Dear listeners,
The Oscars are this Sunday, and my personal pick for best picture is Brady Corbet’s gloriously ambitious, utterly unpredictable epic “The Brutalist.” Corbet and his co-writer, Mona Fastvold, take some wild risks in the movie, and while I don’t think every one of them connects, I’m still awed by the film’s vision and scope. One risk that “The Brutalist” definitely pulls off, though, is the unforgettable, out-of-nowhere song that plays over the closing credits: “One for You, One for Me,” the ecstatic 1978 disco hit by the Italian duo La Bionda.
I was certainly not expecting a three-and-a-half-hour drama about an architect who survived the Holocaust to send audiences dancing out of the theater — but the surprising and strangely satisfying La Bionda needle drop is in keeping with the film’s spirit of subverting convention. “It’s quite cheeky,” Fastvold said of the song choice in an interview with USA Today. “I really enjoy leaving the audience with that jolt of energy.”
I confess I wasn’t familiar with this song, or La Bionda, before seeing the movie last month, but the first thing I did upon exiting the theater was Google “what is the disco song at the end of ‘The Brutalist’?” The answer led me down a rabbit hole of musical discovery — one that I’m sharing with you on today’s playlist. (I didn’t believe La Bionda could possibly have a song as catchy and transcendently ridiculous as “One for You, One for Me,” and then I heard “I Wanna Be Your Lover,” their retrofuturistic 1980 hit about a sexy alien.)
La Bionda were a duo of Sicilian brothers, Carmelo and Michelangelo, who in the late 1970s pioneered a sound that would later come to be called Italo disco: think glistening synths, four-on-the-floor percussion and semi-absurdist lyrics. Italo disco’s production sound and overall sense of theatricality influenced a lot of later new wave artists, and every decade or so a new generation of music fans seems to discover its charms and make it subculturally cool again. But, as Michelangelo clarified in a recent interview with Vulture, he and Carmelo (who died in 2022) weren’t consciously making “Italo disco,” a term he considers an afterthought “to put a label on the shelves.”
Regardless of how you classify them, La Bionda are worthy of rediscovery — especially if you like your dance music fun, over-the-top and magnificently gauche. Enjoy this brief introduction to their sound, featuring some of their biggest hits (both as La Bionda and D.D. Sound), alongside music they produced for another Italian pop duo, Righeira.
And if you’re looking for something with a bit more grandeur, I highly recommend Daniel Blumberg’s excellent original motion picture soundtrack for “The Brutalist,” which I’ll also be rooting for on Sunday night in the best original score category.
Outside in the darkness, something waits for me,
Lindsay
Listen along while you read.
1. La Bionda: “One for You, One for Me”
“I found that I was singing along to the bass line,” Michelangelo La Bionda explained in Vulture, recalling the experience of recording this song. To him, the phrasing sounded like the words “one for you, one for me.” Richard William Palmer-James of Supertramp, who was then writing lyrics with La Bionda, protested that the line didn’t mean anything. Michelangelo told him he didn’t care: “He’s got a bachelor’s of English literature, so, you know. But this song was just a way to reach all the people who are sitting around in a crowd. And when the song comes on, they all come up and dance.”
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
2. La Bionda: “I Wanna Be Your Lover”
Trust me when I say you need to watch this music video. This playful, deliriously catchy, proto-Daft Punk hit from 1980 is a quintessential specimen of the so-called subgenre of space disco and, in all likelihood, the greatest song ever made about being seduced by a slimy, faceless alien.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
3. D.D. Sound: “She’s Not a Disco Lady”
Before they became known by their own last name, the La Bionda brothers released groovy, upbeat electro-pop under the name D.D. Sound (the letters stood for “Disco Delivery”). The subject of this saucy dance-floor anthem has one major character flaw: She’s not a disco lady. But, as the brothers and a group of backing singers thankfully clarify, it’s all right. (All right!)
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
4. La Bionda: “High Energy”
The title track from La Bionda’s slick 1979 album combines topical references to the ongoing oil crisis — “Well you know how it feels when you wait at the gasoline station,” they sing, “and the radio brings a report on the state of the nation” — with kinetic, feel-good escapism. It also shares a name with a then-nascent subgenre of rock-oriented dance music that would come to be known as hi-NRG.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
5. Righeira: “No Tengo Dinero”
Here’s another music video you’re definitely going to want to watch. In the early 1980s, La Bionda produced music for the Italo disco duo Righeira, who, somewhat confusingly, sang their two biggest hits in Spanish. As Michelangelo told Vulture, it was just good business sense. “We produced it in Spanish,” he said of another Righeira smash, “Vamos a la Playa,” “because the Spanish language is spoken all around the world. So we had a couple of Italian guys singing in Spanish and it was a huge hit single. We like to appeal to the world. With the cost of production, why not try to get the world, and not just Italy?”
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
6. La Bionda: “Bandido”
Speaking of Italians making overtly Spanish-language-themed music, enjoy this title track from another 1979 La Bionda album. “Bandido, he’s a man who moves with grace and bravado,” sings Carmelo La Bionda, on a track driven by a funky guitar riff and flashy synths. “They all know him from Peru to Tampico.”
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
7. La Bionda: “Will She or Won’t She”
Finally, here’s a deeper cut from “Bandido” that shows off a different side of La Bionda’s style. Briefly ditching their spacey, futuristic synths, “Will She or Won’t She” is a brassy, winking Tin Pan Alley throwback, anchored — like any La Bionda classic — by an infectious, expertly crafted melody.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
The Amplifier Playlist
“I’m Obsessed With the Italo Disco Song in ‘The Brutalist’” track list
Track 1: La Bionda, “One for You, One for Me”
Track 2: La Bionda, “I Wanna Be Your Lover”
Track 3: D.D. Sound, “She Is Not a Disco Lady”
Track 4: La Bionda, “High Energy”
Track 5: Righeira, “No Tengo Dinero”
Track 6: La Bionda, “Bandido”
Track 7: La Bionda, “Will She or Won’t She”
Bonus Tracks
If you’re looking for new music, Jon Pareles and I have compiled a fresh Friday Playlist for you. Today, we’ve got just released tracks from Lizzo, Benson Boone, Jenny Hval and more. Listen here.
The post I’m Obsessed With the Italo Disco Song in ‘The Brutalist’ appeared first on New York Times.
