Setting out with a furbelow of twinkly noises and a heroic guitar line, the song then breaks into a cascade of keyboard power chords before settling into a sparse groove, with Oakey delivering one of the purest of melodic verses the 80s had to offer. Formed by Tony James of Generation X in , Sigue Sigue Sputnik were a curious glam-punk outfit who introduced corporate art into their work like some postmodern Warholian nightmare, selling advertising space to corporations on their album Flaunt It, perhaps as an indictment of the times.
Reaching No 3 in the UK charts, they hit Top of the Pops like a gang of New York Dolls impersonators robbing a bank, before seemingly being consumed in a fireball of their own hype. A little too knowing, Sputnik appreciated their records would eventually be tossed away like bits of chewing gum, but even they must have been surprised by just how quickly they became dispensable.
Giorgio By Moroder is distinctive as the only track on this list not produced by Giorgio Moroder. Fastidious to the last, apparently Daft Punk made Moroder speak into a different microphone from each decade to represent each period of his career — undetectable to the human ear, the robots would be able to detect the difference.
The French duo are certainly more meticulous than Moroder ever was, but the nine-minute epic is a comme il faut tribute to a living legend, and a gracious thank you to their musical progenitor. Giorgio Moroder — 10 of the best. And interestingly, just lately, I found the original tapes, the track tapes, so I was listening to the tracks, each one by itself, and I found the beginning OK, this song was done in two different times.
The first time we did about four minutes, three-and-a-half minutes. And then, I guess two, three weeks later, we extended it. And Dave played the same bass. So I was listening to the beginning, and he plays like Not big ones. And once you switch to the second part, he plays much better. Yeah, yeah, right, right, right. Although I must say the second part, where he played better, it sounds better. You mean at the club? Do we? I have to ask him. Oh, that was a show. Maybe she sang it live, but it sounded This is really difficult to play live.
No, the tracks, I did the whole thing. I used the Moog, of course. Took down the click to sync up. I took down the bass first, which took probably at least an hour, because every four bars, every eight bars, it went out of tune, so we have to tune it again, drop in, cut, do it again. So that took a long time. So it was all by myself, all added. The only thing which did not work was the bass drum, the kick. And it was not easy, because, you know, drummer, I used to play with hands and two [sticks].
So he was there just playing this one foot, like, five minutes, which was quite difficult. The one thing which changed dramatically, first of all, I did not have the melody when I took down the tracks. Donna wrote the lyrics. Then we recorded it.
This is totally new. Then I think I made a mistake by mixing it. I had the original on the left-hand side. On the right-hand side of the stereo, the delay. So, if, in some of the discotheques, if you were too much on the right-hand side, you would hear the up, and it was not easy to dance to, because it was not really perfect.
So I should have made it in mono. A lot of things which I could have done better. You spent quite a lot of time in the studio, right? Then, yes. I was that busy. But I mean, obviously, that was a totally different beast, that we will get to in a minute.
But how did you actually get yourself into the state where, in the studio, you would have the right delay, to create something that works really well on a dancefloor while your technical set-up is anything but a party? Well, first of all, I always used great musicians. And the better the musicians, the better the songs become. The more creative the musicians are, the better. But the problem now is that you sit by yourself most of the time infront of the computer. While, if you use musicians, like I did so much, I had five guys, they all gave me always their input.
Like that was your instrument, almost. Well, yeah. I mean, without the sync, you can not do anything. So you have to sync up all the machinery. But at that time, to synch up, for example, two tracks, it was a big job. And sometime I used the click, which we always put down, as an instrument. OK, the idea of this one was I wanted to be the first one, at least in the pop world, to record something on digital. So I found Dr. Stockham in Utah, who had a stereo machine computer, which recorded digital.
In fact, I think he invented digital recording. So, I wanted to do it as much as possible as a live track.
I had Harold Faltermeyer, he programmed all the basslines and the effects on a little computer called, I think it was called The Composer. Like notes. It was almost like typing numbers. Then I bought You know, you could buy kind of a gadget like this, which had keys, to put on top of a piano, you program it, and then the program plays, the fingers come down and they play the instrument. So I had about six or seven live pianos which would play. Obviously, what was not live was the voice.
And the drummer was live. So we recorded the whole thing, I think, in two or three days, and at an incredible cost. And then the problem was, you know, whenever you record, you always want to edit, change eight bars here, four bars there, and we could not really do it.
I would tell Dr. We could not hear all the edits. So we had to wait, I think, two, three weeks before I could hear the final thing.
Because it took so much to render those digital numbers. He is one of the best recording guys I ever met. He worked for me for, like, 10 years. And then he did a lot of movies. He did Beverly Hills Cop one [and] number two. He did several movies, he just composed a very successful musical. He has his own little cabin up there where he disappears. I think he has a little studio there and goes to hunt and goes to play golf, and when he has time, he works.
And my guy, Thor Baldursson, who was an absolutely top keyboard player, he left. He went back to Iceland. And so I needed a new one, and that was Harold Faltermeyer. Seeing that you just mentioned Hollywood, can we bring down the lights a little bit? Can we, actually? So, when you score something like that, is that a different process than when you go for the main theme or the dramatic bit?
