Category: Music

Giorgio Moroder: E=mc² (1979)

B-52s: Wild Planet (1980)

…for not having this in my vinyl collection until now?

I recently discovered worldradiohistory.com, an absolute treasure trove of high fidelity magazines from back in the day. Besides getting teary-eyed at seeing all the old equipment advertisements and laughing uproariously at reviews that dismissed records now considered classics, it's also been fun running across the very serious articles found in these publications. In that vein of utmost seriousness, I give you…

DISCOMANIA

The hottest item at a rock-'n'-roll convention in New York City several months ago was a tee-shirt bearing an extremely obscene comment on disco. Most rockers just don't take kindly to disco music. They act as though its very existence were a personal affront, and they tell whoever will listen that it is soulless, mechanical, and likely to cause softening of the brain. One frustrated rocker known only as La Lumia has actually organized a nationwide movement called "Death to Disco." He provides buttons and bumper stickers bearing the grisly slogan, plus a manifesto stating his creed. (If you're interested, Mr. La Lumia is available for lectures and rallies.)

And it's not just the rockers who have gone off the deep end on the subject of disco. Jazz purists, too, complain that disco is not only a cheap form of music, but that it has robbed them of fine musicians who have "sold out" their art in crossing over to the greener pastures of commercial success it offers. The complaints come fast and furious: disco wipes out an artist's individuality, mashing his efforts into the pulp of its monotonous sound; disco is fickle and trendy-last night's hot platter is tonight's cold potato; and so on.

Even though it may be true up to a point, complaining is as futile as shaking your fist at a hurricane. Disco is an outgrowth of the times, which are confusing, often depressing, and not likely to change quickly. What disco provides is a little vacation from all that-and it's fun. It tends to be mindless fun, but therein lies its appeal. Its emphasis is on the feet, not the head, and dancing to it is an escape from the heavy burdens of both the day and the decade. Discotheques are glittering little fantasy worlds where elaborate lights and hypnotic music conspire to make every patron the star of his own romantic scenario for a night.

Disco does have its virtues. It has provided a shot of vitamin B12 to the careers of both new and established artists and to a number of small record companies. It has rejuvenated the night life of urban centers, boosted the fashion industry, added a little spice of glamour in places where there was none before, given many their only form of exercise, and probably trebled the income of Arthur Murray Dance Studios throughout the land.

Yes, some jazz artists have sold out for commercial success (hardly a new phenomenon, by the way). But some have simply temporarily gone after the rewards that, sadly, artistic integrity never brought them. Take the case of jazz keyboardist Herbie Hancock, who was ripped into by jazz critics in 1973 for his first patently commercial (and enormously popular) album, "Headhunters." This year he had money in his pockets and the grin of a satisfied man on his face when the same critics who had mourned his loss to jazz were bowled over by his latest release, "VSOP."

Disco has resurrected and similarly rewarded neglected r-&-b performers like Thelma Houston and Loleatta Holloway, who have returned the favor by breathing life into its often rigid form.

Unfortunately, solo artists whose fame rests solely on disco tend to disappear in the overall crush of heavy orchestration favored by most disco producers. The vocals of Carol Douglas, Silver Convention, and the relentlessly loving Barry White, for instance, are reduced to pre-measured structural blocks slipped into pre-measured holes in assembly -line songs. Occasionally a Vicki Sue Robinson or a Savannah Band will appear with the ability to soar above the formula, but they are the exceptions.

But whether disco music makes your feet tap or your flesh crawl, it's here to stay for a while. As an industry, it grosses four to five billion dollars annually, second only to organized sports in the entertainment field. There are over 11,000 discotheques in the U.S., nearly 1,500 in Europe, and even the Soviet Union, at last report, sports a pair. Thirty-five per cent of the records currently sold in the U.S. are disco oriented, thirty million people listen to them, and approximately fourteen million dancers flock to discotheques every week.

