Disco Friday: EURO DISCO [2009]

Like a lot of you, I spend an inordinate amount of time tweaking the metadata in my digital music library and actually prefer to catch it before I rip a disc as opposed to after.  Title, year, artist, BPM, album and peak Billboard positions are all very important to me and invaluable when constructing smart playlists.  However, I do not waste a lot of time futzing about with the genre field in my digital music library - chances are 100% that if a song is in my library, I like it regardless of the genre.  I'd wager that many, many songs in my digital library have blank genre fields, deleted before ripping.  Before acquiring this disc, I had one other CD in my collection titled Euro Disco:

That CD and today's disc(s) have exactly one track in common.  My point is I love music, I love disco music and I have no idea what constitutes Euro Disco - Is it disco music from Europe?  So we turn to disco expert Alan Jones, the man responsible for the liner notes for the Disco Discharge series:

There were only five songs on Euro Disco I knew before listening to the album:

• "From Here To Eternity" - Giorgio Moroder  This one was released around the same time as Kraftwerk's "Trans Europe Express" and both tracks share similar construction, vocoder incantations and instrumentation but Moroder rises above the Germans the computer concerto with the titular melody.
• "The Number One Song In Heaven" - Sparks  My first exposure to Sparks was their song "I Predict" which gave me a portrait of the group as somewhat quirky and Devo-ish.  Then I discovered the Mael Brothers immense back catalog and this song, written and produced by Giorgio Moroder.  It may have been Number One in Heaven but it only hit number 14 in England.
• "I'm Ready" - Kano  Love those oft-sampled opening synth lines and that bass line is magnificent.
• "Self Control" - Laura Branigan  Featuring more up front guitar than your average disco song, this one is probably the most well-known Pop song on the album.  Don't think I had ever heard the stretched out Extended Version before now.
• "P Machinery" - Propaganda  Through Art of Noise and then Frankie Goes To Hollywood, I got into ZTT which led to Propaganda.  Like their label mates, Propaganda was no stranger to having more than a couple remixes made from each of their singles and this, the Polish mix, is one of the best.  For you OCD types, there are at least a dozen other versions of the song.  A recent listen conjured up James Bond theme possibilities.

year	title	artist		Billboard Disco Chart
1978	Garden Of Love	Don Ray	4:38	4
1980	Angel In My Pocket	Change	6:07	-
1978	Love In A Sleeper	Silver Convention	5:32	-
1978	That's The Meaning / Boogie Motion	Beautiful Bend	13:18	3
1979	Margherita	Massara	7:52	-
1977	Magic Fly	Space	4:16	-
1977	From Here To Eternity	Giorgio Moroder	5:52	2
1979	Extraterrestrial Lover	Sylvia Love	6:58	-
1979	The Number One Song In Heaven	Sparks	7:25	-
1980	Fear	Easy Going	7:52	29
1980	Give Me A Break	Vivien Vee	8:52	9
1983	I.C. Love Affair	Gaz Nevada	6:29	-
1983	Take Me To The Top	Advance	6:16	55
1984	Change Of Heart	Change	7:03	17
1980	I'm Ready	Kano	7:13	8
1984	Self Control	Laura Branigan	5:00	2
1988	I'm Not Scared (Disco Mix)	Eighth Wonder	7:59	-
1985	P Machinery (Polish)	Propaganda	9:24	10
1984	Dancing In The Dark	Mike Mareen	5:34	-
1983	Happy Station (Scratch Mix)	Fun Fun	5:55	-
1981	Live It Up (Album Version)	Time Bandits	7:24	6
1985	Rise Up (For My Love) (Club Mix)	Yvonne Kay	7:52	-