It’s 1977. Brian Eno and David Bowie are busy making Heroes in Berlin. One day Eno dashes into the studio excitedly brandishing a newly launched 7” and rhapsodizes to Bowie, “This single is going to change the sound of club music for the next 15 years.” He was proper about Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love,” however his assertion requires two amendments: Delete “club” and alter “15 years” to “forever.”
Bridging disco sensuality and the synthesizer revolution, Summer and producers/co-writers Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte not solely crafted a world smash, they helped lay a path for synth pop, New Romantics, Italo disco, Hi-NRG, electro, home, techno, and extra, influencing generations of pop, rock, and dance artists alongside the way in which.
Listen to Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love” now.
Moroder and Bellotte had already spent years making Summer an intercontinental disco diva. But that they had no approach of realizing the closing observe on her 1977 album I Remember Yesterday would propel the singer’s profession into the stratosphere and alter music historical past. “We did it just as an album track,” Moroder advised Record Mirror’s Robin Katz later that yr. “Donna finished in 10 minutes. Neither of us thought it would be as big as it’s been.”
I Remember Yesterday is an idea album, with every observe representing a special period. Moroder and Bellotte belatedly hit on the concept of closing with a tune symbolizing the musical future. They had no thought how on-the-nose they had been.
Synthesizers had been nonetheless sufficient of a novelty to be a pure alternative for a futuristic manufacturing. Moroder was no stranger to synths, having used them in his solo work, however for this, he introduced in German engineer Robbie Wedel, a modular Moog knowledgeable. Working reverse to Moroder’s customary technique, they created the groove first – that undulating Dr. Who at Studio 54 synth-bass line and the all-important digital beat. Drum machines didn’t but have the sophistication for the latter, so that they crafted every drum sound on the synth and recorded them individually. But they couldn’t get a passable kick sound, so future Billy Idol producer Keith Forsey was drafted on bass drum, the observe’s solely non-electronic instrument.
Summer wrote a easy, suitably erotic lyric to the throbbing digital backing Moroder and firm created. Casablanca Records head Neil Bogart sagely insisted on releasing the completed product as a single, making the already profitable Summer a famous person. Besides placing thousands and thousands of butts in movement across the globe, the unconventional new sound impressed tons of forward-thinking artists.
Blondie was listening intently, and when “Heart of Glass” appeared the next yr, their variation on Summer’s electro-disco template despatched the band’s profile sky-high. Sparks’ Ron Mael advised Trouser Press’s Ira Robbins, “We heard ‘I Feel Love’ by Donna Summer and thought it was an incredible mixture of electronics with a voice that had real warmth to it…. So we approached Giorgio Moroder.” The consequence was Sparks’ seminal 1979 album No. 1 in Heaven.
As synth pop and the New Romantic scene rose in early ‘80s England, the song’s sphere of affect broadened exponentially. Simple Minds’ 1980 single “I Travel” was nothing if not “I Feel Love” for the post-punk era. And in 1981, when Human League singer Phil Oakey advised Record Mirror’s Mark Cooper, “we want to be like ABBA or Donna Summer,” there was little question which Summer single he had in thoughts.
The tune’s affect on dance music went hand in hand with its LGBTQ+ attraction. Moroder advised Pitchfork, “Millions of gay people love Donna, and some say ‘I was liberated by that song’…. Jimmy [Somerville of Bronski Beat] told me he became a singer because of ‘I Feel Love.’”
“Out” trio Bronski Beat’s 1985 hit cowl of “I Feel Love” was emblematic of the observe’s significance to each the homosexual neighborhood and the event of the ‘80s Hi-NRG dance sound. Decades later, the effect was unabated. Sam Smith covered “I Feel Love” in 2019 and stated on Twitter, “As a queer person, ‘I Feel Love’ has adopted me to each dance flooring in each queer area from the minute I began clubbing. This tune, to me, is an anthem of our neighborhood.”
The affect runs in a straight line from Hi-NRG to accommodate and techno. After Detroit dance legends like Juan Atkins, Derrick May, and Carl Craig began spinning it of their DJ units, they by no means stopped. In 2003 Fatboy Slim advised Greg Wilson’s electrofunkroots, “’I Feel Love’ was the first disco record I allowed myself to like, and obviously, that was a sort of pivotal thing because it was almost the first prototype house record.”
The story stays the identical as we speak. In 2022, “I Feel Love” sat on the prime of Rolling Stone’s checklist of the all time dance songs, and Beyonce closed her new album, Renaissance, with the homage “Summer Renaissance.” After 45 years, the six minutes of digital ecstasy that modified the world are as massive a turn-on as ever.
Listen to Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love” now.