Music of the Day Music Blog Volume 1

Since Giorgio Moroder has been (re)introduced to so many people recently I thought I'd take the opportunity to share some of my favorite tracks and reflect on how awesome he is.

Good Old Germany & The Best of Young Giorgio: A Young G Rises

Long before he was a half-robot genius, Giorgio Moroder exhibited a penchant for dark synth and bass and a general tendency to go for low. Even Luky Luky, from his Italian/English Beatles/Beach Boys days, has some flavour of what would come later, though, like Arizona Man, another early favorite, it's otherwise far from the sound he's famous for. His earliest work (going back to about 66) isn't his best, but it's fascinating when you go back to it knowing where he ends up. "It's Bla Bla Bla!"

Right. Pretty weird. No smooth transitions following that song, so I'm just going to move on. However I feel about the album all in all, I was pleasantly surprised to see Giorgio get some love on the new Daft Punk. Of course this isn't the first time artists have paid tribute to Mr. Moroder, as he's considered one of the grandfathers of Italo (more on that one day) and some other much less sweet genres. While some extra-young Moroder does preview the electric weirdness he shows off in Einzelganger and later (see Son of My Father), that album really stands apart. It's bizarre. You should listen to the whole thing, though I am dropping the bomb here. Innovisions, the record immediately following Einzelganger, is the supposed jewel of the crown, and goes for some stupid amount of money (like 2500 bucks!) on websites were people do that sort of thing, but trust: Einzelganger (aka ze Lone Wolf) is where it's at. Admittedly not a smooth listen - like I said, it's odd enough that you have to stop and think and go huh? periodically, but it's such a unique collection of sounds and has a really gripping tone of robotic melancholy.

Moroder is well known for Midnight Express and Scarface, and this where we're going to end it today. The former has one especially well-known, catchy track (The Chase), but Scarface is the real masterpiece. In fact, it's among the most impressive musical feats in film history, in my own insignificant opinion. Very often when I watch that movie someone will remark on the music. Sometimes they like it, sometimes they don't. I love it. Like so many gamers I listened to "She's on Fire" as much as possible in Grand Theft Auto III, and like so many Scarface fans I figured the soundtrack was just a collection of once-awesome, popular 80s tracks. I had probably seen the movie a dozen times before I read about the soundtrack, and was blown away to learn that Moroder had composed every song exclusively for the film. His range is pretty phenomenal here. In between all the pop-of-the-day tracks, Maria Conchita's Vamos a Bailar (special mention!) and Push It to The Limit, he sneaks in that deadly dark synth, its greatest appearance right at the start, in the opening theme:

The Scarface soundtrack was unfortunately not recognized as a masterpiece at the time of its release, and was ignored by that extremely important measuring stick we call the hakademy hawards. That said, in 1978 Moroder did beat out both John Williams (Superman) and Ennio Morricone (Days of Heaven) for his work on Midnight Express. Which is pretty wild, considering how amazing both those scores are.

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Giorgio Moroder went on to compose a large number of high-profile movie soundtracks and work with many famous recording artists. But that, as they say, is another story.