Disco Friday: MIDNIGHT SHIFT [2012]

Welcome to a very special Disco Friday.  Not only is it Saturday, which any kid will tell you is not Friday, it is the final Disco Friday covering the Disco Discharge series.  The sixteenth and final album in the series is Midnight Shift in reference to that sweet post-Midnight time when all the poseurs, hispters and disco dabblers have left the club and the DJ ups the ante for the hardcore.  Promotional materials for the album say Midnight Shift represents "the slightly darker side of disco" and these are the songs "that will rock a serious Gay dance floor throughout the night and into the early hours."  I honestly cannot say what Midnight Shift is referring to but like the other fifteen volumes in the Disco Discharge series, this double disc collection of twenty songs is loaded with songs only familiar to those who frequented underground discotheques over the past forty years.  The mastermind behind the entire series is Mr Pinks, an confessed club goer in the early 80s and all of his choices were based on his memories and experiences.  The music is put into the context of the scene, both then and now, by Alan Jones through his "I was there" liner notes.  Big thanks to both gents for a wonderful tour through music I never would have heard otherwise.  I have a few new favorites now and even bought a couple of discs based solely on one song appearing on a volume of Disco Discharge.

Eleven of the album's twenty tracks are available via Spotify which is a better fill rate than most of the other albums in the series.  With four tracks from the late Seventies to counter-balance the five tracks from the late Eighties, Midnight Shift still comes in with an average song release date of 1983 and an average song length of 7:34 though there are four songs over nine minutes in length.  Based on the reviews and comments of others, the main draw of this set is the (apparently) hard to find (in 2012) Midler and Carnes remixes though I have the promo only "Voyeur" remix on a 2001 CD re-issue of the album with the same name on One Way Records.

year	title	artist		Billboard Disco Chart
1979	My Knight In Black Leather	Bette Midler	6:57	70
1979	Lady Night	Patrick Juvet	6:56	58
1977	At The Discotheque (Medley)	Lipstique	15:00	7
1982	Miami Heatwave	Love Twins	10:29	-
1983	Earthquake	The Flirtations	6:55	26
1984	The Power Of Love	Astaire	6:30	-
1986	Can't Live Without Your Love	Suzy Q	6:55	-
1978	Dancer Dance	Pussyfoot	6:20	-
1982	Voyeur	Kim Carnes	5:45	52
1987	Run With Us	Lisa Lougheed	4:30	-
1986	Candy Love	Lili & Sussie	6:30	-
1982	Love Is The Drug	Roni Griffith	4:51	-
1984	Slice Me Nice	Fancy	5:20	-
1985	Fantasy	Lian Ross	6:41	-
1982	Wake Dream	Lime	7:07	-
1981	Double Trouble	Diva	7:23	-
1983	Burning With Fire	Tapps	6:30	-
1986	Deliverance	People Like Us	7:06	-
1988	No Regrets	Quartzlock	9:20	-
1984	Dance Trance Medley	Boystown Gang	14:24	-

One of the unforeseen benefits of the licensing inquiries to the more than 300 tracks that appeared on the Disco Discharge discs was the apparent opportunity to license entire albums by some of the artists and so Disco Recharge was born in 2012.  Through 2014, twenty-six discs have been released under the Disco Recharge banner, all but five of them double discs containing multiple albums and mixes. Two of the albums are various artists compilations put together by Ian Levine, who also shows up as writer and producer on some of the other albums.  The chart below lists all the Disco Recharge titles and a gallery of coverart follows.

#	Artist	Title	Format	Year
1	Change	The Glow Of Love / Miracles	2CD	2012
2	Voyage	Voyage	2CD	2012
3	Tangerué / Strange Affair	Tangerué / Strange Affair	1CD	2012
4	Voyage	Fly Away	2CD	2012
5	Beautiful Bend / Caress	Make That Feeling Come Again! / Caress	2CD	2012
6	Voyage / Sylvia Mason	Voyage 3 / Sylvia Mason	2CD	2012
7	USA-European Connection	Come Into My Heart / USA-European Connection	2CD	2012
8	Voyage	One Step Higher	2CD	2013
9	Ultimate	Ultimate / Ultimate II	1CD	2012
10	Companion / Double Discovery	Companion / Double Discovery / One Off Projects	2CD	2013
11	Masquerade / Boris Midney	Pinocchio / Black Russian	2CD	2014
12	Festival / Boris Midney	Evita / The Empire Strikes Back	2CD	2013
13	THP Orchestra	Early Riser / Two Hot For Love	2CD	2013
14	Evelyn Thomas	I Wanna Make It On My Own / Have A Little Faith In Me	1CD	2013
15	Grand Tour / Southern Exposure	On Such A Winter's Day / Headin' South	2CD	2013
16	James Wells	My Claim To Fame / Explosion	2CD	2014
17	THP	#2 Tender Is The Night / Good To Me	2CD	2013
18	Evelyn Thomas	High Energy / Standing At The Crossroads	2CD	2014
19	Miquel Brown	Manpower / Close To Perfection	2CD	2014
20	Duncan Sisters	The Duncan Sisters	1CD	2014
21	Tantra	The Collection	2CD	2013
22	Barbara Pennington	Out Of The Darkest Night... Plus	1CD	2014
23	Ian Levine	Twenty Four Hours A Day - The Disco Years	2CD	2014
24	Ian Levine	Beating Faster - The Hi-NRG Years	2CD	2014
25	John Davis The Monster Orchestra	Night & Day / Up Jumped The Devil	2CD	2014
26	John Davis The Monster Orchestra	Ain't That Enough For You / The Monster Orchestra Strikes Again!	2CD	2014