- Marcello Giordani is one of the growing (small) number of producers involved in their own reproduction of Italo/disco/electro/house. In a typically 2008 move, it’s all about the high-tech renovation of an old style, with the formulas left intact and only the methods of enacting them changed…perhaps. Giordani’s last EP for Mule, I’m Not Blade Runner saw the producer in a more ‘creative’ mode (in the modernist sense of making something ‘new’), especially on ‘Shrimp of Portofino’ (the B2) which introduced a whole ceiling filled with congas to a floor full of polished drums to generate something, well, novel.
But ‘Respect Yourself’ is a totally naked expression of all the typical Italo signifiers. A hater might say it’s just a matter of copycatting the clichés. Either way, it’s all here: the Moroder melodies (which part like a hand through strings of sequins) and stiff, electroid drum patterns. I don’t have to describe it for you, you’ve heard it before—or even if you haven't (as with the best Italo) you’ll swear you have. It’s super-reminiscent ‘80s movie disco of the highest order, and Giordani’s success here is producing an arrangement in search of some film credits to roll with (and maybe Natasha Kinski).
Naughty’s mix does very little with the original arrangement—it’s a stretch and a tweak, which is either a savvy compliment to the creator (as with Tiger Stripes’ remix of Lee Jones’ ‘Aus’) or a sign of laziness. Personally, I would have preferred the remix to teach the original some strange new habits (or just wake up with sore nostrils and a new tattoo).
So depending on the complex admixture of Giordani’s intentions and your expectations as a listener, this either means that the kid’s nailed it, or he should stop with trying the out-Moroder manoeuvres and get some moves of his own. I’m not sure—I think Giordani is a producer with a future and that Naughty’s remixes are sometimes second-to-none, but an EP that contains two over-exact facsimiles of a twenty-five year old style will only be compared with that genre’s classics, and by those high standards (and my subjective estimation), this is second rate.
TracklistA Respect Yourself (Original)
B Respect Yourself (DJ Naughty Remix)