I'm like a pie made for hungry guys

It is more than 25 years since that most singular of music styles Hi-NRG first hurtled in its poppers-crazed frenzy into the clubs and the charts across the globe.

In an era of optimism - post-Disco, pre-House and pre-Techno - when AIDS was just "something that happened to someone else", this hyper-charged 125 to 127bpm gay-gay-gay music launched a million fan-dances, made "stars" out of long-lost Northern Soul singers like Evelyn Thomas and Pearly Gates (largely thanks to the "conversion" of DJ Ian Levine from that genre to Hi-NRG at that time), rejuvenated the careers of disco stars such as Sylvester, Martha Wash and (former "Harlette" with Bette Midler) Sharon Redd, and made the ears of soon-to-be pop supremos Stock Aitken & Waterman really prick up.

But it was European music - a type of Disco still fondly referred to as "Italo" to this day - that really made the big difference in the development of Hi-NRG. For despite the effervescent productions of Patrick Cowley and Bobby "O" arising from the San Fransisco and New York gay club scenes, the real inspiration remained that seminal producer Giorgio Moroder, whose I Feel Love for Donna Summer had already changed the face of Disco forever.

Hence the huge underground success of synth-driven Euro-dance (in tandem with the far cooler synth sounds of the New Romantics, and eventually Pet Shop Boys and Erasure) gave birth to what became - in one form or another - the true sound of the 1980s nightclubs.

Alongside such brilliantly tacky European artists as Fun Fun, Modern Talking and Lime one of my personal favourites of that era was the German former monk who went by the name of Fancy. If ever there is a song that can truly sum up a whole era, it is this one...

Fancy - Slice Me Nice

Slice Me Nice - Fancy
My body's burning like a flame that's blue
It's time for action and I want it from you
Slice me nice, slice me nice

My heart is beating to the rhythm of love
I need you baby like cold hands need a glove
Slice me nice, slice me nice

I'm like a cake that wants to be baked
I'm like a pie made for hungry guys
My body's burning like a flame that's blue
It's time for action baby, cut me in two
Slice me nice, slice me nice

S L I C E, slice me nice
S L I C E, slice me nice
S L I C E, slice me nice
S L I C E, slice me nice
(Slice me nice)

Read more about Manfred Alois Perilano aka Fancy

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This article was originally posted back in 2009 - see my daily blog Give 'em the old Razzle Dazzle.

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