2nd September 1978, with Irvine Welsh
Show notes
Irvine Welsh joins Greg Wilson and Mike Atkinson to take a look at a Disco Chart from September 1978: a time when, in the wake of Saturday Night Fever's enormous success, certain UK DJs were starting to plot a different way forwards, with jazz-funk in particular emerging as a significant new force. As we discover, many of these US tunes, although huge on British dancefloors, did not enjoy the same success in their home country.
Dividing his time between London punk clubs and Saturday night discos, Irvine straddled both worlds, at ease with their supposed cultural contradictions. To accompany his new book Men In Love - which picks up where Trainspotting left off, charting its central characters' progress through the late 1980s - Irvine has released a soundtrack album, accompanied by his Sci-Fi Soul Orchestra, which sets the characters' stories to lushly orchestrated soulful disco, inspired by the classic sound of Chic and Philadelphia International. During the episode, you'll also get to hear more about how this musical project came together.
To accompany our discussion, you can listen to this entire Top 20 in full, or alternatively as a shorter medley of snippets.
Further listening: other tracks mentioned in this episode.(Spotify)
Further reading: James Hamilton's Disco Pages 1975-1982.(550 page hardback book)
Mike also hosts the podcast Which Decade Is Tops For Pops?
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