GIORGIO MORODER Life After Disco

Rip It Up, Issue 91, 1 February 1985, Page 12

GIORGIO MORODER Life After Disco

Kerry Doole

As a man who has made music his career for the past 25 years, Giorgio Moroder has fused his artistic and commercial instincts effortlessly and lucratively. Modem music is full of tales of innovators who are left penniless and unrecognised while their ideas are ruthlessly exploited by others, but Moroder the pioneer has survived long enough to start reaping his just rewards. Right now, however, he is in the midst of the fieriest controversy of his career, one stemming from the modernisation of the 1926 silent movie classic Metropolis. Moroder's love for the film plus his canny recognition of its potential impact upon a new audience drove him to purchase the rights to the movie and re-release it in a revised form witfr a contemporary rock score. This act has brought forth cries for Giorgio's head from film purists and critics outraged at what they consider to be butchery of the bloodiest kind, but Moroder has come back fighting. "The only comment I have is what is better for that masterpiece of Fritz Lang? To have it in a museum or released and seen by young people? I found a lot of young people didn't even know what a silent movie was. The only way to present

it was with a new and contemporary soundtrack.” insists the affable Italian during a quick visit to the Toronto Film Festival for the screening of Metropolis.

Pushing his product publicly is not something Giorgio Moroder is used to. He has made his mark as a composer and producer, a mastermind of the recording studio, but the Metropolis project is something else again. “I was always in the background, behind the scenes, but now they are pushing me up front because the movie needs someone to publicise it. I cannot send an actor; only one is still alive and he is now 82, living in Paris I’m the only one available."

Even in a shortened (90 minutes from three hours) and reconstructed (colour tinting, score and sound effects) form, Metropolis stands up as a breathtaking piece of film-making that looks at a possible future world that is far from a holiday camp for most of its inhabitants “I love the movie, basically for its visuals The story is not the greatest but the look is so good,”

comments Moroder. This desire to see the film revived led him to spend a large sum of money to buy the rights from the German government. Interestingly enough, David Bowie became a competitor for the rights to Metropolis : “After I did ‘Cat People' with him, we talked about what we were doing next. I said the music to Metropolis and he had the same idea. I guess I was just a little faster in getting the rights” he laughs

Bowie is not on the soundtrack, but some heavyweights are; Pat Benatar, Bonnie Tyler, Billy Squier, Adam Ant, Freddie Mercury, Jon Anderson and Loverboy. Clips from the film make great video material, as already seen on Queenfe Radio Ga Ga’ and Tylerls Here She Comes' clips Smart businessman that he is, Moroder gave Queen the rights to use scenes from Metropolis in their video “because it is good publicity for the film."

Film scores have ranked alongside production work in Moroder's priorities over the past five years His moody synthesised score to Midnight Express in 1979 won him an Oscar, while he also

produced soundtracks for American Gigolo (Blondie’s ’Call Me’ hit), Scarface, Cat People and the phenomenally successful Flashdance (over 10 million copies sold and four Grammy nominations for Moroder) His biggest single influence on contemporary music, however, has been the popularisation of the synthesiser in pop music. Moroder is the man behind Donna Summer’s rise as disco queen of the 70s and it was his songs like Love To Love You Baby’ and ‘I Feel Love’ that gave the world the Euro-disco sound.

Ironically, now that the anti-disco backlash is well and truly gone, Moroder is being recognised as a true pioneer. The sound of 80s synthpop owes a great deal to him. It is believed that Brian Eno only sensed the possibilities of the synthesiser after hearing ‘I Feel Love’, while many English bands of recent years are in Moroder’s debt. I just did a record with Phil Oakey of the Human League and he said ‘we all have to thank you for the sounds we have now! Disco was never accepted the way rock or new wave was and that may have been a reason I perhaps wasn’t taken too seriously. “I did a lot of work with synthesisers in the early 70s but nobody really liked it as an instrument. The audience just didn’t accept it, they were starting to make fun of me. Again, about seven years ago I made an album that was never released, but sounds exactly like what is coming out now. I used a vocoder, the second one ever built.”

Of his impressive catalogue of work, Giorgio Moroder singles out Love To Love You Baby’ as a favoruite "because it was my first big hit. As for production it would be Donna’s version of MacArthur Park’. ”

A recent collaboration with Nina Hagen does not rank as one of Giorgio's treasured moments: “She is too wild, too difficult Originally it seemed she would listen to what Keith (Forsey) and I said, but it finally turned out she wouldn't listen. I think it is a good album, but nothing new, just the same kind of thing she did a year earlier” Moroder’s restless search for new challenges now inevitably leads him into film direction. Also inevitable, his first project will be a contemporary musical, but he claims to “have found a new way to present a musical. I already have 10 songs, with the acts for now being Berlin, Deneice Williams and Paul Young.” The current glut of films featuring heavy-duty soundtracks does worry Moroder: “If Hollywood has 30 movies coming out and each has three or four songs, that is over 100 artists. It becomes a problem to find acts. Besides, a lot of films just don't have the quality and they think that just by adding songs they’ll save the movie"