Name: BarryNet Message Board
Date/Time: 10/19/2019 5:58 PM
Subject: They Write The Songs - Series 4 - Episode 5

Barry looks at the impact made by songwriter and producer Giorgio Moroder on They Write The Songs Sunday at 9pm BST on BBC Radio 2. The episode will also be available on demand shortly after it airs.

It may surprise people to see the ‘Father of Electronic Dance Music’ Giorgio Moroder included in a series about the art of song-writing. In this programme Barry looks at the particular song writing talent required to compose with computers. Moroder was the champion of ‘The Moog’ which changed the sound of modern music fundamentally after its invention. Lyric writing would have to change too, a point that Barry vividly illustrates by singing the lyric of Johnny Mercer’s ballad ‘Moon River’, and his own ‘Copacabana’, over the original track to ‘I Feel Love’. In this episode, we hear how songs began to be built up with nothing more than an electronic pulse, then adding a bass line, synthesizer sounds, drums and so on. Whereas in the golden age the lyric might come first, now it would come last, and it’s shape would be dictated by the track. A revolution in the way songs are written had begun.