Inferno Disco

[Cecelia Seiner]

Disco Inferno" is a song by American disco band the Trammps from their fourth studio album of the same name (1976). With two other cuts by the group, it reached No. 1 on the US Billboard Dance Club Songs chart in early 1977, but had limited mainstream success until 1978, after being included on the soundtrack to the 1977 film Saturday Night Fever, when a re-release hit number eleven on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.[1][2]

It was also notably covered in 1993 by American-born singer Tina Turner on What's Love Got to Do with It,[3] and in 1998 by American singer-songwriter Cyndi Lauper on the A Night at the Roxbury soundtrack.[4] Among others who covered this are Damien Lovelock, Hardsonic Bottoms 3, and Vicki Shepard.

The song was originally recorded by the Trammps in 1976 and released as a single. It was inspired by the 1974 blockbuster film The Towering Inferno, in which a party in a top floor ballroom is threatened by a fire that breaks out below.[5] According to Tom Moulton, who mixed the record, the Dolby noise reduction had been set incorrectly during the mixdown of the tracks. When engineer Jay Mark discovered the error and corrected it, the mix had a much wider dynamic range than was common at the time. Due to this, the record seems to "jump out" at the listener. With "Starvin'" and "Body Contact Contract", it topped the U.S. Disco chart for six weeks in the late winter of 1977.[6] On the other U.S. charts, "Disco Inferno" hit number nine on the Black Singles chart, but it was not initially a significant success at pop radio, peaking at number 53 on the Billboard Hot 100.[7]

"Disco Inferno" gained much greater recognition when the nearly 11 minute album version was included on the soundtrack to the 1977 film Saturday Night Fever. Re-released by Atlantic Records, the track peaked at number 11 in the U.S. during the spring of 1978, becoming the Trammps' biggest and most-recognized single. Later, it was included in the Saturday Night Fever musical, interpreted by 'DJ Monty' in the "Odissey 2001" discothque. A cover version of the track was issued by the group Players Association in March 1978 on the Vanguard record label both in 7" and 12" format. It was produced by Danny Weiss and also issued as a track on their 1979 LP Born to Dance.

In 2004, a 12" version with the 10:54-minute version and "Can We Come Together" (from the album Where the Happy People Go) on the B side was released in the UK.[8] This version was certified Silver in 2021 by the British Phonographic Industry.[9]

American singer and actress Tina Turner covered "Disco Inferno" for the What's Love Got to Do with It soundtrack. Released as a single in August 1993 by Parlophone, it was produced by Turner with Chris Lord-Alge and Roger Davies. It charted at number 12 on the UK Singles Chart, and reached the top 20 also in Belgium, Iceland, Ireland, and the Netherlands. The single included remixes by the Beatmasters.

In an 1998 retrospective review of What's Love Got to Do with It, the Daily Vault felt "Disco Inferno" "has a dated title to begin with and the arrangement's enthusiasm doesn't live up to Turner's singing".[17] Upon the release, Alan Jones from Music Week gave the song four out of five, writing, "From the woman whose interpretations are often a million miles away from the original, this is a disappointingly standard interpretation of the old Trammps hit. Having said that, it is a highly commercial song and Tina's one-of-a-kind voice has many admirers, so another big hit is in prospect."[18] A reviewer from People Magazine noted its "dance dramaturgy" and the "characteristic flair and energy that have made Tina the envy of every singer this side of Aretha."[19] Sam Wood from Philadelphia Inquirer found that the "joyous, over-the-top treatment" of the disco classic "reeks of campy white polyester suits and oily sweat under a dance-floor glitter ball."[20] Toby Anstis reviewed the song for Smash Hits, giving it four out of five. He said, "Tina pulls off this cover really well. It's nice hearing a rauchy female rock voice like that. I think I prefer this version to the original. I'd boogie to that any time at a party. I think I'd go and see the film about her soon too. Yeah, she's great."[21]

In the Billboard magazine dated May 16, 1998, in the "Dance Trax" column, there was a story on remixers Bobby Guy and Ernie Lake, aka Soul Solution: "They are working with Cyn on a chest-pounding rendition of 'Disco Inferno'. The cut will be featured on the forthcoming soundtrack to A Night At Roxbury."

