04. Disco's back and it's out for blood
Hi kids, welcome back.
Sorry for the brief delay in content. Between the holidays and settling into a new big-girl job, it’s been a busy few weeks. Disco! I used to hate disco. Growing up I didn’t have any exposure to it at all outside of Just Dance 2 and maybe ABBA, if you squint. But I love soul and I love funk and I have an unfortunate Pavlovian reaction to listening to any music that could potentially be described as a “downer”, so as it turns out, disco is phenomenal and I listen to it all the time. Here’s 20 of my favorites to get you started:
04.1 Stay Away from Me, The Sylvers
This song is just so ever-slightly sinister and I love it for that. Interestingly, The Sylvers was a family group— there were ten siblings and all nine of the oldest performed with the group at some point or another. It does make you wonder what was going on with the youngest kid. Tone deaf or just a rebellious nature? Really weird looking? I need answers
04.2 Could Heaven Ever Be Like This, Idris Muhammad
I’ve shared this one before, on my primer playlist 01. I’m desperately trying to impress you. It’s one of my favorites and it’s absolutely peak disco.
04.3 More Than Enough, The Universal Togetherness Band
The soprano sax both absolutely makes this track and is on incredibly thin ice, in general, as an instrument.
04.04 I Believe in Miracles, The Jackson Sisters
04.5 Hang Together, Odyssey
I loooove Odyssey, who are perhaps best known for their 1977 hit, Native New Yorker, which was of course later immortalized by Wendy Williams. Absolutely none of these people are from New York.
04.6 Give, Harari
04.7 Kiss Me Again (Mix Edit), Dinosaur
Welcome to the dance portion of the mix. There’s a lot going on with this track, which was a one-off collaboration between Gloria Gaynor, this dude, and the guy who coined the term “concept art”, and David Byrne. The wriggler himself is playing guitar at 2:16.
Overall it’s a banger, and it was also produced by Arthur Russell, whose virtues I’ve extolled before.
04.8 Money - 7 Samurai Disco Version, The Dynamics, 7 Samurai
This is a mix of a so-so cover of For The Love of Money by The O’Jays, made incredibly danceable and delicious by 7 Samurai, who might be a German bootleg DJ. I don’t know. I can’t quite put the pieces together, you tell me.
04.9 90s Prostitution Racket, Gerry Reed
I’m finding it bizarrely difficult to piece together where some of these songs came from. This one is a track that mixes/heavily samples Touch Me by Wish & Fonda Rae, which I really liked until about 6:55.
This track, plus 04.03 More Than Enough, and a handful of my other favorite disco tracks, are all included on this very danceable compilation album by the excellent Jayda G, who accidentally became an internationally-successful DJ and producer while also working as an environmental toxicologist.
04.10 Terrorize My Heart (Disco Dub) [Bonus Track], 79.5
I honestly thought this song was from the 70s until I was today years old. Anyway, I first heard this track on Worldwide FM with Gilles Peterson.
04.11 Beam Me Up, Midnight Magic
04.12 Good Times, Risco Connection
This is, of course, a cover of Good Times by Chic. Sometimes the movie is better than the book, actually.
04.13 Take Me I’m Yours, Mary Clark
If you have a copy of this vinyl 12”, please call me.
04.14 Bite the Apple, Rainbow Team
04.15 Dip Drop, Evans Pyramid
Evans Pyramid is one of those projects that was almost lost to time, until some unsung hero/intrepid disco collector dug the original 12” master out of a crate somewhere. The little “do it mama” ad lib in here is fun little homage to Bootsy Collins.
04.16 Is It All Over My Face? (Female Version), Loose Joints
Not to sound like a broken record, but I’ve mentioned this track before on my primer playlist 01. I’m desperately trying to impress you, although it was actually in reference to the Blood Orange track that heavily samples it. The original cut is messy and sort of horrible and you just know they were having a good time recording it. I’m definitely having a good time listening.
Once again, RIP Arthur Russell.
04.17 There’s Never Been (No One Like You) (MAW Remix), Kenix, Bobby Youngblood, MAW
Friends of the newsletter will know that I DJed my own wedding, and so far a solid 75% of the songs I’ve mentioned here were also included that night, including this one. You may be asking yourself, did em force guests to listen to 90s Prostitution Racket? You’ll never know.
04.18 Never Gonna Leave Ya, Evans Pyramid
This is one of the songs of all time, truly. There’s more info on this song and on Evans Pyramid here, if you’re interested.
04.19 Ain’t No Stopping Us Now - Mixed, Risco Connection
My favorite, longer/jucier/better version of this track was recently removed from Spotify for unknown reasons. Which is a shame because it has a ton of weirdass percussion at the end, and there’s nothing I love more than weird percussion.
04.20 Love Is A Hurtin’ Thing, Gloria Ann Taylor
If you know me in real life I’m sorry to repeat this for the thousandth time, but Gloria Ann Taylor should have been a household name alongside Aretha Franklin, Diana Ross, Dionne Warwick, etc. She was superhumanly talented and her story is one near-miss after another. Despite her rare singles being traded by collectors for upwards of a thousand bucks a pop, she never made appreciable money as a musician for the majority of her life. It was only in 2015, when she was 71, that she discovered that her discography was big on the bootleg market and hired a lawyer to help win back the rights to her masters, which were ultimately re-released via a partnership with Ubiquity Records. Truly a gem that blurs the lines between psych, funk, disco, and a healthy dose of gospel.
I’ll leave you there. Happy friday you funky little freaks.
xoxo em