scaruffi's favorite disco albums

maybe i'm being overly harsh but idk, can't help but kinda feel that way! then again, i have a fairly middling-to-low opinion of beloved disco auteur tom moulton after having read his columns in billboard (in which he would routinely refer to new releases as 'products' and deploy sentences like 'so-and-so's new lp, out next week, has exactly two strong cuts') so maybe i'm not to be trusted either xp

― dyl, Friday, May 31, 2019 9:46 PM (twenty-five minutes ago)Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Vince Aletti writes the same way and I am here for it

sorry rushomancy i'm just being too much and lashing out needlessly. i like to pretend that seriousness (of the scaruffi type) has no place in dance music -- even tho i'm obviously wrong abt it -- and therefore that those whom the serious anoint as the form's greatest minds ought to be knocked down a peg. i can acknowledge that patrick cowley was brilliant even if i'm not especially fond of that particular mix (saying he 'ruins' it certainly overstates it a bit).

Casablanca Records has released the new Donna Summer album, "I Remember Yesterday." There are two strong cuts, "I Feel Love" and "Take Me." "I Feel Love" is the stronger of the two and undoubtedly one of the best things Summer has done. The sound is built around two Moog synthesizers which play the same rhythm over and over again throughout the entire song. The result is a hypnotic effect into which a second melody line is woven. The production is enhanced by a good break.

there's a small snippet of a moulton column. i read things like that and find it unbelievable that someone who would describe a record that has been an endless source of intangible dancefloor magic in such dry terms could also be responsible for mixing recordings just as magical. guess i'd better start believing it.

This is actually what I want from a record review

no worries i was mostly just put out by the implication that i was somehow "masc" for liking patrick cowley :) obviously cowley's take on it is, errr, _high energy_, but i don't necessarily think that's equivalent to "masc disco heroism".

i kind of respect moulton's take on "i feel love"! a record as amazing as "i feel love", it's so easy to get carried away by the mystique of a record like that. to treat it in such a matter-of-fact, nuts-and-bolts manner, to emphasize the _craft_ of it while saying nothing at all of its art beyond "it's good" - well, it's fucking terrible criticism, but it seems like a pretty good summation of what a dj should know about it!

otm

this here is why ilm still means so much to me

(not you, whiney)

and if anybody wants to make the case that "step ii" is listening to after the first two songs, i'm totally open to the argument, but man i didn't even find "stars" worth listening to all the way through.

(And of course, both of these albums are unthinkable without Two Tons o’ Fun)

I don’t know who this dude is, but the best Chic albums came after the self titled.

But he could have picked a Chic anthology/compilation either way if he was going to allow those.

sylvester is a good torch diva but yeah, that's not really something i'm into. when he starts belting out "i who have nothing" i just start thinking about the brenda & herb version. and yes, two tons o' fun are obviously pivotal!

thinking a little more about cowley's work in terms of gender and what it means to me... while it doesn't have a sense of ebb and flow, to me masc stereotypical music is orgasm-centered (think the "big rock ending"). cowley doesn't really do that. the limited dynamic of something like his mix of "hills of katmandu" makes me think of edging more than anything straightforwardly "masc".

i'm sure tom moulton wouldn't describe it in those terms!

Oh man, if there’s one song you have to listen to all the way to the end, it’s Sylvester’s “I (Who Have Nothing)”. First of all, I love the arrangement and the playing, that nervous, jittery percussion, the strings and the way the piano sounds. But those last ~5 minutes, from when the breakdown starts 6’30 minutes in, are truly something else.
That Brenda & Herb version, which I didn’t know about, is good, but Syl, Marsha and Izora blow it right out of the water. I’m pretty sure you will have forgotten all about it by the time they’re done.

many xposts, but "Lost in Music" remains a favorite of all time, but not the LP version. only the extended remix.

the remix from 1984? with the Duran Duran guts??

guys not guts

taana gardner album is pretty good

has any rap producer sampled the intro to “when you touch me”? I can picture someone like Trae Tha Truth goin in against that part

brimstead, no, the Rodgers/Edwards remix, i guess is the more appropriate title? this is the only version of the song, as far as i'm concerned.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6ZNcIJmn5I

Tim Sweeney played this version at a warehouse party in Bkln in 2006 or so, warming up for Carl Craig, and since then, I've never really been able to listen to the original without thinking this is the only version that matters.

uh yeah that’s the one, 1984, feat Andy Taylor and Simon Le bon.. to each their own https://www.discogs.com/Sister-Sledge-Lost-In-Music-1984-Nile-Rodgers-Mix/release/13087568

I think Grace Jones' Portfolio works as an album, side one being a medley of show tunes and side two being four great disco hits and nothing else

I actually used to own a lot of these two, but there are only a few that are listenable all the way through. Barry White is one, but going from memory, I guess I'd pick Chic, 'cos it's the only one I still listen to.

But damn, no Boney M?

brimstead, what's not to like about that version?

I just don’t thing the spiffy 80s touches like the reverb on the vocals sound very good... the original is just perfection to my ears.. it is too bad there’s not like an epic ten minute Walter gibbons remix of the original

um think not thing

Picking between Chic and Sister Sledge was a real Sophie's Choice situation, but I had to pick Sister Sledge because I was obsessed with the We Are Family album when I was a preteen.

Voted for Giorgio, though it's more techno than disco. (It came out in 1977 btw, not 1985.)

The best Chic album is Risqué imho.

No Earth Wind & Fire?

i love Tom Moulton's sociopathic review of 'I Feel Love' lol

how the hell is that sociopathic? he's describing how the track is produced!

sorry.., didn't mean any offense to sociopaths :(

where can i read Tom Moulton reviews? googled around and couldn't find anything

moulton columns appeared in billboard's disco section starting, afaict, in the october 26, 1974 issue and continuing until barry lederer took over at some point in mid-1978. over some periods his columns were basically weekly, and over others it appeared more sporadically. my go-to links for browsing old billboard issues are these two from google books and american radio history

unfortunately there's nothing more convenient than that. i do have an excel file of links that go directly to the disco sections of the google books/american radio history docs if that would be helpful

(altho apparently sometimes the column was hidden in other sections like 'general news' or 'fm action' or w/e so idek if that would be helpful)

anyway here's moulton on scaruffi's fave chic album:

Also from Atlantic Records comes Chic's LP titled, "Chic." It contains the group's successful disco hit, "Dance, Dance, Dance," plus one other strong cut that will probably be the followup single. The tune "Everybody Dance," unlike the group's current hit, has warmth and beauty.

at least he correctly notes later in the column of king errisson's l.a. bound: 'There are a number of strong cuts on this product.' high praise!

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

I voted Donna Summer because, cheat or not, it has the greatest number of great disco songs.

w00t w00t, Change's The Glow of Love and Sister Sledge's We Are Family are on top! I'm genuinely thrilled by this result. That Chic's self-titled 1977 album is #3 makes this the Trifecta of Awesome.

oh wow at the glow of love finishing on top. nearly every track on that album is great in its way -- i'd say "it's a girl's affair" is the weak link but it's still a good, v solid track.