For four days in September, Disco HI, a forum sponsored by the music trade magazine Billboard, brought home the growing clout disco has in all areas of the entertainment business. The panel discussions and exhibits left the impression of a young and booming industry delighted with its success and groping for a formula to insure it. Artists, producers, record -company representatives, club owners, disc jockeys, and equipment manufacturers participated, and some of the news they imparted was pretty impressive. If you thought disco was just an urban phenomenon, think again. Mobile discos have been bringing joy to hundreds of pairs of suburban and rural feet. The mobile units are equipped with sound systems, portable lighting equipment, and sometimes even with portable dance floors and smoke machines. Usually rented by schools, charitable organizations, and such, the units can set up a functional, parking -lot disco in nothing flat. The exhibit areas at Disco III featured other eye-opening developments. Many clubs employ the very latest in modern electronics, and the advanced sound systems, the astonishing array of lighting equipment, and the matter-of-fact use of holography, lasers, and large -screen TV projections were all but mind -boggling. Top disco acts (Gloria Gaynor, Tavares, and the SalSoul Orchestra, among others) provided entertainment each evening, and the four-day affair culminated in an awards dinner as boringly predictable as any tedious organizational function you can imagine. One high point (if one can call it that) of the awards ceremony was singer Grace Jones' acceptance of the Most Promising Female Vocalist plaque while her purse was being stolen from her seat on the dais six feet from where she stood. The incontestable low point was the seemingly endless parade of disc jockeys accepting awards (there must have been at least one platter handler from each state in the union).

In short, disco is not about to go away, so you might as well give in, dress up, and accept Irving Berlin's invitation to "face the music and dance." Who knows-you might just get to like it.

DECEMBER 1977

This was probably the third disco album I bought after venturing out to my first gay club. (The first being Thelma Houston's Any Way You Like It and the second, Cerrone's Love in C Minor.) I'd never heard music like this before, and I was hooked.

In many ways it seems like only yesterday, and yet…a lifetime ago.

Giorgio Moroder: From Here To Eternity (1977)

Madonna: True Blue (1986)

From Behind the Grooves:

"True Blue", the third album by Madonna is released. Produced by Madonna, Patrick Leonard and Stephen Bray, it is recorded at Channel Recording in Los Angeles, CA from December 1985 – April 1986. After the massive whirlwind success of the "Like A Virgin" album and "The Virgin Tour", the pop superstar does not rest on her laurels, beginning work on the crucial follow up at the end of 1985. Working with long time collaborator Stephen Bray and new producer Patrick Leonard (Michael Jackson, Jody Watley), the album is praised upon its release as her strongest effort to date, and is widely regarded today as one of the best albums of her career. It spins off five top five hits including "Live To Tell" (#1 Pop), "Papa Don't Preach" (#1 Pop), "Open Your Heart" (#1 Pop) and the title track (#3 Pop). "True Blue" also marks the beginning Madonna's long association with famed fashion photographer Herb Ritts who shoots the LP's iconic cover photo. The original LP package also includes a poster of the album cover shot. As a promotion for the album, MTV sponsors the "Make My Video" contest, inviting viewers to submit their own visual interpretations of the title track. The winning entry comes from Angel Gracia and Cliff Guest, whose black & white clip is rotated heavily on the video channel. The pair are awarded a check for $25,000 by the pop superstar herself at MTV's New York studios. The alternate video directed by James Foley, featuring Madonna with close friends actress Debi Mazur and fashion designer Erika Belle is shown largely outside the US. Madonna also supports the album with the worldwide "Who's That Girl Tour" beginning in June of 1987. It is remastered and reissued on CD in 2001, with the extended 12" mixes of "La Isla Bonita" and the title track included as bonus tracks. The vinyl LP is reissued in Europe in 2012, including the original inner sleeve lyric sheet and poster featured in the original release. In October of 2016, a limited edition release of the LP pressed on blue vinyl, is issued as exclusive through the European supermarket chain Sainsbury's. "True Blue" spends five weeks at number one on the Billboard Top 200, and is certified 7x Platinum in the US by the RIAA.

My unbridled love for this album and the accompanying quest to acquire it on "true blue" vinyl has been well documented on this blog, so I won't add anything more today and instead will sign off and go listen to it.

Elton John: Caribou (1974)

Damn, I feel old.

