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MUSIC

Italian disco legend plans first album in 30 years

Giorgio Moroder, one of the pioneers of synthesized dance music, has announced his first album in three decades with the declaration: "74 is the New 24."

Published: 18 November 2014 08:20 CET
Italian disco legend plans first album in 30 years
Giorgio Moroder, one of the pioneers of synthesized dance music, has announced his first album in three decades. Photo: Swimfinfan

The 74-year-old Italian producer said that his album, to be released early next year, will feature a collaboration with prominent singers including Britney Spears, Kylie Minogue, Charli XCX and Sia.

The gray-haired Moroder released a first track from the album on Monday entitled "74 is the New 24," which is driven by a pulsating dance beat as a computerized voice repeats the catch-phrase in the song's title.

"Dance music doesn't care where you live. It doesn't care who your friends are. It doesn't care how much money you make. It doesn't care if you're 74 or if you are 24 because 74 is the new 24," Moroder said in a statement announcing the still-untitled new album.

Starting in the late 1960s, Moroder was one of the first musicians to use synthesizers to create dance beats and melodies, which spawned a genre that packed nightclubs.

Moroder's production skills became well-known in the disco era when he co-wrote a series of songs with Donna Summer including the 1975 smash hit "Love to Love You Baby," which was characterized by its erotic moans and funky guitar.

Moroder, who started his career in Germany and later moved to Los Angeles, eventually refined his electronic dance sound with his own albums, some released under the stage name Munich Machine.

At the same time, Moroder produced some of the most memorable hits of the 1980s including Blondie's "Call Me" and Berlin's "Take My Breath Away" from the movie "Top Gun."

He has won three Oscars – for the songs "Take My Breath Away" in 1986 and "What a Feeling" from the 1983 album "Flashdance" as well as for best original score for the 1978 film "Midnight Express."

While he stopped recording albums in the 1980s, Moroder returned last year to collaborate with French electronic duo Daft Punk on the Grammy winning album "Random Access Memories."

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CULTURE

New songs mark sixth anniversary of French star Johnny Hallyday’s death

Fans of the late Johnny Hallyday, "the French Elvis Presley", will be able to commemorate the sixth anniversary of his death with two songs never released before.

Published: 17 November 2023 09:05 CET
New songs mark sixth anniversary of French star Johnny Hallyday's death

Hallyday, blessed with a powerful husky voice and seemingly boundless energy, died in December 2017, aged 74, of lung cancer after a long music and acting career.

After an estimated 110 million records sold during his lifetime – making him one of the world’s best-selling singers -Hallyday’s success has continued unabated beyond his death.

Almost half of his current listeners on Spotify are under the age of 35, according to the streaming service, and a posthumous greatest hits collection of “France’s favourite rock’n’roller”, whose real name was Jean-Philippe Leo
Smet, sold more than half a million copies.

The two new songs, Un cri (A cry) and Grave-moi le coeur (Engrave my heart), are featured on two albums published by different labels which also contain already-known hits in remastered or symphonic versions.

Un cri was written in 2017 by guitarist and producer Maxim Nucci – better known as Yodelice – who worked with Hallyday during the singer’s final years.

At the time Hallyday had just learned that his cancer had returned, and he “felt the need to make music outside the framework of an album,” Yodelice told reporters this week.

Hallyday recorded a demo version of the song, accompanied only by an acoustic blues guitar, but never brought it to full production.

Sensing the fans’ unbroken love for Hallyday, Yodelice decided to finish the job.

He separated the voice track from the guitar which he felt was too tame, and arranged a rockier, full-band accompaniment.

“It felt like I was playing with my buddy,” he said.

The second song, Grave-moi le coeur, is to be published in December under the artistic responsibility of another of the singer’s close collaborators, the arranger Yvan Cassar.

Hallyday recorded the song – a French version of Elvis’s Love Me Tender – with a view to performing it at a 1996 show in Las Vegas.

But in the end he did not play it live, opting instead for the original English-language version, and did not include it in any album.

“This may sound crazy, but the song was on a rehearsal tape that had never been digitalised,” Cassar told AFP.

The new songs are unlikely to be the last of new Hallyday tunes to delight fans, a source with knowledge of his work said. “There’s still a huge mass of recordings out there spanning his whole career,” the source said.

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