Ennio Morricone and Disco Music?

How Morricone’s collaborations with soft-core music generated pioneering disco and electronic tracks.

We know Ennio Morricone for his lush, cinematic film compositions, which span genres such as Spaghetti Western (For a Fistful of Dollars, Once Upon a Time in the West), historical (The Mission), horror (Dario Argento’s Animal Trilogy), and even black comedy (Almodovar’s Atame!). In mainstream Italian Pop, Morricone is mostly known for penning “Se Telefonando,” which he wrote for Mina and “Non Son Degno Di Te” for Gianni Morandi. Notable international tracks by Morricone include “Every Time” by Paul Anka, “I Like The World” by Demis Roussos,“ It Couldn’t Happen Here” for the album Actually by Pet Shop Boys.

However, the maestro has a number of disco tracks that are tied to the soft-core films he worked on, and musically they deserve an examination because they teased a few trends that would take shape throughout the 1980s and 1990s. 

Firstly Ennio had a very “primitive” idea of disco music which, let’s remember,  was not really called “disco” as a genre at the time, but it was used more …