This one, the moment I saw it, the moment in the movie I saw is when he follows her with the motorcycle and then they fall in love. So I started to work on that. First I had the melody.
And then the second thing which I did was the bassline. Actually, this was interesting, because usually I start from beginning to the end with the melody. This one, it took me a day to think, because I had So I was debating between the two sections after the first part.
And I still have the demo. So I decided on the second one. And I could not find that sound anymore. I thought I saved it and I just, I could not find it. And then Martha of the Motels did a recording. Then Paul Young was ready to record, but then he passed.
And then finally, I had a little hit with a group called Berlin, and Terri Nunn, a great singer, she sang it, and it worked quite well. Saying that I lost? In fact, a famous producer called me about three, four years ago. He wanted to re-do the song with Jessica Simpson. But I was just going to ask about your relationship, and something that you probably learned, because rumor has it that especially Mr. Simpson was quite a character. Yeah, he was a great guy. I mean, I usually was dealing with Jerry Bruckheimer.
And it looked like, yeah, I could relate to Jerry better. Simpson, sometime he was a little too much into drugs. In fact, he died on an overdose. But very talented. When he was functioning, he was functioning really well. But my main contact was Jerry.
Because I did several movies before Top Gun. I did Cat People , where he was a line producer. So Jerry Bruckheimer was my guy. Well, Jerry is such a personality and so much into music, I think he decides mostly on what music goes in. So in all those movies, American Gigolo , it was always Jerry who decided on the songs. That movie Top Gun obviously came at a time when there was a certain political agenda to it attached as well.
I mean, it was the height of the Cold War, we all thought we were going to die any second, sort of, or we were made to believe. And, I mean, there you were as a foreigner and doing probably the most Americanized movie ever, to the time. That must feel interesting, right? I know there was a problem with Libya at that time, but I just did the music. So it kind of, for the movie, was a perfect time, here Tom Cruise is this Top Gun guy and they were bombing Libya.
So I think it was a great promotion for the movie. Well, but I mean, at the same time you were also doing the main theme for the Olympics, which was heavily dominated by the boycott of the Russians, which was the counterattack of boycotting [the Moscow Olympics].
Four years earlier. But, almost even then, I wondered, like, what was the briefing like for the Olympic anthem? I mean, how does that work? And it should be about this There was a good friend of mine who was the head of PolyGram. I have a great idea. You can tell me this whole thing on the phone. Do you want to write the main theme? I would like to record with them. But they were commissioned to sing and they were Korean, so I composed a song and I played it to this guy in Hamburg, and I said — oh, by the way, I composed it at lunch.
I went home and composed it and started it. They loved it. That was a great thing. I asked for the video of the Asian, the Asian Asian Olympics. Not Olympics. Where they had great videos of the Asian Games. So I did a video with those tracks, where you see the athletes.
And so I went with the record company guy. So I went there and I showed them the video with the music. So that was a great idea to present the song with the video. Before we go to questions, there is at least one more soundtrack I would love to play. Again, Jerry Bruckheimer. They were the hip group at that time. And it was quite interesting, because I always used to be working with musicians, right?
Professional musicians. They were all great musicians, but, you know, still a group. So, things which I remember. The drummer, a great drummer, but if he could have done, he would have done one fill every two bars. Possibly every 16? And now you hear it. He did well. The only problem then, we recorded it here, I took it back to Los Angeles, and we added the solo.
It had to be done. And it sounded well. But one of the problems with both groups, with Blondie and Berlin, they never really wanted to play the two songs. And the same thing with Berlin. Because it was not Berlin, it was Terri Nunn. So they had a problem because they had their own songs, which they loved to play. So those two groups always had a little problem with their biggest success, actually.
Please wait for the mic. Imagine you were sucked into a vortex and you popped out and you saw a version of yourself in your twenties. No, actually, if I could go back, first, I would probably have done some movies which I did not do. One being Fame , which was such a great movie.
Probably I passed on some groups. One was Duran Duran, which then they had these great songs. Uh, what else? One thing which, coming back now, after Midnight Express , for the movies, I should have gotten away a little bit from the electronic. But the next one was I forgot which one. Anyway, I used a lot of synthesizer. But it worked at the end. And I released it at the same time with Donna Summer, my album and a group called Schloss, at Casablanca.
And it was definitely an experiment. Thanks for coming. This is fantastic. I was going to ask you to tell us some stories maybe about the Casablanca years and From Here to Eternity , and that sort of era. Casablanca, as we probably know, the owner was Neil Bogart. Great business guy, great promotion guy. He signed Donna Summer in a matter of 10 minutes. I was there. He released the single, which started to do okay, but not great. But generally speaking, Casablanca was a mad house.
A lot of drugs. I remember sometime I would come in at 11 and everybody, not only Neil, was already there. And he booked, in order to get it there intact and in time, a first-class, two-seat flight and the cake came in on that plane. And the one problem, not a problem, but there was three main acts. Each one hated the other. How can you have that disco girl?
Thank God we never met together. Yeah, right. Thank you in advance! Giorgio Moroder. The in Ortisei born and internationally successful composer and producer is considered to be the founder of the synthesiser disco music. Name E-Mail Message. Close Send suggestion. Suggested accommodations Alpenheim Hotel.
Ansitz Jakoberhof Hotel. Ortisei - San Giacomo.
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