primitive phone and you'd still recognize it.
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Originally posted by Tomos
It definitely sounds way ahead of its time. I didn't realise it was produced in the 70s. I would have put money on this being produced in mid 80s. Blondie must have been heavily influenced by this.
Hehe I had exactly the same feeling, I also placed it in the 80's.
The Blondie connection is well spotted, Deborah Harry worked with the same producer:
quote:
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blondie_(band)
Deborah Harry worked with the Italian songwriter and producer Giorgio Moroder, who had been responsible for Donna Summer's biggest hits, and they composed the song "Call Me" for the soundtrack of the film American Gigolo.
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A lot of those big 80's anthems that got house-remixes in the new millennium were originally done by him as producer. He even made the soundtrack of the original Battlestar Galactica series.
Imagine, he even sings this song (the male part is his voice)
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Originally posted by BattleDrone
I still think it's a great track, Moroder has done some fantastic shit over the years.
That bassline is simple yet effective. Can be made as a ringtone on a very primitive phone and you'd still recognize it.
I concur. The Duel is also a high-quality electronic musica piece.
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This might sound very strange but I think this song, and the people behind it, probably influenced electronic music more than any anyone else. In the uk at least. Everyone here, all the original producers that made rave/hardcore and what later became dnb, would've grown up listening to the strange electronic sounds and songs created by the BBC's Radiophonic Workshop.
Originally posted by thechronic
Didn't know the Dr Who theme was made using tape editing Reminds me of my all night tape cutting sessions in audio engineering school
Hm yes... just read that in this month's Computer Music, an article about setting limitations on yourself to increase creativity.
The original Doctor Who theme was composed by the late Delia Derbyshire, whose compositions were mostly "made using tone generators and mono tape machines rather than synthesisers as we now know them".
Which apparently made her "radically inventive" Used to spend weeks working on a bassline - "cutting and pasting small snippets of tape".
Theres some lessons in there I think
(thanks to CM magazine for the info)
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This post has been edited 2 time(s), it was last edited by Astrocyte: 30-10-2008 15:55.
button and select my name. I'll personally kick it to the murky depths of hell where it belongs! 
It definitely sounds way ahead of its time. I didn't realise it was produced in the 70s. I would have put money on this being produced in mid 80s. Blondie must have been heavily influenced by this.
Reminds me of my all night tape cutting sessions in audio engineering school 