This week my #ttt post is dedicated to the disco! Probably the subject will need more than one post ;) It will be a pleasurable time travel, I call all my friends, as well as other silver bloggers, to go down this rabbit hole with me.
The post is fuelled with memories and nostalgia for my teen years and first steps in music. I even took a special photo of the tape reel - an old recording media from 70-es. I wonder if any of my readers used such reels? For some of us the starting point was compact cassettes, for others compact discs, for some it was mp3 technology. Today it is streaming services - of course, everybody is in the know about mp3 files, but do not use them anymore, considering the technology dated... But my post is not about technology, this was just a nostalgic intro.
When I started listening to music, I did not have my own tape recorder or vinyl player - but my parents had :) so, naturally, my first acquaintance with music began with their record library. My mother was fond of classical music, so I was introduced early on to Mozart, Vivaldi, Chopin, Bach and other great composers - my mother had a solid record collection on vinyl. She also had a small stack of reel tapes - which contained completely different music. These were modern bands, mostly foreign pop music, which was not officially released in the USSR.
Today we are well-acquainted with such names as ABBA, Bee Gees, Donna Summer, Ottawan - but at that time they meant absolutely nothing to a Soviet person living behind the Iron Curtain. When records with such music came to the USSR from abroad, people copied them from each other. One of the reels in my mother's collection contained a collection of dance music hits in the disco style.
In the process of transferring information, some of it is always lost, and of course, the tracklist of the collection was also lost during one of the re-recording iterations - I listened to these songs many times, but did not know either the names of the songs or the performers. As you can guess, some of these anonymous songs made an imprint on my soul :) Of course, there was no Shazam service in those years, and even when it appeared, I could not identify these sought-after melodies.
It turned into a vicious circle: I wanted to find and listen to these melodies, but I did not know their names, and I could find out the name with the help of the Shazam service, if I already had the recordings themselves :) Therefore, finding these songs from my childhood lay through all sorts of coincidences, communication with other people on forums and finds in various kinds of disco hit collections.
Lipps inc — Funkytown
"This song really moves me!" - Homer Simpson used to say. The track of American band from Minnesota became a smash hit in March 1980. Later I listened to their other tracks and was not impressed much, but this one was a real killer... So, yes, in my opinion this band was a typical one-hit wonder :) and typically it is arranger and producer of the song are to blame for its success, rather than the "talented" artist.
I do not know the secret formula of its success, but suppose the clever use of the vocoder technology played significant role here (the rhythm and vocals are ordinary, nothing too special...) The song received two official videos. The 1st one had unidentified black woman lip synching vocals dances and transferred us into a dim disco-club atmosphere.
The second video featured Doris D (who fronted Lipps Inc. in Netherlands and West Germany) dancing and lip synching the vocals. Cynthia Johnson was the actual singer behind this project; she is an afro-american. So, she claimed she was never asked to perform a video for the song. Looking at how this god-knows-who is faking someone else's singing (sometimes even quoting and imitating these robotic-looking movements of Donna Summer performing 'I feel love') - I want to switch the video and un-love the song, it looks terrible to me.
In US charts the single immediately peaked to #8 position, and became #1 in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Israel, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Switzerland and West Germany (also peaked to #2 in Finland, Sweden and UK).
In case you want to know where the Funky Town is located. There's a night club called Funky Town on 8300 Blue Pkwy, Kansas City; there exists a Funkytown in Pennsylvania. Mexico also reported it has one. But Funky Town actually isn't a place - it is a state of mind!
Afric Simone — Hafanana
Afric Simone is a Mozambican singer who became famous thanks to this song which became his calling card and a big hit in the 70s. Huge thanks to one person at a forum that shared his musical likes from a childhood - I recognized the song immediately as started playing it. Magic does happen from time to time!
Ottawan — You're ok
If you’re ever asked to define the Disco genre in one song, this is it. Pure disco, dance floor perfection. Ottawan was a French pop music duo. It became well-known in early 1980s with smash hits "D.I.S.C.O." and "Hands Up". Wiki has its full story, so I dont need to retell it.
The story of changing vocalists, the struggle for new hit singles, squeezing money out of successful pop music formulas, all this stuff is typical and has a little interest. However, imprint is imprint, and these tunes will remain in my head forever :)
= For my Russian followers =
Сегодняшний пост будет полон воспоминаний. Я даже сделал специальное фото старинного звуконосителя родом из 1970-х. Любопытно, пользовался ли кто-то из моих читателей такими магнитофонными бобинами? кто-то начинал с компакт-кассет, кто-то с компакт-дисков, а кто-то с mp3. Сегодняшнее положение дел таково что почти все используют стриминг-сервисы - конечно, все в курсе про mp3, но уже не используют, считая технологию отжившей... Но мой пост не про технологии. Это просто ностальгическое интро.
Когда я начинал слушать музыку, у меня не было своего магнитофона или винилового проигрывателя - но они были у моих родителей :) поэтому, естественно, и мое первое знакомство с музыкой началось с их фонотеки. Моя мама любила классическую музыку и я рано познакомился с Моцартом, Вивальди, Шопеном, Бахом и другими великими композиторами - мама имела солидную коллекцию пластинок. Также она имела и небольшую стопку магнитофонных пленок - которые содержали совершенно другую музыку. Это были современные банды, преимущественно зарубежная эстрада, которая не издавалась в СССР официально.
Сегодня мы знаем имена ABBA, Bee Gees, Donna Summer, Ottawan - тогда же эти имена советскому человеку, живущему за Железным занавесом, не говорили ровным счетом ничего. Когда пластинки с такой музыкой попадали в СССР из-за рубежа, люди копировали их друг у друга. Одна из бобин маминой коллекции содержала сборник хитов танцевальной музыки в стиле диско. В процессе передачи информации часть ее всегда теряется, и разумеется, треклист сборника на одной из итераций перезаписи тоже потерялся - я слушал эти песни много раз, но не знал ни названий песен, ни исполнителей. Как вы можете догадаться, некоторые из этих анонимных песен сделали импринтинг на моей душе :) Разумеется, никакого Шазам-сервиса в те годы не существовало, и даже когда он появился, я никак не мог опознать эти разыскиваемые мелодии.
Это превратилось в замкнутый круг: я хотел найти и послушать эти мелодии, но не знал их названия, а узнать название мог бы при помощи шазам-сервиса, если бы у меня уже были сами записи :) Поэтому обретение этих песен родом из моего детства лежало через всевозможные случайности, общение с другими людьми на форумах и находки в разного рода сборниках диско-хитов.
Hope you enjoyed today's music selection, and travelling around the globe without leaving the Hive. 😎 The post goes for Three Tune Tuesday challenge run by @ablaze. Previous issues: 106 | 107 | 108 | 109 | 110 | 111 | 112 | 113 | 114 | 115 | 116 | 118 | 121 | 122 | 123 | 124 | 125 | 126 | 127 | 128 | 129 | 131 | 140 | 141 | 142 | 143 | 144 | 146 | 147 | 148 | 149 | 151 | 152 | 154 | 156 | 157 | 165 | 167 | 168 | 170 | 171 | 172 | 173 | 174 | 177 | 178
