Album of the Day: Star Wars and Other Galactic Funk by Meco
I've talked before about my love and appreciation for the late, great Domenico Monardo, the music producer who released his own music under the name Meco. He had the luck to seize the moment when disco, science fiction, Star Wars, and instrumental mega-mixes became very popular.
The story of this record begins on May 25, 1977: the opening day of Star Wars. Meco saw the film on opening day; he loved it so much that he saw it four more times on the weekend. Loving John Williams' score, he "wanted to take that music and dance to it." He met with Neil Bogart, the founder of Casablanca Records, who had popularized KISS and eurodisco in America. Meco pitched him on a disco reworking of the music from Star Wars. After seeing the movie, Bogart approved. The film's soundtrack hadn't even been released yet; Meco had to call someone at the music publishing department at 20th Century Fox and finagle his way into being sent a copy.
Meco recorded the album over three weeks, hiring Harold Wheeler and Tony Bongiovi (Jon Bon Jovi's dad) to co-produce the album with him. Although many, many keyboards and synthesizers were used, a 70-piece orchestra was also assembled for the project. Because the project was unlicensed, all of the special effect sounds from Star Wars had to be approximated with synthesizers. It took Meco eight hours to figure out to get a synthesizer to sound like R2-D2. The "Cantina Band" section was recorded at high speed by four sax players; when played back, it gave a high, tinny sound. Suzanne Ciani contributed electronic sound effects; Bongiovi, having recently worked with the Ramones and Talking Heads, remixed the album and provided studio-tape effects.
The resulting piece, simply called "Star Wars," is a medley of nine sections of music from the score set to a drumbeat and running nearly 16 minutes. In order to have a single, Meco cut a three-minute version, "Star Wars Theme/Cantina Band," which was number one on the Billboard Hot 100 for two weeks and is the bestselling instrumental single of all time (and the only one to be certified platinum).
For the album's second side, an original piece called "Other Galactic Funk" was recorded, starting with a snare drum beat played by six children from a drum corps. Whereas "Star Wars" is disco, "Other Galactic Funk" is much more of a jazz fusion piece. Some pieces were inspired by John Williams' Star Wars score. This instrumental piece runs 13 minutes.
Meco thought the album might sell 50,000 copies; it sold over a million. Within three years, it went platinum. The single was nominated for Best Pop Instrumental Performance at the Grammys and, ironically, lost to John Williams' original version; Williams sent Meco a note telling him he was a fan and had loved his record. Meco would go on to work on other Star Wars projects that were officially sanctioned by Lucasfilm.
Tony Bongiovi, incidentally, used his share of the profits to build Power Station Studios in Hell's Kitchen, where a lot of incredible records were recorded. He also worked more with Meco and on Star Wars projects.
It's cool, weird shit like this that ends up turning something like Star Wars into a massive phenomenon. It's not just the movie being great, it's the way it permeates aspects of culture and inspires people to do crazy artistic things like a disco record that catches the zeitgeist. I know Star Wars fans often dismiss something like this as a novelty cash-in, but it's actually a great record and a fun bit of Star Wars fandom.
Video: the entire 12" version of "Star Wars," ripped from the original vinyl. You need this today.
