I remember the first time I heard this song, it was the mid to late 70's and the Disco movement was huge, and yes I admit, I do like Disco, I guess that is why I like New Wave in the 80's, something about the synthesizers, and the many ways that you can play something, and you were limited by your creativity. Well anyway, when I heard this song, it sounded so cool and so futuristic it was on a league by itself.
"I Feel Love" is a song by Donna Summer, with production by Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte. It first appeared on Summer's 1977 album I Remember Yesterday. The song became widely popular during the Disco period and is widely credited as "one of the most influential records ever made", originating electronic dance music. In 2011, the Library of Congress added the song to the National Recording Registry, deeming it "culturally, historically, or aesthetically important".
According to David Bowie, then in the middle of recording of his Berlin Trilogy with Brian Eno, its impact on the genre's direction was recognized early on; "One day in Berlin ... 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."
Music critic Vince Aletti wrote that, "The pace is fierce and utterly gripping with the synthesizer effects particularly aggressive and emotionally charged." He went on to predict that the track "should easily equal if not surpass" the success of "Love to Love You Baby" in the clubs.
In a 2017 feature on the song's 40th anniversary for Pitchfork, music journalist Simon Reynolds reflected that "I Feel Love" had a significant impact on music across all genres for the next decade, including rock-leaning genres such as post-punk and new wave, and subsequent sub-genres of the electronic dance music style the song had pioneered, including Hi-NRG, Italo disco, house, techno, and trance. Reynolds also posited "If any one song can be pinpointed as where the 1980s began, it’s "I Feel Love."
Mixmag ranked the song number 12 in its 100 Greatest Dance Singles Of All Time list in 1996, adding:
"Whenever, however you hear this tune, it's guaranteed to make you smile, shut your eyes and trance out. The first electronic disco masterpiece, disco diva Donna and Moroder's finest, trippiest moment. Whether it's Derrick May or Carl Craig slipping Patrick Cowley's deliciously psychedelic 1982 remix into their techno sets, or Masters at Work climaxing a four deck set with last years garaged-up remake, or just some bloke in a bow tie playing the original at your brother's wedding, this record is timeless. And priceless."Slant Magazine ranked the song 1st in its 100 Greatest Dance Songs-list in 2006, adding:
"No longer would synthesizers remain the intellectual property of prog-classical geeks. And, separated from its LP context and taken as a Top 10 single, it didn't just suggest the future, it was the future. Cooing ascending couplets of an almost banal ecstasy, Summer's breathy vocals still dwelled in the stratosphere of her own manufactured sensation."In 2011, The Guardian's Richard Vine ranked the release of "I Feel Love" as one of 50 key events in the history of dance music, proclaiming it "one of the first to fully utilise the potential of electronics, replacing lush disco orchestration with the hypnotic precision of machines".
Mixmag ranked it #19 in its 2013 '50 Greatest Dance Tracks Of All Time
Wasn't into disco, so I don't remember that one! :-)
ReplyDeleteHey Old NFO;
DeleteRight, you were deep into the disco movement, LOL I am sure there is a few pics of you in a leisure suit, LOL
I was a senior in high school in 77 and 78. So this was one of the big hits at the time, and got played to death on the radio at the time. I live in Michigan, up the coast from Chicago, and AM radio still was a big thing. I listened to a lot of the big names from the city. WCFL, WBBN, WOKY out of Milwaukee, I can't even remember them all now, but I was a ham radio operator, so I would stay up late and listen to some of the pirate radio at times, as well. And just remember, we say that the music was better back then, because the music WAS better back then.
ReplyDeleteHey Pigpen,
Deletein 1977 I was a 12 year old in a town in middle of Alabama, and Disco I had posted in the past had over-saturated and in the 80's there was a counter culture "Disco sucks" movement. It wasn't until the 90's and later that Disco started making a comeback usually for nostalgia reasons. Yes the music was better back then, I have been doing "Monday Music for many years now, I think 292 postings according to my label thingie on the blog. theere were only a couple of songs that came from this century and I think the latest one I recall using was Adele, that girl can sing. but most of the songs were from the 80's and some from the 70's and 90's.
Sorry, no. Disco sucked then and still does.
ReplyDeleteIf you are only listening to the pop songs that are produced in America, then with a few exceptions the music is awful. That is because the music industry in America is mostly insane.
But there is an interesting hard-rock scene in Europe that you would never know about - most of the songs are in English, but the Germans are trying to take their language back. The Irish are doing more all the time with Celtic music, and Yello is still doing whatever it was they were doing before the Berlin Wall came down.
Hey Zendo;
DeleteI don't listen to Pop music anymore, that is why I listen to my Sirius/XM(I should try to get advertising or free subscription out of it or something anyway). Music back in the last century was far less vapid than what passes for music now. I am not a music critic, just a guy that likes music. I always thought folk songs in the "Native" language is very cool, it is something that is timeless and a link to the past.