Flashback Friday Celebrates Synth Pop Innovator and Father of Disco Giorgio Morodor Turning 84

April 26, 2024
HANK ORSO

Happy Birthday, Giorgio Moroder!

Donna Summer, Katy Perry, Cher, Blondie, Phillip Oakley, the LA Summer Olympics, Berlin, Pat Benatar, Freddie Mercury...if you're gay, or a human who has listened to any music in the last 55 or so years, you've heard music by, or music influenced by, Giorgio Moroder who turns 84 today.

Happy birthday, Giorgio Moroder
Filmed recording the classic E=MC2 album in the studio, with co-producer Harold Faltermeyer.
The sound of the future pic.twitter.com/0WogSxqtFs
— Far Out Magazine (@FarOutMag) April 26, 2024

Besides his dance legacy, Moroder is also the founder of Munich's Musicland Studios where rock luminaries such as Led Zepplin, Elton John, The Rolling Stones, and ELO have recorded. His music has been used in everything from Fendi runways to a National Wrestling Association opening walk. (Cuz professional wrestling is totally not gay at all.) But it's his innovations with technology, the then-nascent Moog synthesizer, and pulling a not-well-known Donna Summer from a German cast of Hair to sing the vocals for what would become one of the most influential dance-pop tunes of all time that rocked his already growing influence from behind the scenes player to frontman producer.

His indelible sound has won him three Academy Awards: Best Original Score for Midnight Express, Best Song for "Flashdance...What a Feeling" from Flashdance, and Best Song for "Take My Breath Away" from Top Gun. He has also created the scores for such widely diverse films as Scarface which has been sampled by and influenced Rick Ross, Mobb Deep, Nas, and Lil Wayne; American Gigolo featuring a song with Debbie Harry; Cat People featuring a song with David Bowie; not to mention the other Top Gun by Kenny Loggins.

One of yer boy Hank here's personal favorite projects of Moroder was his restoration and re-edit of the classic 1927 silent film Metropolis. The film was in bad shape, with jagged editing cuts due to damage and lost scenes. Morodor and his team painstakingly searched for and discovered lost frames and damaged scenes which were restored and inserted into the film at key points. While he kept a sepia and b/w tone to the film, he color-tinted some moments throughout, without going the route of a tacky full colorization. Best of all he created a score and several original songs sung by Pat Benatar, Jon Anderson, Adam Ant, Billy Squier, Loverboy, Bonnie Tyler, and Freddie Mercury that are still solid rockers. Check out Tyler's "Here She Comes" in a video using scenes from the film.

As a birthday present, here's your springtime summer jam from a few years ago you've probably never heard, his collaboration with international icon Kylie Minogue and their song "Right Here, Right Now."