Philip Oakey & Giorgio Moroder

All Music Guide:

One of the principal architects of the disco sound, producer and composer Giorgio Moroder was born in Ortisei, Italy, on April 26, 1940. Upon relocating to Munich, Germany, he established his own studio, Musicland, and recorded his debut single "Looky, Looky" in 1969; his first LP, Son of My Father, was released in early 1972. Around that time Moroder was introduced to fellow aspiring musician Pete Bellotte, with whom he formed a production partnership; in collaboration with singer Donna Summer, the duo was to become one of the most powerful forces in '70s-era dance music, their success beginning with the release of 1974's Lady of the Night. Summer's Love to Love You Baby followed in 1975; the title track, clocking in at close to 17 minutes in length, was an international smash, its shimmering sound and sensual attitude much copied in the years to follow.

At their mid-'70s peak, Moroder, Bellotte, and Summer were extraordinarily prolific, releasing new albums about once every six months. Concept records like 1976's A Love Trilogy and Four Seasons of Love culminated with the release of 1977's I Remember Yesterday, a trip through time which climaxed with the smash "I Feel Love." With its galloping bass line and futuristic, computerized sheen, the single was among the watershed hits of the disco era, and helped propel Summer to new prominence as the reigning diva of the dancefloor.

In 1978, Moroder made his initial foray into film music, winning an Academy Award for his score to Alan Parker's Midnight Express. Summer's double-LP Bad Girls followed in 1979, becoming a massive hit and spawning such chart-topping singles as "Hot Stuff" and the title cut. After one final studio LP, 1980's The Wanderer, the Moroder/Bellotte/Summer team disbanded, and the disco era began drawing to a close.

In the early '80s, Moroder focused primarily on films; after producing the soundtracks for pictures including American Gigolo and Cat People, he turned to 1983's Flashdance, earning his second Oscar for the hit "Flashdance...What a Feeling," performed by Irene Cara. In 1984, Moroder courted controversy from film purists for his contemporary electro-pop score to the restored release of Fritz Lang's silent-era masterpiece Metropolis. After contributing to the soundtrack of the 1986 hit Top Gun, he turned increasingly away from dance music to focus on rock, producing the album Flaunt It, the debut from the heavily hyped British flash-in-the-pan Sigue Sigue Sputnik. In the years to follow, Moroder kept a low profile on the pop charts, although he remained a fixture on film soundtracks. In the 1990s, he also turned to remixing, debuting with a reworking of Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" and going on to tackle material from Heaven 17 and others.

Wikipedia:

Philip Oakey & Giorgio Moroder was a collaborative album released in 1985 by Philip Oakey, lead singer of the electronic band The Human League and seminal electro producer Giorgio Moroder, whose early records had been a major influence on Oakey.

The album is most notable for containing the song "Together in Electric Dreams", which was the title track for the movie Electric Dreams and a major hit single. In fact, the album was essentially a spin-off project set up by Virgin records to capitalise on the success of the single.

The album consists mainly of sequenced beats, along with dinstinctly FM-generated bell-like sounds, and a number of sounds generated by analog synthesizers. This album uses very little sampling. Notable, also, is that the first five songs on this album (the entire first side on the original vinyl LP version) are seguéd together.

In 1985 two further singles were released from the album. In July 1985 "Good-Bye Bad Times" was released with a big budget music video but only reached number 44 in the UK singles chart. This was followed up in August 1985 with "Be My Lover Now" which reached only number 74. The lack of success of the singles effectively put an end to the brief Oakey/Moroder partnership. After recording this album, Philip Oakey returned to work on the next Human League album, Crash in early 1986.

The Human League regularly perform "Together in Electric Dreams" at their live concerts, usually with Philip Oakey giving named credit to Giorgio Moroder.

In 2003, in an interview by Simon Price included on the The Very Best of the Human League (DVD), Oakey was asked to comment on the experience of working with his idol Moroder on this project. He diplomatically characterises him as a "very quick worker", claiming they made the entire album in a few days.Cite error: There are <ref> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist}} template (see the help page).

Track listing[edit]

The album was reissued on CD in 2003 with the following bonus tracks:

Personnel[edit]