Disco is a much
maligned genre, and I guess I can see why. It supplanted the lush, technical,
hyper-musical, heavily expressive, virtuosic, jazz- and classic-influenced
progressive rock of the early seventies with throbbing, soulless beats,
computer rhythms, and synthesized, phony baloney strings and horns. Great
songwriters like Jeff Lynne and Freddie Mercury away from their sublime
melodies and towards repetitive, inhuman grooves. I get it.
Still, I've never
had this visceral hatred of disco, and this list, which contains several of the
best albums from the genre, has given me a new appreciation for it. It's hard
to criticize disco for being robotic when you listen to Kraftwerk. It's hard to
criticize it as soulless when you listen to Throbbing Gristle. It's hard to
criticize it as artificial or inauthentic when you appreciate lost genres like
Exotica or Bubblegum. So I'm not ashamed to say I enjoy disco, especially for
its influence on New Wave and much of modern electronica.
Nevertheless, in
this enjoyment, I find something deeply depressing about it, and about this
album in particular. Giorgio Moroder was an Italian producer who helped raise
Donna Summer to stardom with his programming prowess. Here, he steps out from
behind the mixing desk and lets his work stand on its own, untainted by any
exterior interpreter.
And stand it does.
The music is tight and well-produced. The melodies are catchy. The background
vocals are superb. So why depressing? I think it has to do with the sense of
fatigue that comes from the repetitive beat. The first track starts out
sublime, but as he human vocals fade into robotic vocoders, its exuberance
slips into a minor key and turns dark. All the time the four on the floor beat
remains constant, monotonous, inexorable.
Like Lou Reed
singing about the pointless, yet inescapable, life of the hard partying drug
user, this feels like an early commentary on club culture, almost before there
was such a thing. Moments of occasional euphoria fade away to reveal a deep
emptiness, and yet through it all you keep desperately dancing, even after all
enthusiasm or joy for the activity has died.
Make no mistake: I
don't regard this as a weakness of the album. Instead, it's really what makes
it so strong. There are a million records of cheerful, upbeat, one-dimensional
techno. From Here to Eternity has an emotional depth lacking in similar yet
inferior records. Even the title is perfect. At first glance, it sounds
inspiring, but upon further reflection it suggests fatigue and hopelessness.
Just like the eternal, thumping, bass beat, there’s no end in sight to an
existence of empty hedonism.
Giorgio Maroder is
one of the pioneers of electronic dance music, and this remains his most
popular and influential work. Even if you're not a fan of disco, you have to
appreciate his technical savvy and artistic vision. As a high water mark of
pristine electronic production, From Here to Eternity totally holds up 40 years
after its release.
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