Giorgio Moroder
photo: andy witchger · cc by 2.0 ↗The self-styled 'Father of Disco' heard the future in a synthesizer's throb and decided to build entire records around it. Giorgio Moroder's arpeggiating basslines turned Donna Summer's voice into something otherworldly and gave dance music a whole new circulatory system — one that Daft Punk, decades later, would trace back and salute by name. Few producers have ever made a machine sound so human.
Moroder has called Switched-On Bach, released in 1968, his eureka moment — hearing a whole record built entirely on synthesizer tones convinced him the instrument's possibilities were endless, and that pop music was exactly where he wanted to take it.
listen forListen to the crisp, otherworldly synth tones on Title Music from A Clockwork Orange, then play From Here to Eternity — Moroder runs his voice through a vocoder and lets synthesizers stand in for an entire band, the same 'a synth can do anything' conviction pushed even further.
Moroder has said he loved Kraftwerk's sounds even if he didn't feel a personal kinship with the band — hearing what synthesizers and sequencers could do in their hands nudged him toward building I Feel Love around a hypnotic machine pulse.
listen forPlay Trans-Europe Express and lock onto that steady synthesizer motor, then spin Moroder's own I Feel Love — that same mechanical pulse turned into pure body music.