Although the original release date of the maxi single was August 3, 1999, it was distributed from July 24 in some regions. The single was officially released in the U.S. in August 1999. Lauper performed it at many shows, including her Summer Tour '99, around the time of its release. The song was nominated for a Grammy in the category of 'Best Dance Recording' for the 1999 awards.

Mike G is a runner with Team RunRun and after crushing his race at the Houston Marathon in early 2020, he decided he wanted to take on a different challenge: Cover as many miles as possible in Discovery Park in Seattle, WA, all unsupported, all within the park hours. The goal was 100 miles but the experience took on much more meaning than any time or mileage goal. This is a summary of his experience, the challenges he faced, and the emotions he went through.

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Hikes, waterfront and slip and slide oh my! What a wonderful day we had. Our Ooey Gooey and Silly Scientists had fun making messy things that stretched and erupted. Our Boots and Spurs gals took on the archery range while also enjoying time on the waterfront.

Later in the evening Timbercrest at Night did a night hike to Gypsy point where they sang over the lake to our JCITs. They also took the time to look at the stars and even had a chance to see some shooting stars. Stories of the constellations were told and discovered. When they returned to main camp the Super moon greeted them, so they laid in the upper meadow to enjoy a few more moments for starry night magic.

The dancer is a man named Luke Cypher who is portrayed as a red-skinned devil. He wears blue lipstick and black mascara. He has black, short hair, pointy ears, earrings and short horns on his head with a ring on one of the horns. He wears a jacket and pants, all made out of black fabric with a fire motif and a black chocker with gold triangles on it. The jacket also has a gold rim. On his pants, he wears a belt with a golden trident buckle in front of it. On his left arm, he wears a gold arm bracelet and on his left ring finger, he wears a golden ring. On his right hand, he wears a dark blue glove. He also wears a pair of gold and black dancing shoes. He also has an orange glowing outline.

The inside of the palace features a red curtain with a staircase, which an addition of a few props and set pieces such as plants hung up on bars, statues of Cupid, golden balloons, and neon fire lights. The stage where the staircase leads is filled with similar elements but with a bunch of disco balls hung up on the ceiling and an arch made of neon flames. Throughout the entire routine, the neon flames and the arch light on and off in shades of orange and yellow respectively. The curtains open up to feature a roaring flames animation projected on a LED screen. Extra scenic spotlights in colors of pink and yellow light up the stage as the routine goes on.

Without Apollo producing more lacquer discs, the existing stock will soon be exhausted. The only alternative manufacturing process, direct metal mastering, is uncommon; currently, no pressing plants in America use it, and audiophiles often complain it yields a lower-quality result. All of this adds up to an existential threat to vinyl production.

My dad's interest in vinyl was fleeting, though. He was an avid taper, and his room was lined with endless shelves of copied music. A C90 cassette tape provided 45 minutes per side, ample space to fit two regular-length albums. It was a more economical option than vinyl, and portable. A few years later, once he discovered that you could copy CDs, his interest in vinyl faded almost completely. When MP3s made CDs obsolete, hard drives replaced the shelves of cassettes. Dad was a music collector, not a record collector, and the format never really mattered to him. By this time, it mattered more to me.

As ephemeral as other aspects of my relationship to music have been, my record collection is still there, still solid, still taking up space. The Iron Maiden records I picked up when I was a child and the Brian Eno LPs my dad passed on to me when I was a teen have remained in my collection, joined by 12-by-12 reminders of subsequent phases of my life. These discs and their often tattered covers, adorned with price stickers, scrawled notes and info tags, contain elements that are missing from digital files and completely absent from streaming playlists. They add up to a kind of biography.

My record collection is a reminder that, like all of us, I exist on a timeline. It includes unique data that can't be transcribed into zeroes and ones. As we self-consciously digitize our lives with iPhone camera rolls, Twitter nuggets and Instagram stories, we are entrusting our history to brands that don't have any incentive to care about our physical lives. If these brands burn to the ground, for whatever reason, our individuality will prove as fallible as the lacquer disc, and our personal histories will be compromised. For me, my record collection is a photo album, rich with detail, emotion and memory. As we travel deeper into the digital void, it reminds me of what we stand to lose.

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