B-52s: Cosmic Thing (1989)

Prince: Purple Rain (1984)

Giorgio Moroder: Giorgio & Chris (1978)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeCPTZMdV_U&list=PL94gOvpr5yt2E6b_zKjMMhYwGuKV4cclp

Grace Jones: Fame (1978)

Alicia Bridges: I Love the Nightlife (1978)

Grace Jones: Slave to the Rhythm (4 disk box set, 2016)

Carpenters: Carpenters (1971)

I'm old.

This was the first Carpenters album I bought, and in many ways still my favorite.

Donna Summer: I Remember Yesterday (1977)

Grace Jones: Nightclubbing (1981)

Kraftwerk: Computer World (1981)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OeX9Rq9cFk&list=PLrpyDacBCh7D9LYtNqpCNxIAyLk4R26uA

Grace Jones: Warm Leatherette (1980)

My favorite—or maybe second favorite—Grace Jones album. I can never definitively say if this or Nightclubbing is my favorite. They're both so good they could easily have been released as a double LP.

Carpenters: Now and Then (1975)

I realize this may not be everything they've done, but of the ones shown, what's your favorite? (Vote below and feel free to leave a comment.)

Chalk up another one to 2020. R.I.P. Florian Schneider, co-founder of Kraftwerk. This one is hitting me hard.

From the New York Times:

Florian Schneider, 73, Dies; Revolutionized Pop Music With Kraftwerk

The German band he helped found toyed with ideas about technology and society, leaving a profound mark on rock, dance music and hip-hop.

Florian Schneider, one of the founders of Kraftwerk, the German band that revolutionized pop music through its embrace of synthesizers and electronic beats, leading to a broad influence over rock, dance music and hip-hop, has died. He was 73.

In a statement, the group said Mr. Schneider had died from cancer "just a few days" after his birthday, which was April 7.

Founded in Düsseldorf in 1970 by Mr. Schneider and Ralf Hütter, Kraftwerk emerged as part of the so-called krautrock genre — a German branch of experimental rock that explored extended, repetitive rhythms.

But by the time Kraftwerk released its album "Autobahn" in 1974, it had become clear that the group had developed something even more elemental and extreme. The 22-minute title track, which took up the entire first side of the LP, began with a robotic voice intoning "autobahn," German for highway. It continued with buoyant, hypnotic synthesizers that gave the listener a sense of gliding through a futuristic landscape, and with lyrics that repeated, "Wir fahren, fahren, fahren auf der Autobahn" ("We're driving, driving, driving on the highway").

An abbreviated version of the song became an international radio hit, reaching No. 25 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1975.

On later albums, like "Trans-Europe Express" (1977) and "The Man-Machine" (1978), Mr. Schneider and Mr. Hütter — joined by other musicians, among them Karl Bartos and Wolfgang Flür — developed their ideas further. They created a catchy and provocative version of electronic pop and toyed with concepts of the role of human beings in a mechanized society.

On "Computer World" (1981), they set dystopian lyrics to the chirpy sounds of early personal computers, lumping together "Interpol and Deutsche Bank/F.B.I. and Scotland Yard," offering suggestions of a surveillance state that still resonate today.

Mr. Schneider and Mr. Hütter variously described their work as industrial folk and techno pop. Rather than seeing Kraftwerk as simply a musical group, they characterized it as a "multimedia project" or even a hybrid of humanity and machine.

"Kraftwerk is not a band," Mr. Schneider told Rolling Stone in 1975. "It's a concept. We call it 'Die Menschmaschine,' which means 'the human machine.' We are not the band. I am me. Ralf is Ralf. And Kraftwerk is a vehicle for our ideas."

Mr. Hütter usually spoke for the group in interviews, with Mr. Schneider sitting by quietly. "Florian is a sound fetishist," Mr. Hütter told the British music magazine Mojo in 2005. "I am not so much. I'm maybe more a word fetishist."

But like his partner, Mr. Schneider had a knack for expressing provocative ideas that were catnip to curious journalists.

When the rock critic Lester Bangs interviewed Kraftwerk, also in 1975, he skeptically remarked that he found their music unemotional.

"Florian quietly and patiently explained that 'emotion' is a strange word," Mr. Bangs wrote, and he proceeded to quote Mr. Schneider: "There is a cold emotion and other emotion, both equally valid. It's not body emotion, it's mental emotion. We like to ignore the audience while we play, and take all our concentration into the music.

