Space is the first word in...

Space Disco! I always want it to be better than it ends up being. Just sounds so awesome. Mostly it turns out to be just normal disco with a sci-fi gloss, but I've found some relevant stuff that has been encouraging: the Soviet electro of Zodiac, the bandwagon cheese of Meco, the sleek Italo of Moroder...

Here's the genre Wiki entry - and a genre YouTube playlist.

I'm going to limit this to just 3 that I've recently found - with actual period videos! (and some other links at the end too.)



"Magic Fly" by Space, from Magic Fly (1977)

So much insanity!! I'd heard of France's Space before as a band The Time & Space Machine had remixed. Crazily enough, Jannick Top from Magma was a founding member. On the other side, they put out From Earth to Mars in 2010 - sounds not all that bad really.



"Supernature" by Cerrone, from Supernature (Cerrone III) (1977)

Did I mention crazy? Cerrone was also from France, one of a few global Space Disco hubs. Click the link for an interesting Wiki read on this "French disco drummer, singer-songwriter and record producer" who "was 'the first' to put the kick drum (or bass drum) into the foreground of modern dance music." He's still going too, recently Vs'ing Louie Vega.



"Nightflight to Venus/Rasputin" by Boney M from Nightflight to Venus (1978)

The 1st part kinda reminds me of a neon-strobe Sun Ra, and then the 2nd tune actually happens. Things get freakier before the rules set in...

One pattern I noticed is how much material was based directly on non-musical properties from film and television - like Droids' "The Force," Moroder's "Battlestar Galactica," and "Theme from Star Trek" by The Galactic Force Band (???).

And the Wikipedia entry talks about Space Disco leading to '80s stuff like the awesomely-named Laserdance (from Holland) and even Falco's "Der Kommissar" (Austria).