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I Feel Love

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"I Feel Love"
Song
B-side"Can't We Just Sit Down (And Talk It Over)"
Donna Summer - "I Feel Love"
listen to a clip from the song.
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"I Feel Love" is a song by Donna Summer, taken from her 1977 concept album I Remember Yesterday.

The song constituted the "future" segment of the album, which represented a stylistic progress through time. The title track of the I Remember Yesterday album represented the 1940s, "Love's Unkind" the 1950s, "Back in Love Again" the 1960s and the album concluded with the futuristic "I Feel Love". The song reached number one in the UK Singles Chart, number six on the Billboard Hot 100 in the US and number nine on the Hot Soul Chart. It quickly became popular in gay dance clubs and was adopted as a gay anthem.[1] "I Feel Love" is ranked #411 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

Production

Before "I Feel Love", most disco recordings had been backed by acoustic orchestras[2] although all-electronic music had been produced for decades. Giorgio Moroder's innovative production of this disco-style song, recorded with an entirely synthesized backing track, spawned imitators in the disco genre, and was influential in the development of techno.[3]

Reception

According to David Bowie, then in the middle of recording of his Berlin Trilogy with Brian Eno, its impact on the genre's direction was recognized early on:

One day in Berlin ... Eno came running in and said, 'I have heard the sound of the future.' ... he puts on 'I Feel Love', by Donna Summer ... He said, 'This is it, look no further. This single is going to change the sound of club music for the next fifteen years.' Which was more or less right.[4]

The album version lasts for almost six minutes. It was extended for release as a 12" maxi-single, the eight-minute version included on the 1989 compilation The Dance Collection: A Compilation of Twelve Inch Singles. The song was slightly edited on the 7" format, the fade-in opening sound reaching maximum volume sooner. A version which fades out at 3:45, before the third verse and final choruses, has been included on a large number of greatest hits packages and other compilations issued by PolyGram, Mercury Records, Universal Music and others, such as 1994's Endless Summer: Greatest Hits and 2003's The Journey: The Very Best of Donna Summer.

In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked "I Feel Love" #411 on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. The review for the song stated that Moroder and Summer "claimed tomorrow in the name of disco."[5]

Following the track's success, within months Summer and Moroder produced the 11-minute "Now I Need You"/"Working the Midnight Shift" sequence on Summer's 1977 double album Once Upon a Time, which successfully builds on "I Feel Love"'s pioneering ethereal vocals, mechanised beats, sequenced arpeggios and ostinato basslines.

Patrick Cowley remix

"I Feel Love"
Song

In 1978, disco and Hi-NRG pioneer Patrick Cowley created a 15:45 remix of "I Feel Love" which, despite not impressing Moroder, became a popular "underground classic" available only on acetate discs.[6] The remix used loops, keeping the song's bass-line going for extended passages of overdubbed effects and synthesiser parts.

In mid-1980, Cowley's mix was released with the title "I Feel Love / I Feel Megalove" and subtitle "The Patrick Cowley MegaMix", but only on a limited vinyl pressing by the DJ-only subscription service Disconet.[6] Since this pressing was not available to the general public for commercial sale, it became highly sought after by collectors.

In 1982 the mix was released on a commercially available 12" single in the UK market by Casablanca, backed with an 8-minute edited version.[7] With this wider release, "I Feel Love" became a dance floor hit again, five years after its debut. A further-edited 7" single reached #21 on the UK singles chart.

1995 remixes

"I Feel Love"
Song

Following 1993's The Donna Summer Anthology and 1994's Endless Summer: Greatest Hits, both released by PolyGram, "I Feel Love" was re-released on the PolyGram sublabel Manifesto in a newly remixed form as a single in 1995, including mixes by Masters At Work and Rollo Armstrong and Sister Bliss of UK remixer/producer team Faithless - and also new vocals by Summer herself. The single became a UK #8 hit, the second time the song had entered the Top 10, and the '95 Radio Edit was later included as a bonus track on PolyGram France's version of the Endless Summer compilation.

The song was again remixed and issued as a single in 2005.

Chart positions

Chart (1977) Peak
position
Dutch GfK chart 1
Dutch Top 40 1
UK Top 40 1
Chart (1995) Peak
position
Dutch GfK chart 28

References

  1. ^ Benjamin Genocchio. "Exploring the Effects of Disco’s Beat", New York Times. February 19, 2006.
  2. ^ All Music review
  3. ^ "AllMusic Donna Summer biography". Retrieved 2011-03-12. Eschewing the strings and typical disco excess, "I Feel Love" was the first major pop hit recorded with an entirely synthesized backing track; its lean, sleek arrangement and driving, hypnotic pulse laid the groundwork not only for countless Euro-dance imitators, but also for the techno and house music revolution of the '80s and '90s.
  4. ^ David Bowie and Kurt Loder (1989). Sound and Vision: CD liner notes
  5. ^ Rolling Stone review
  6. ^ a b DJ News Vol. 3 Program 7, Disconet, June 1980, retrieved 2010-07-17
  7. ^ "I Feel Love release info at Discogs". Retrieved 2011-04-18.
Preceded by UK Singles Chart number one single
July 23, 1977 (4 weeks) 		Succeeded by
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