HI-NRG
THE TURBO-CHARGED DANCE MUSIC THAT TOUGHENED UP DISCO
STEVE O' BRIEN
It’s so good: Queen Of Disco Donna Summer not only helped kickstart the Hi-NRG scene, but she also gave it its name
WHAT IS IT?
Whether or not the shameful Disco Demolition Night (where a giant crate of disco records was blown up at Chicago’s Comiskey Park) on 12 July 1979 had anything to do with the death of disco in the final months of the 70s is debatable, but certainly it was already in the rear-view mirror culturally by the early 80s. In its place was Hi-NRG, a sort of turbo-charged disco that powered its way through the gay American nightclub scene like a Hennessey Venom F5.
Hi-NRG tracks are generally typified by staccato hi-hat rhythms, reverberated vocals, simple octave basslines and a tempo between 120bpm and 140bpm. Altogether, they have a tougher, faster, increasingly rock-like sound than the more commercially-driven disco. Unlike most musical genres, its origins can be traced to a single song – Donna Summer’s Giorgio Moroder/Pete Bellotte-produced I Feel Love from 1977. That track’s insistent four-on-the-floor bass drum and off-beat hi-hat would provide the template for the Hi-NRG revolution, even giving the genre its name, when Summer described the song as having a “high energy vibe”.
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