Day 369: Patrick Cowley – Menergy

I’ll be honest, today is the first Disco Friday when I’m not really in the mood to disco, I have had a long week. I needed something extra good to get me out of my funk and I found myself thinking I’d like something like Sylvester, they’re one of my Disco Friday favourites, so I thought today I would be the perfect day to listen to the solo output of their collaborator, Patrick Cowley.

Album cover courtesy of Fusion Records

Patrick Cowley was a pioneering dance music composer and artist, who’s perhaps best known for his work with Sylvester on iconic songs like “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)”, but who also created a type of dance music called Hi-NRG, or the San Francisco Sound. He died in 1982 at a very young age, but he’s posthumously become known as a dance music innovator. The label Dark Entries has semi-recently been releasing his rare and unreleased work, including previously unheard soundtracks that he’d composed for gay porn movies.

I started off trying to listen to his 1981 release Megatron Man, but that just wasn’t the right vibe. However, within about five minutes of switching to his debut album Menergy, I’d shaken off my bad day and I was in the shower to start getting ready for the weekend. It’s got a tight, pulsating rhythm and campily sexual and hedonistic lyrics that makes it clear that this is an album to facilitate you having a good time, and that it definitely does — I’m 32 going on 82, but it’s so catchy that even I’m feeling the pull to head back to the clubs.

Nothing about this album is particularly memorable, but it’s still great, especially as a little foray into disco history. I didn’t know about Hi-NRG, and reading about the post-Stonewall, pre-AIDS nightlife scene that birthed the genre was definitely interesting. I can almost see myself putting this on if I need an album to get me raring to go, but I think it’s more likely that I’ll maybe listen to a song here and there, and explore his other output a bit further. Menergy is a strong 7.5/10.