Groundbreaking disco

[shootyourshot]

Other than “Love In C Minor”, which songs heralded the move from the Philly sound to Euro-disco? Which songs started the Electro-funk, Italo-disco, & Hi-NRG movements?

[QUINNY]

OMG here we go again with another thread mentioning Love in C Minor. :o :o :o :evil:

No one record starts a genre, but it used to amaze me how records from a certain time frame would have virtually identical rhythm patterns, or sounds. At any one time there would be a sound that encapsulated the moment. It might last for a few months and then there would be a whole new batch of records that all had a different identical sound. I could never suss out whether or not this was because they were all produced by a small coterie of producer friends, had the same session musicians, were from the same city or what, but it used to happen. It used to really freak me out.

[Boodikka]

The first real example of what eventually became known as "Eurodisco" I can think of would be Crystal World by Crystal Grass (1975).

[QUINNY]

Good call Boodi, except it was nothing like the mostly formulated, metronomic garbage that followed. At least it had some balls!
I've been thinking about this and accepting that my brain is fogged and addled, maybe the Biddhu Orchestra were the first examples. He's certainly one of the few English producers that got anywhere near to an American sound.
Maybe his stuff sounded a bit too American to be considered Eurodisco? Certainly forgotten about nowadays, but he had a string of club hits in 1975/6.

[SandraDee]

Personally, I always thought one of the first acts that had the very distinctive Euro sound that became commercially accepted was Silver Convention in '75 with 'Save Me' & 'Fly Robin Fly' (I must stress that I was only 10 at the time so I was only aware of the charts & radio rather than club play).

To answer one of the other questions, unlike popular theory that hi-energy started in the early 80s with Lime, Patrick Cowley, So Many Men,etc.etc. I personally feel that it started during the late 70s disco era with fast, zingy stuff like The Ring's 'Savage Lover', Suzi Lane's 'Harmony' & Brainstorm's 'Lovin Is Really My Game' to name a tiny handful which were apparently very big in gay clubs. The later 80s stuff was just the same but with sparser, colder productions IMO.
Oh I forgot Rosebud's 'Have a Cigar'; listen to that rattling percussion & you see where the mid 80s hi-energy producers got their ideas from!

[Videoskooter]

I think the German producers did start the whole Eurodisco, especially Giorgio Moroder who went from mainstream Pop ("Son of my father") to disco (together with Pete Belotte) and electro-disco ("From here to eternity"). His "I wanna funk with you tonight" was playing in the same league as Silver Convention. He certainly isn't the only one but I consider him as a serious cross-over. Italo-disco definitily has some of its roots there (Moroder is in fact from Italian origine, but don't tell the Germans).
And of course Cowley and Sylvester and also Gino Soccio. "Supernature" from Cerrone also was very groundbreaking and records like "Automatic lover" and "Moskow Diskow" did a part of the job. So I don't think you can say that one artist, record or label started the whole process. It's a combination of many vibes.

[Boodikka]

OK, I'll be really pedantic here and cite Moroder's "The Hostage" as a rudimentary form of Eurodisco. :D
I suppose you'd have to clarify exactly what Eurodisco is (here we go again). The "colder" German style: Silver Convention's "Save Me", Claudja Barry's "Love Machine", Trax, Munich Machine. The strings-and-horn "Continentals in Brit studios" style: Cerrone, Don ray, Costandinos, et al.
I thonk Videoskooter hit it on the head in stating that it's a combo of many vibes.

[JussiK]

But what about those early 70's soundtrack tunes from France and Italy that got remade/remixed later for proper dj use, stuff like "Sessomatto"? Digging into library music one finds interesting mutated rhythm things from the '74-76 period with strong eurodisco elements,too. Those may well have been spinned by djs back then. Would you call Adriano celentano's "Azzurro" just bubblegum or was it somehow disco already, and France Call's "Zoizoi", was that imitation samba or was it eurodisco? "Azzurro" may not revive well today but "Zoizoi" will get the cool crowd stepping now and forever.