Giorgio Moroder has long been adopted by the cognoscenti. He’s the studio wizard who gave us key Seventies disco hits, iconic in the development of electronic music and club culture. The culmination of this archiving tendency was the tribute song on Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories, indeed, the whole album seemed sprinkled with shiny Moroder synth polish. It was undoubtedly this that resulted in Sony hauling him from retirement to work with a who’s who of contemporary chart-pop. The result is appalling, a catastrophic mire of Costa del Dumb Euro-cheese, pitched in some teeth-jarring saccharine radio hell between Whigfield and Icona Pop.
Moroder is 75 and his back catalogue certainly contains all the gems later cherry-picked to acclaim – his work with Donna Summer, Sparks, Blondie, Freddie Mercury, Phil Oakey et al, his soundtrack to Midnight Express, and so on. However, he was always, first and foremost, a pop chancer whose imagination and brilliance lucked him into the world of sonic art. He also produced plenty of forgotten stinkers along the way, becoming increasingly vapid before he disappeared from the scene 30 years ago. Déjà Vu, then, can be put at the back of the memory cupboard with these.
Working alongside slick, super-commercial LA production hacks as such Raney Shockne and Dan Book, he has guest singers such as Kylie Minogue, Foxes, Kelis and Charli XCX do their thing over relentless, characterless EDM-flavoured drivel. Even Britney’s in there, delivering an execrable update on the old Suzanne Vega number, “Tom’s Diner”. Meanwhile, Sia lucks out with the title track's slightly funkier "Get Lucky" knock-off. The listener’s ears, desperately hoping for flavour, attach to catchy tracks such as “Tempted”, featuring Matthew Koma, seeking nourishment amid the numb, fun-free bounciness, but it’s like chewing on a polymer simulation of nutrition.
Moroder attempts to recapture his classic sound on “74 is the New 24”, which comes on like a Pet Shop Boys b-side circa 1993. It has an appealing hi-NRG gay club frothiness, nothing more. Yet I have no fervent wish for him to return to “classic Moroder” just as no-one's expecting groundbreaking Squarepusher-esque electronica. Anything vaguely interesting would have sufficed. It’s just a shame that a master’s return is attached to one of the year’s most rancid collections of brain-dead pap.
Overleaf: Watch the video for "Déjà Vu", featuring Sia, with a cool cameo from Mordoer at the start