CHATTER AWAY: Overnight Open Thread

The Guardian reports:

You do wonder if even he might raise a perfectly penciled eyebrow at how he is being discussed 30 years after his death. Certainly, posterity and academic analysis were not on anyone’s mind during the writing of the song that made Sylvester famous. “We were just trying to get on to the radio,” says James Wirrick, the co-writer of You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real), which celebrates the 40th anniversary of its release this week.

Instead, they made not just one of disco’s impermeable classics – a song you never seem to be that far away from hearing on the radio, TV or a film soundtrack – but one of the most groundbreaking records in pop history – and an enduring Pride anthem.

Wirrick says the song sounded like a hit straight away, but the secret ingredient came via Sylvester’s friend, a visionary electronic musician and producer called Patrick Cowley. He made soundscapes inspired by Tomita and Wendy Carlos, had a company called Short Circuit that made sound effects and jingles for radio and had devised his own 15-minute remix of Donna Summer’s I Feel Love in 1977.

You Make Me Feel was actually the B-side of the 1978 12″ single. The A-side was the only slightly less fabulous, Dance (Disco Heat).