Imagine, if you will, a European, electro-disco act, the members of which conceal their identities behind sci-fi influenced headpieces.
Daft Punk right?
No! Ganymed!
Ganymed were an Austrian/German “Space Disco” act who had a hit in their home countries with this track – It Takes Me Higher – in 1978. Space Disco was a short lived genre that – predictably enough – combined sci-fi imagery, glam rock outfits and disco music, and was mostly popular in continental Europe – although it did also have some mild success in Latin America.
What’s chiefly interesting about It Takes Me Higher is that not only does the band’s stagecraft resemble Daft Punk, but you wouldn’t bat an eyelid if the song had been slipped into the middle of Random Access Memories. In fact I’d be willing to lay down hard cash that you’d find some Ganymed albums among de Homem-Christo and Bangalter’s record collections.
Now, while Ganymed may prove that Space Disco still has something to say to us here in the futuristic 21st century, it’s also true that the genre produced an awful lot of toss. A prime example is Dee D. Jackson’s Automatic Lover, which sounds like something that might result if you got Kate Bush extremely drunk, played her every Tom Baker episode of Dr Who then handed her the lyrics of Robyn’s The Girl and the Robot.
It might be somewhat bearable if that damn robot would just shut the hell up, but as it stands it’s just awful.
Well that’s it for this week’s Musical Tuesday. I have to vacuum my loungeroom in preparation from a strata company mandated pest control visit tomorrow morning. Apparently some people in the complex are having cockroach problems. I’ve never seen any, but, whatever!
