Quotes from Giorgio Moroder


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Even when disco went out, I could still make hits. Once I had so much success, every idea became concentrated. I had so much confidence. I knew how the bass should sound, what rhythms would work. The tempos I knew: 110 to 120 BPM. I knew they would dance in the clubs in New York or anywhere.


I listen to the group Disclosure; they have great sounds. Maybe not as adventurous as Skrillex. I think the key thing is to have those beautiful sounds... the amazing sounds of Skrillex are almost phenomenal.


I had an album out at exactly the same time as 'Love to Love You' called 'Einzelganger,' and it's great, all electronic. I'm using a vocoder, doing all this cut-up stuff on there, but no one knows about it.


I set a Google Alert for myself, and now I'm seeing people say my music influenced them and how great it is all the time. Sometimes I listen to this stuff that's supposed to be influenced by me, and I can't hear myself in it. But I'd rather they say it than not.


In the early '80s, my sound - especially that mysterious kind of synthesized sound that was used so much - every relatively cheap TV show eventually had it because it's not expensive. It's just one guy doing the whole soundtrack. So it was overdone.


One day. I was putting on a hill in Zurich, and a few hundred yards away, Diana Ross was doing a sound test at an arena for a performance that night of 'Take My Breath Away,' my song with her. That was a very nice game, an incredible feeling.


'Take My Breath Away' had that interesting bass line, which I hear quite often. It had that terrible change of key, which Terri Nunn hated, but I loved.


Unless you use the vocoder the way Daft Punk use it, it is very limited. When they sing it's almost human. It sounds sexy. I just used it as an effect. It wasn't because I was not able to sing; I'm not a great singer, but I had some hits as a singer, too. It's a nice effect.


When I'm dead, somebody can write my biography. I wrote a national hymn, an anthem, which I don't want to present to that country. But I have a deal with my wife - when I'm dead, she should offer it, because then I'm safe.


I was involved with a sports car called Cizeta-Moroder, which was the first 16-cylinder car, beautiful. I think we sold about eight cars, and then in '92 the economic crash came, and we had to close the shop.


I designed a sports car, the Cizeta-Moroder, with Marcello Gandini from Lamborghini; he did the Countach, of course. The Cizeta cost $600,000, but we could bargain - if a Japanese businessman says he wants it for three, fine.


Nowadays you need so much money to be able to launch a new artist, notably in America; you would hardly believe the sums involved.


My music was typically continental - nothing like, say, The Beatles.


I would not be happy to do what I do unless I felt that the large audience wanted it.


I wanted to get into art. I did some neon stuff. I worked in, not computer-generated, but computer manipulation of pictures.


I have to admit, I do not listen to much rock music.


I had an idea for a technologically advanced luxury watch. I got involved in digital art and neon painting and put on shows of my work.


I don't think there is too much art involved in what I do.


That big hit 'Get Lucky' is a disco song - not only the melody and the whole concept, but we had one of the great disco guys and one of the best guitarists ever, Nile Rodgers, to play on it. So that's great disco, but a modern disco, because it has great vocoders and synthesizers.


Now, the DJ becomes a star in itself because of the way he programs the songs with lows and then highs and then slowing it down. The big DJs, like Tiesto and Deadmau5 and all those guys, they are very, very creative.