‘I Feel Love’: The song David Bowie called “the sound of the future”
David Bowie was never one to dwell on the past for too long. Throughout his time in the spotlight, ‘The Starman’ would always look to the next phase of his career, getting in touch with whatever sounds were exciting him at the moment without any regard for genre. Although Bowie innovated until he died in 2016, he admitted that one of the biggest pop songs on Earth was ahead of him by miles.
Throughout the 1970s, though, Bowie became interested in twisting what could be done with the traditional pop single. Although he may have made himself into a global star thanks to his glam rock masterpieces like Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane, he was looking to go into new directions in just a few short years.
Having shed his glam-rock skeleton, Young Americans marked the first time that fans saw a Bowie metamorphosis in real-time, taking the sounds of Philly soul and channelling them into his music on the title track and ‘Fame’. Once Bowie moved to Los Angeles, he became interested in what could be done when music was given a machine-like structure.
Absorbing the sounds of krautrock, Bowie was on the verge of making his next big breakthrough on Station to Station, paving the way for the trilogy of albums he would record in Berlin. As Bowie started to mechanise the sounds of standard rock and roll on tracks like ‘Golden Years’, something similar was going on in the world of pop.
Thanks to the advent of synthesisers, the disco genre began coming into its final form, with artists using various drum machines and strong basslines to provide the template for modern dance music. While most rock bands were either selling out for the latest trend or hating disco with a passion, Bowie was heartbroken when he heard one of the biggest songs of the genre.
Constructed by Giorgio Moroder, Donna Summer created one of her ultimate masterpieces on ‘I Feel Love’, taking the basis of the synthesiser and seeing what it was capable of in a pop context. Sprawling over the standard song length, the song would become a watershed moment for dance music, lulling the listener into hypnosis whenever the track played in dance clubs.
When Bowie first heard the song, though, he was convinced that disco had already beaten him at his own game. As Moroder would recall to Billboard, Bowie was convinced that the Summer hit was miles beyond what he would have thought of, explaining, “He told me that he was in Berlin at a point when the song came out. He was working with his partner in crime, Brian Eno, and they were looking for a new sound. When they heard ‘I Feel Love’, David said, ‘Don’t look anymore because I think Giorgio found the sound of the future.’”
Even though Moroder took the compliment as high praise from Bowie, it was always disheartening for the musical chameleon. As the producer explained: “David said they were depressed for a few days because weeks and weeks on they were trying to find that famous new sound which every artist wants, and especially Brian and David in Berlin, so it was definitely an acknowledgement that it is something new.”
That kind of synthesiser sound would also become one of the defining sounds of dance music, with Moroder going on to make classic songs for movies like Top Gun and Flashdance while getting nods from acts like Daft Punk. Although Bowie can claim to be the progenitor of many different musical styles, this was one of the few times Moroder got to the future first.
