Moroder’s synths rise in quantity as Billy sprints by means of the crowded streets and fall away when he geese inside a poultry stall, two detectives in fits and aviator shades scorching on his tail. When he by accident overturns a crate of chickens, the tune comes dashing again in an explosion of metallic clang and zapping lasers. The scene’s finale takes place on an empty staircase, synths fading as Billy seems round and grins, pondering he’s free. However the digicam pans to disclose the American’s pistol pointed at Billy’s head. “You appear to be a pleasant sufficient child to me, Billy,” he drawls in a Texan accent, each palms clutching the gun. “However you strive it and I’ll blow your fucking brains out.”
The entire thing is over in lower than three minutes. The track is definitely a barely incongruous selection for the movie; whereas the bass arpeggio instills the requisite drama and suspense, the primary melody—which the movie’s editor barely makes use of—is jaunty and major-key, extra consistent with Moroder’s rivals Kraftwerk. It’s on the soundtrack album that “Chase” actually shines, at its full eight-and-a-half-minute size. And on the dancefloor, after all: Discothèques primed by the robotic throb of the earlier yr’s “I Really feel Love” now convulsed to the equally inflexible but sensual pulse of “Chase.”
When Parker requested a track within the model of “I Really feel Love,” Moroder clearly delivered: “Chase” is in an identical key, and rides a equally hypnotic arpeggiated bassline that chugs away with motorik willpower. A part of what had made the earlier yr’s Donna Summer season hit so beguiling was the delay Moroder utilized to its synth bass, making the ostinato determine appear to vibrate in midair—he makes use of the identical impact to much more excessive ends on “Chase.” Because the bassline churns away atop a muted 4/4 kick, backlit by a flanged synth pad, slapback delay blossoms round it, turning the timekeeping woozy and gelatinous.
As he did with the stereo panning on “I Really feel Love,” Moroder does the identical factor right here, with reversed cymbals hissing in the suitable channel and open hi-hats within the left. The groove is definitely much less inflexible than that of “I Really feel Love,” thanks partly to a snare that sounds just like the work of a human drummer, deep within the pocket however by no means mechanically so.
The track’s central characteristic is its contrapuntal melody, which periodically rises up above the bassline like a pair of Renaissance Faire pennants—a call-and-response between a squelchy synth determine and an answering riff that sounds virtually like an oboe. It’s as catchy as something Moroder ever wrote. He has mentioned that Wendy Carlos’ Switched On Bach was his introduction to the synthesizer, and “Chase” bears that out: The friction between its classical air and the track’s trance-inducing, proto-acid throb—filters in fixed movement, drums dissolving into dub delay—that makes the entire thing so intoxicating.
The Midnight Categorical soundtrack gained an Oscar—Moroder’s first—although Puttnam, the movie’s co-producer, instructed American Movie that he suspected the Academy granted it the award partly as a result of voters had didn’t nominate the Saturday Night time Fever soundtrack the earlier yr. “Too many questions had been requested of the Academy’s angle towards trendy music,” he mentioned. “So, to an extent, Giorgio had the Bee Gees to thank for that.” Moroder went on to a profitable profession in Hollywood; in truth, all through the Eighties, he was extra prolific as a soundtrack composer than as a solo artist, scoring movies like American Gigolo, Cat Folks, Flashdance, Scarface, and The NeverEnding Story, for which he additionally wrote era-defining hits for David Bowie, Irene Cara, Blondie, and Berlin.
