Label: RAK
Year of Release: 1978
Perhaps more than any other musical genre, disco wasn't afraid to use current trends and gimmicks and make them the focal point of any record. Forget "Kung Fu Fighting", because disco crossed all the boundaries, even giving goth-rock a run for its money in the zombie killer stakes (Andy Forray's dubious and incredibly creepy "Drac's Back" and Zorro's "Phantasm" on blood splattered twelve inch vinyl are only two such examples. I own the latter and may well upload it eventually).
Moving away from the graveyard and out into space, this particular single focussed itself on the five note riff the aliens broadcast to Earth in Spielberg's "Close Encounters of the Third Kind". In itself, this is the kind of conceit you could imagine an early nineties novelty rave record being based on (probably a Sheffield bleep parody) but this is pure seventies commercial dancefloor fare, all squelchy synths and slapped bass lines. That it fared poorly in the charts, not even getting within the UK top 75, just goes to prove that sometimes a tie-in with a blockbusting film isn't enough.
As for who Cameron is or was or where he or she came from, we may never know, although it's safe to say it has nothing to do with the Prime Minster Dave. Perhaps, like the greys in the film itself, we're not supposed to actually know the origins of this disc, and are merely listening to the record as the privileged few Earth-dwellers to catch its friendly, welcoming melodies. Except it's not really as exciting as that, is it? Not even close, in fact...
(Ignore the title on the sleeve above, by the way. It says "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" on the record label, so that's what I'm running with).
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