"We are very much interested in origin of music. The source of music. The pure sound is something we would very much like to achieve."

Florian Schneider-Esleben was born on April 7, 1947, in Öhningen, then part of West Germany. His father, Paul Schneider-Esleben, was a prominent modernist architect whose projects included the Cologne-Bonn Airport.

Mr. Schneider met Mr. Hütter in 1968 in an improvisation class at the Robert Schumann Hochschule, a music school in Düsseldorf. They soon began performing together, with Mr. Schneider on flute and Mr. Hütter on keyboards, and they joined a progressive rock band, Organisation, which released one album, "Tone Float," in 1969.

The two men started Kraftwerk — the word means "power station" — in 1970 and established Kling Klang, the Düsseldorf studio that would be their home base for decades. That year, Mr. Schneider also purchased a synthesizer and became interested in manipulating acoustic sounds through electronics.

"I found that the flute was too limiting," he was quoted as saying in "Kraftwerk: Man, Machine and Music," a 1993 book by Pascal Bussy. "Soon I bought a microphone, then loudspeakers, then an echo, then a synthesizer. Much later I threw the flute away; it was a sort of process.

Early recordings of the group feature stuttering grooves that mingle electronic keyboards with Mr. Schneider's rapid-fire flute. Mr. Schneider and Mr. Hütter have described being influenced by both the avant-garde composer Karlheinz Stockhausen and the Beach Boys. Kraftwerk's songs often seem to make an implicit commentary on the interchangeable, repetitive structures of pop.

While early rock critics were often baffled by Kraftwerk, the group's influence had become clear by the mid-1970s. David Bowie praised the band in the music press and titled the track "V-2 Schneider," from his 1977 album "Heroes," in tribute to Mr. Schneider.

In 1982, Kraftwerk became part of the bedrock of early hip-hop when Afrika Bambaataa and his group Soul Sonic Force recreated the rhythm to Kraftwerk's song "Trans-Europe Express" on "Planet Rock." And Kraftwerk's mechanized beats became blueprints for practically the entire genre of electronic dance music.

In time, the group's performances became more conceptual and, to some critics, absurd. In concert they would mime their performances at machines that played prerecorded tracks. Sometimes the human musicians would exit the stage entirely, replaced by rudimentary robot effigies that "performed" in their place.

Kraftwerk has been nominated for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame six times — including for the most recent class — but has yet to be inducted. The group was given a lifetime achievement award at the Grammys in 2014.

In February, the group announced plans for a "3-D" tour of North America to celebrate its 50th anniversary.

Information on Mr. Schneider's survivors was not immediately available.

Even by the reclusive standards of Kraftwerk, whose members rarely gave interviews and would disappear from the scene for years, Mr. Schneider was especially enigmatic. The group announced his departure in 2008, and he did not participate in later tours, including a series of performances in 2012 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

In 1998, he was appointed a professor of "media art and performance" at the Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design. But on Wednesday, according to a report by The Associated Press, the university told DPA, the German press agency, that "as far as it knows, he never took up the professorship."

Annie Lennox: Diva (1992)

IMHO, her Masterpiece.

Twelve years ago, just a scant few months before Ben entered my life, I created this two-disk playlist.

Admittedly this is an odd collection, but listening to it this afternoon sent me back to providing tech support at the hospital where I made friends that grace my life to this day, learned technical skills that propelled my career, and celebrated my 5-year cancer free anniversary. Both my folks were still alive, Mom hadn't yet begun the precipitous decline into Alzheimers, I was indulging myself in short, yet extensive road trips, and making more money than I would see again for the next decade. And yet, as I've told Ben, while my life prior to meeting him was okay, something was missing. I was happy, but I wasn't happy. Of course, unbeknownst to me at time, all that was about to change for the better.

Sequestered in my private office in the bowels of the hospital (Why is I.T. always in the basement?) I had the luxury (yet to be repeated) of a locking door and—since the rest of the floor consisted of rarely-used conference rooms and two other unoccupied offices—of cranking tunes when the mood struck me, and these were but a few items on my playlist from that period in my life.

Do the tunes say anything about my mental and emotional state at the time? Probably, but its still quite invisible from this side of the mirror.