EVERY GENRE PROJECT - April 6 - Space Disco

Genre of the Day - Space Disco

Album of the Day - Magic Fly by Space (1977)

April 6, 2024

Movies still generate hits. That can’t be denied. Nor can the fact that artists’ original songs and film success are still very much intertwined: just look at Barbie. But perhaps no coincidental movie-music union was as made in heaven as the release of Star Wars and the rise of disco. And it is partially a coincidence: “I Feel Love,” the ecstatic, cosmic-sounding song that catapulted EDM and disco into the world thanks to Donna Summer and Giorgio Moroder came out a year ahead of the juggernaut film. But Star Wars drove up an interest in space that would align perfectly with starry-eyed producers’ tastes and the tools available at the moment. A disco version of the Star Wars theme even reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1977. 

I don’t fully understand why Star Wars was such a phenomenon and runaway success: were Americans just fiending for some sort of space connection since the slump following the effective end of the Space Race? Was it an escape from the gloom of stagflation? There hadn’t been a man on the moon since 1972. If this was the case, people were just wanting to find ways to imagine that frontier, this time through film and music. Sometimes, films don’t really represent anything at all. Titanic wasn’t really popular for any timely reason that I know of. It just was popular. Star Wars discourse aside, as synthesizers like the Minimoog, ARPs, and the Roland SH-1000 became more widespread in the ‘70s, they left earth through the medium of disco—ascent through dance was the perfect blueprint to make wild, forward-facing music. 

Today’s album, Magic Fly by the French band Space, came out in July 1977, just two months after Star Wars came out. Insanely enough, this was pure coincidence. In January of that year, a member of the group had been asked to make a song for a show about an astrological TV program. Those efforts culminated in the album, as producer Jean-Philippe Iliesco had the idea to incorporate the hot new fad going around Europe—disco—into the songs. Their take on space disco was obviously quite literal—their name, the space helmets they wore that would inspire Daft Punk. They were the forerunners of the short-lived disco à la space trend, with releases peaking in 1978. 

Their exploration of the interstellar frontier is imaginative, lush, and fun. The piano and Yellow Magic Orchestra-esque keyboard riffs of opener “Fasten Seat Belt” culminate in what sounds like a space explosion. The songs are only dated by the organic drums, but they add a rich center of gravity. “Tango In Space” brings in a whole cadre of funk drums to enrich the range of dance grooves. “Magic Fly” is the most grandiose statement, with its scintillating leads and synth stabs. The last track adds a vocalist, mostly seemingly to adhere to more conventional disco standards, to unimpressive effect compared to the preceding galactic adventure. We’re still waiting on the aliens, and another human on the moon—but at least this music is here on earth for us to enjoy terrestrially.