Disco Hits That Were Ahead of Their Time

[Rab]

Have you ever heard a hit that sounded like it was released at the wrong time? I can remember hearing Chakachas' "Jungle Fever" thinking it was surely released in the late 70's only to find out it came out before the disco era officially began......or, maybe you heard a song that came out well after the disco boom that was so good you thought it should have come out during the disco boom years to give it more justice....

[drlove]

Rab,

Cool Topic :icon_cool:

When I heard "The Love I Lost" on an "oldies" station a decade or so ago (I know, I know, don't know how I made it thru my yute without knowing that song), I was not prepared to hear the dj state that it set dance floors afire back in 1973 !!! That high-energy tune certainly sounds like it would've come out much, much later in the '70s.

On the flip side, Kool & the Gang's #1 dance hit "Fresh", in my opinion, certainly sounds like it would've been an album cut on their 1979 Ladies Night LP, but instead, it was recorded/released around 1984/85 !!!

Go figure !!!

[thommy2458]

I would include Donna Summer's "I Feel Love" in
this group-it was techno,trance,house,electro AND
disco all it once.

Thom

[disco1999]

I recall Cerrone - Supernature to be an unfamiliar sound just like Donna Summer's IFL. By the way, "I feel love" was intended to represent the "future" on the album as a conclusion of "I remember yesterday" and was also initially known as a "B Sider" track. A major influence to Techno music was born.

[Salsoul1975]

On the flip side, Kool & the Gang's #1 dance hit "Fresh", in my opinion, certainly sounds like it would've been an album cut on their 1979 Ladies Night LP, but instead, it was recorded/released around 1984/85 !!!

Go figure !!!

Kool & The Gang's music always sounded dated post-"Celebration"; "Cherish", "Misled", "Stone Love" and "Victory" sound like they could've come out earlier than they did.

[remicks]

*****


That's kind of tough one ....because that was part of the impetus that propelled disco ... the way each new wave of releases continued to sound fresh .... nothing staler than yesterday's sounding disco ....

But one that particularly sounded like it had been dropped off from another planet at the time to me was :

DEVIL's GUN

:icon_cool::icon_mrgreen:

Here I am .......:icon_rolleyes:............ dancing to it ................ :icon_lol: :icon_lol: :icon_lol: :icon_lol:



well I used to sort of dance like that..... kind of .... a little ...well ....I danced ....anyway


*****

[12incher]

I think Poussez' "Come On and Do It" sounded a bit ahead of its time, maybe a little too much "synth" for the time period

[Disco Funk]

Are you looking for songs that were influential and well known? Or just songs that sounded out of place and time because they were foreshadowing what would come later?

The one song that I've mentioned many times that I think was the first true disco tune, and change the direction of dance music forever, was I'll Be Around by The Spinners. It was recorded in the spring of 1972 and emphasized a heavy sounding beat, with a soul funk groove and of course the strings on top. The Love I Lost definitely gets credit for upping the bpms and being a four-on-the-floor disco track. There were earlier examples of the four-on-the-floor drum pattern by Earl Young, but this tune really solidified and exemplified the true disco sound. It was recorded in late 73.

Other tunes that I think sounded ahead of their time:

From 1968
Pigmeat Markham - Here Come The Judge (first rap on record?)


From 1970
Sweet Inspirations - This World

Little Sister - I'm The One

Little Sister - Somebody's Watching You (earliest (first?) song to use a drum machine instead of a drummer)



From 1972:
Jimmy Castor Bunch - It's Just Begun (until I found out the actual year this was recorded, I thought it was from the late 70s)

The Futures - Stay With Me (early four-on-the-floor philly disco)

Fatback Band - Goin' To See My Baby (flying hi-hat throughout the whole song, possibly inspired by The Trammps' Zing?)


From 1973
There are a lot of tracks from this year that could be considered ahead of their time because music was picking up on the dancefloor sound a la Philly and the East Coast. But this track stands out for various reasons. When I first heard it, on a bootleg compilation, I thought it was a P&P production from the late 70s. I was surprised to find out it was from '73. It was a remix of the ending of another song, Genie Brown's - Can't Stop Talking.
Tribe - Koke (or Coke)



From 1974
Bunny Sigler - Keep Smilin (the first sound to feature the Instant Funk. Awesome bottom on this groover)

Peppers - Pepper Box (pre-dates the heavy euro-synth sound?)

John Lennon - Whatever Get You Thru The Night (a lot of people disagree with me on this being a disco tune. I think its the first attempt by a rock artist to do disco. I don't count early tunes by guys like Titanic, even though they're considered dancefloor anthems now)


If I think of others, I will add them to the thread.

Disco Funk

[remicks]

Excellent list of "originals" DF :icon_cool: :icon_cool: :icon_cool:


I can't help wondering if this one:

From 1972:
Jimmy Castor Bunch - It's Just Begun (until I found out the actual year this was recorded, I thought it was from the late 70s)


Disco Funk

might've been influenced by this one : :icon_confused: ....



........... what say you ??

*****

[Disco Funk]

Excellent list of "originals" DF :icon_cool: :icon_cool: :icon_cool:


I can't help thinking this one:



might've been influenced by this one : :icon_confused: ....





*****

Oh yeah, I forgot about Soul Makossa. Definitely ahead of its time. I'm not sure if one influenced the other. Jimmy Castor actually recorded It's Just Begun a year earlier as a single, which sounds a little different from the 1972 version, which strangely never got a single release. It was Troglodyte and Promise To Remember that were put out on a single.

