Purple Disco Machine

One Liner: More 80's redux synth music, but with a little disco flair thrown in

Wikipedia Genre: Electronic, house, disco
Home: Dresden, Germany

Poster Position: 9
Both Weekends.  

Weekend One - Saturday.  Weekend Two - Friday.

Thoughts:  Ugggghhhh.  I literally chose this one to review right now because I've been in a rut of weak bands that I know I wouldn't want to see, and this group's name sounds like so much fun.  Make them be angry and hard!  And then it just sounds like songs that Daft Punk sampled from the 80's that were unknown back then and so they could use large sample chunks of them without getting called out for copying the whole song.  Whoever is singing on "Fireworks" owes The Weeknd $5 for stealing his voice.

Meanwhile, I'm the sucker who apparently doesn't get it, because these songs have soooooo many streams.  Only one in their top ten is less than eight figures.  So people are really enjoying yet another 80's redux thing.  The top song has a whopping 239.1 million streams.  That is a big ass song.  "Hypnotized."

It really feels like, if they were just going to rip off the 80's the whole time, they shouldn't be permitted to use "disco" in their name.  I guess people were still making disco in the 80's, even though my brain associates it with the 70's.  I mean, the song is fine.  Just as I've said about the other 80's redux bands on this poster - we left this style of music behind 40 years ago!  Because we found better stuff!  So, this doesn't do much for me at all.

The man behind the boards here is Tino Piontek, a German disco and house music producer.  In addition to his own tunes, he has also produced songs for Dua Lipa and Lady Gaga.  This line from his website bio is pretty cool:  "As a boy growing up in what was then known as East Germany, where Western culture was largely banned, Tino became well-acquainted with the mysterious, exotic allure of music: at night his father —by day a mild-mannered teacher —would drive off under the cover of darkness in search of black market music. Sometimes he’d come back having lost his cash at the border. But sometimes he’d return with contraband: cassettes or vinyl by forbidden rock bands."  Cross-border cassettes!

The name was invented by Tino with two reasons.  First, instead of EDM, he did "PDM." He apparently found no soul in traditional electronic dance music and wanted something funkier. Second, "Purple Disco Machine was inspired by Miami Sound Machine and Prince, specializing in warm disco and extravagant funk." 

Two albums - 2017's Soulmatic and 2021's Exotica.  That song up above is from the 2021 album.  Also on that album, "Dopamine" sounds very much like a copy of some song I already know that I can't put my finger on.  Wait, there it is - Laura Branigan's "Self Control."  I think I called out that tune in talking about The Weeknd's hit song last year too.  Who knew that this one hit wonder lady would influence all of pop music 40 years later.

Oh, wait, this one sounds familiar - "Body Funk" is on the first album (and confusingly is also a single from 2019?).  44.2 million streams.

Okay, hold on now.  That is kinda fun.  Sounds like he's ripping off "Funkytown" to get the party started.  Definitely more of the disco thing here and less of the crappy 80's stuff.  And "Devil in Me," also on that first album, is also better.  These tunes hew to that ethos he espoused up there of warm disco and extravagant funk.  Bring me those choice cuts all day long, and you can keep the new 80's crap. 

The newer album is less of my jam for sure, too much of the 80's thing.  But the older stuff has some fun feels to it.  I won't go see this, but at least there are some tracks in here that appeal.