Writing about disco and drag queens. Listening to Yes.

Hot Blood
Terror On The Dance Floor
Soul Dracula
These are two tracks of horror-themed eurodisco that I ripped off of a 12″ promotional single. The “group” Hot Blood is really the alias of one Stefaan Klinkhammer, a German producer and songwriter who had a string of moderate hits in the late 70s in his native Germany. He was also apparently instrumental in the formation of the German disco/reggae(???) act Boney M. Sadly, he passed away in 2001. You can read more about him here.

In the great pantheon of gimmicky disco tracks, I think that the Hot Blood stuff that I’ve heard ranks somewhere in the middle. It’s certainly better than musical sewage like “Disco Duck,” but I don’t know if it’s as catchy and downright fun as a track like “Kung Fu Fighting,” which, by the way, is a pretty great song and Carl Douglas could sing like a motherfucker. I think what hurt this track’s mainstream appeal wasn’t its complete idiocy or it’s lack of any real structure (plenty of dumber, less-catchy disco tracks made it to the top of the charts – I just mentioned “Disco Duck” remember?). No, I think the real problem with this track is that it came out in 1977. That was a good year for disco, giving us “Don’t Leave Me This Way,” arguably the greatest disco song of all-time. It also gave us “I’m Your Boogie Man” – speaking of great horror themed disco – and you just can’t compete with that.

Divine
Hey You! (The Full and Frantic Mix)
Hey What! (Take It To The Max Mix)
Yes, the same Divine who ate dog shit in Pink Flamingos.

No, he (he preferred to go by “he” from what I can tell) could not sing. Although, I really don’t think he’s trying to on these tracks. It’s more like screaming, or maybe growling. It sounds like the lead singer from a death metal band trying to give disco a go. It’s pretty fucking intense.

I have Divine’s complete discography, and it’s really…something.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 3rd, 2014 at 10:10 am and is filed under Divine, Hot Blood, remixes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.