I should add these James Brown dancefloor classics, not exactly disco, but gettin' there:
Talkin Loud And Sayin Nothing from 1970


I Got Ants In My Pants 1972


Disco Funk

[remicks]

Oh yeah, I forgot about Soul Makossa.
Definitely ahead of its time. I'm not sure if one influenced the other. Jimmy Castor actually recorded It's Just Begun a year earlier as a single, which sounds a little different from the 1972 version, which strangely never got a single release. It was Troglodyte and Promise To Remember that were put out on a single.

Disco Funk

Well that Jimmy Castor Bunch tune is definitely on the track toward disco. By the way that's an album I bought new, BITD !


I've never really understood the SOUL MAKOSSA = original disco assertion


......... until listening again now :



:icon_cool:


*****

[Rab]

I love Soul Makossa. I think this song links the African influence of percussion.

[musiquelover]

Maybe it's just me but to my ear Tantra's "Wishbone" and Sticky Fingers' "Party Song" sound like they could've been released during a later period in time.

[RetroRuss]

The track that always sticks in my mind on this topic is Tango In Space by Space from 1977.

[Teddybear]

USA-European Connection was avant-garde (so ahead that time hasn't come yet for many, even among Disco lovers!!)

[SandraDee]

I think that many of Paul Sabu's productions from '79/'80 such as Sister Power & Debbie Jacobs sound like they are more '82/'83 tracks. Also K.I.D.'s 'Hupendi Muziki Wangu' sounds like it's from earlier than '81, possibly late 70's.

[The Boogie Doctor]

a good deal of italo falls under thsi rubric of music i think. how about some of telex's productions? mosko disko was WAAAAAY ahead of it's time.

[Rab]

I love Soul Makossa. I love the solid African influence of percussion in this song.

Did he have any others?

[STEPHEN L FREEMAN]

I recall Cerrone - Supernature to be an unfamiliar sound just like Donna Summer's IFL. By the way, "I feel love" was intended to represent the "future" on the album as a conclusion of "I remember yesterday" and was also initially known as a "B Sider" track. A major influence to Techno music was born.

Yuppers.... The first single off the "I Remember Yesterday" LP, was the ballad, "Can't We Just Sit Down (and talk it over)". "I Feel Love" (in it's entirety) was the b-side of that single. AND... It you bought one of the earliest copies of that single, it was on the pre-Filmworks, Casablanca label.

[STEPHEN L FREEMAN]

Did he have any others?

Manu Dibango's follow-up to "Soul Makossa" was titled "Big Blow".
It didn't go anywhere.

[djscream67]

Those were all good picks, but no one mentioned Kraftwerk yet! 'Trans Europe Express' was totally mindblowing when it first got airplay, truly ahead of their time!

When 'Numbers' came out, I thought it was all over; FUHGEDDABOUDIT! No one I knew had a sound like Kraftwerk did back then, but I was a kid so I could be wrong, anyways they really were unique too. :icon_razz:

[qdearl]

Those were all good picks, but no one mentioned Kraftwerk yet! 'Trans Europe Express' was totally mindblowing when it first got airplay, truly ahead of their time!

When 'Numbers' came out, I thought it was all over; FUHGEDDABOUDIT! No one I knew had a sound like Kraftwerk did back then, but I was a kid so I could be wrong, anyways they really were unique too. :icon_razz:

I totally agree with you on that! When I heard Numbers/Computer World, I had only recently heard Trans Europe Express, and thought it was just released in '81, then when I finally found the album realized it was from 1977!:icon_lol:

[djscream67]

OK, how does anyone feel about Meco 'Star Wars' Monardo? I have to admit being a SW fanatic having watched it over a dozen times in 1977, I'd go nutzo hearing it on the radio everytime. In fact, 'Star Wars and Other Galactic Funk' was the very first 12'' album I purchased for $5.27 (at a place called 'Sound Machine' on JFK Blvd. on the 2nd floor, not the one at the JSQ Plaza, remember that Bernie? LOL!), because I liked it that much! Then came 'Encounters of Every Kind' and 'Wizard of Oz' after that. I mean, nobody I knew then crafted voiceovers over a disco piece like he did with those and he was, to me, one of the first I heard to do that!

Remember, I was 11 then. LOL!

[BrunoRepublic]

Manu Dibango's follow-up to "Soul Makossa" was titled "Big Blow".
It didn't go anywhere.

The Soul Makossa LP released on Atlantic is brilliant though. "New Bell" is pure funk wah-wah guitar bliss.

I suspect the album was merely a quick compilation of Dibango's existing material, since he'd already been well-known in many parts of Africa for several years. Nonetheless, it's top quality stuff. I hope to find more like it.

[STEPHEN L FREEMAN]

The Soul Makossa LP released on Atlantic is brilliant though. "New Bell" is pure funk wah-wah guitar bliss.

I suspect the album was merely a quick compilation of Dibango's existing material, since he'd already been well-known in many parts of Africa for several years. Nonetheless, it's top quality stuff. I hope to find more like it.

I don't doubt it is great. But, as with Atlantic's reputation for signing & releasing any Dance music terribly late-in-the-game (as-well-as doing next to zilch promotion on their Dance releases.) "Soul Makossa" was being played on US Top-40 radio, and sold, while still on the French label FIESTA records. (burgundy-colored lablel, with black typeset and picture-cover sleeve)

by the time Atlantic picked-it-up (as with Sinitta & Donna Summer's "AP&T", a couple decades later, for obvious example..) an enormous chunk of the record sales had already been accomplished by FIESTA, through the massive shipment of 7" singles to the US, from France.

The 1976 12" single of "Big Blow" (8'00"), also released on FIESTA (cat.# 78.002, on a blue label, with black typeset), is a treasure! Because it has the full-length extended version of 1973's "Soul Makossa" (6'25") on the b-side. Cut at 45rpm, with awesome sound quality!