Review Summary: House music's preeminent production pioneer’s career highlight as a recording artist.
We owe a lot to people like Giorgio Moroder. People who balk at the conventions and traditions the rest of us don’t even consider overturning. Taking it almost entirely upon himself to introduce the world to the magically precise sounds of electronically crafted music, Moroder’s influence in Italy is comparable to what Kraftwerk was experiencing around the same time in Germany, or Yellow Magic Orchestra in Japan. A cultural shift in pop music toward the next level, in the mind of someone possessing sentience in 1977 it might’ve appeared to be something like the future.
Moroder’s career highlight as a recording artist is also certainly his most influential. The first side of the album is comprised of a single 15-minute long dance mix spread across five tracks. Featuring musical elements that are nearly ubiquitous in electronic music these days – four-on-the-floor bass kicks, speech vocoders, squelchy arpeggiation – the music will sound instantly familiar, and perhaps not even particularly noteworthy until you discover the release date.
However, unlike most current electronic music where From Here To Eternity really shines is in the playful back-and-forth between Moroder’s breathy, effortless vocals and the ghostly, all-female backing choir that shows up on nearly every track. It’s sensual and provocative while also sounding completely innocuous and, to be perfectly honest, kinda dorky. The cheesy lyrics certainly contribute to the bizarre atmosphere of the music. For perfectly apt examples of these you needn’t look further than a few of the song titles: First Hand Experience In Second Hand Love & I’m Left, You’re Right, She’s Gone spring immediately to mind. But it all adds to the charm and esteem of the album, and without it we might have a much different interpretation of the House genre today.
The pulse of the kicks, snares, and hats is persistent throughout the album, so Moroder’s differing arrangements of the bouncy synths carry most of the weight in keeping the music fresh and interesting. They’re sleazy on the title track, whimsical and futuristic on Utopia – Me Giorgio, and in turns laidback, contemplative, and celebratory on the rest of the album. The short length (just over 30 minutes) of the disc also contributes greatly to its replay value, like an episode of your favorite television show.
If any doubt remains in Moroder’s lasting influence, just take a look at his production credits. Remember the American theme song of The Never Ending Story? The one that you are probably humming in your head right now at the mere mention of it? He produced it. The iconic Scarface score that became the soundtrack to two-thirds of all cocaine abuse in the 1980s? That’s his as well. This is an artist who is mostly known in the industry as a behind-the-scenes studio pioneer rather than a chart-topping pop icon. That’s a good thing; we need both. But every time I pop in From Here To Eternity and crank the volume up to max, I forget the difference.
