This originally ran as the song of the day on Feb 13th, 2009 – running it again today with a slight update. Yesterday BYT editor Logan and I went skydiving (thanks Red Bull), and before the jump we discussed what songs would be the best soundtrack to the experience. I now know that this would be the perfect choice, it’s serene up there at 12,000 ft. Thank you Donna Summer for all the great music.
I’ve only ever given 63 songs a 5 star rating in iTunes. That’s out of 62,052 of them. This is one of those songs. Giorgio Moroder’s influential all synth backing track and Donna Summers gorgeous pipes combine to create the most jaw droppingly mind explodingly awesome soaring dancefloor epic of all time. Did people in the 70′s actually dance to all 8 min of this? Did people in the 80′s actually dance to all 16 min of the Patrick Cowley mix? Anyway, don’t take it from me, take it from Bowie:
“One day in Berlin … Eno came running in and said, ‘I have heard the sound of the future.’ … he puts on ‘I Feel Love’, by Donna Summer … He said, ‘This is it, look no further. This single is going to change the sound of club music for the next fifteen years.’ Which was more or less right.”
I listened to all eight minutes. It didn’t change my life.
I’d be interested in seeing what those other 53 songs are though.
william: you know i love abba. and i know what that says about me. i’m okay with that.
cale: i already do. i’m going to second pedro’s sentiment.
eddie: i know address books are old school, but they are handy.
i’ve forgotten the name and the address of everyone i’ve ever known.
i usually regret everything i say by the next morning so i know the feeling
Ah so we can blame Donna Summer, Giorgio Moroder, and Pete Bellotte
Amanda you missed the point entirely. By leaps and bounds.
Of course a song from the 1970s isn’t going to change your life now. The thing is it changed music then…
oh nevermind.
no, michael, I get it. i’m just not a fan. i agree with your first statement.
we’ve discussed our music taste before, you and i are both not fans of music that is entirely electronic. i don’t even like most remixes.
really? man, i think “i feel love” is one of the greatest songs of all time. beyond it’s influence – it’s just a viscerally thrilling, fantastic song. it’s hailed as a disco masterpiece, but that’s nonsense. it’s as uncompromisingly electronic as anything kraftwerk did. and i love kraftwerk.
amanda – it’s not a song to listen to on your computer speakers. it’s a song to be experienced in a night club with crystalline sound and throbbing bass.
not liking it doesn’t ennoble anyone. it’s like “dancing queen” by abba. much as i hate them, i respect that it’s brilliantly done. there’s a great story about martin hannett listening to it for the first time on big leather headphones, removing them, and despairing that he’d never be associated with a song so perfectly constructed and executed.
you could argue he did, and the song is “love will tear us apart,” but i’m not sure he would have agreed.
see also the oft-overlooked “life in tokyo” by japan. as marvelous as “i feel love” is with donna summer’s delicious cooing, i get as big a thrill from david sylvian’s slinky seductiveness.
also, “heart of glass” by blondie, though that is more purely disco – which was remade beautifully by a primary industry and, even more thrillingly, by scala.
finally, to finish the disco brain-dump, listen to the human league’s side 12″ under the name the men called “i don’t depend on you.” fantastic disco-pastiche right before they hit.
Someday when Amanda is older she’ll regret a lot of the things she said on BYT.
I already regret many of the things I said on BYT.
Dancing Queen isn’t even Abba’s best song. The lyrics are vapid, the production is far too glossy, and the song is rather flat. It’s so upsetting that “Dancing Queen” is the song that kinda crossed over here in the States, considering that they had sooooo many other good songs!
If you want to hear Abba at their peak, “Voulez-Vous”, “The Winner Takes It All”, “Knowing Me, Knowing You.” Hell, “Gimme Gimme Gimme (A Man After Midnight).”
As per Donna Summer and Moroder, I wonder if they communicated in English or in German during those sessions. (Fun Fact, Summer used to be married to a German fellow. Moroder comes from a German-speaking province in the north of Italy).
@William
As far as I’m concerned, there is only ONE Japan album that matters, and that is “Tin Drum.”
There’s a reason TWTIA is their best song, and that’s because the fucks didn’t write it. grumble grumble.
Good post here….I bet when Eno heard it he was thinking “if i ever decided to go pop it would sound like this”…another old but secret dance gem; laura logic- wonderful offer. why aren’t dj’s spinning this stuff instead of 8 hours of bmore?? (i must admit i have a guilty pleasure for bmore at times though)..
@Cozylab Bob
Two words for you: Filthy Lucre.
@cozylab bob – for the record, i played this version of “i feel love” the last time i dj’d dc. will be spinning again at jimmy valentine’s on april 11th. you know, assuming they get the whole ABC thing worked out.
(sorry for the shameless plug)