Disco Discharge

Which of this series is really really real?

I have Euorpean Connection and Disco Exotica and the Change double-album, and there is seemingly a countless array of other comps and album reissues, each looking like they might be amazing or might be something I play once, enjoy, file away and never pull out again. Also they're typically quite expensive here.

What's essential?

my interest in checking out these comps has been dampened by comments on discogs about the mastering and modern overdubs on some of them.

The only one I have is Euro Beats (and I only have it on mp3 so I don't "have it" have it), which is patchy imo but has some great stuff on it. Just looking at some of the others on discogs - Euro Disco is basically unimpeachable but the songs are very well known/probably available elsewhere, though it does have 'Fear' by Easy Going on it which I don't think is that well known? It is one of my favourite songs (not just of the disco genre, but of all time).

Mondo Disco is excellent but like the Eurobeats and Eurodisco ones, there's a reasonable amount of fairly well known stuff.

Okay so Euro Disco really is perfection. I don't at all mind the overlap with stuff I already have.

I'm particularly interested in whether any of the artist album reissues through the 'Disco Recharge' imprint are worthwhile?

https://www.discogs.com/label/393660-Disco-Recharge

i have mondo and euro.
time to dig'em out and enjoy !

I have LOADS of these. The only Discharge ones I'm missing are Euro Beats and a couple of the Hi NRG ones (not my thing), and the only ones I have and don't like much are Europa and the 80s tracks on Boogie. Favourites, in order: European Connection, Digging Deeper, Euro Disco, Mondo, Classic, Ladies, Cruising the Beats, Fever USA

Recharge:
- the Boris Midney series (five 2CD sets in total) is almost all essential, but especially Caress/Beautiful Bend and USA-European Connection
- Tantra: the Collection is also essential
- Tangerué / Strange Affair is good
- as is Ultimate / Ultimate II
- I also have one of the John Davis and the Monster Orchestra twofers, which is decent.

The Discharge series mostly has stuff that can be found on other, better compilations. I'd recommend buying Ben Liebrand's Grand 12-Inches comps instead (or at least the first 10 or so, the later comps have started include some less awesome tunes). They cover a lot of the same ground, but there's a lot of other cool stuff beyond classic disco on them (synth pop, boogie, old school rap, even some early house and Eurodance), and Liebrand puts more effort than Harmless into acquiring the best master tapes and mastering the CDs properly w/r/t to the era they were released in. It's clearly a labour of love for him.

But I agree with Jeff about Recharge series, full albums with bonus tracks aren't available anywhere else. The Boris Midney series especially is utterly essential indeed, dude should have a place in the highest disco producer pantheon along Moroder and Chic et al! Those albums have beautiful orchestral arrangements and impeccable sound. Too bad the Voyage albums in the Recharge series have apparently been remastered according to modern loudness standards, though apparently this was done by the French rights-owner and not Harmless. But thankfully the Midney albums don't suffer from such mistreatment, they really are recommended to anyone who loves pre-synth era disco with sweet strings and high theatrics.

And yeah, the Tantra comp in the Recharge series is also great, as Jeff says, as well as the Change comp your already have. I've not been super impressed with the other full albums in the series, obviously disco wasn't generally an album genre, except for a handful of people like Midney, who put more effort into making the albums work as a whole. But with most disco artists it's enough to get their best singles in 12" versions, either on vinyl or on multi-artist comps like the Grand 12-Inch series.

Yeah that is why I have been a bit hesitant - it stands to reason that some of those albums would be amazing but many not the best way to experience the music in question.

I think it's also that most classic disco albums have already been reissued by other labels. It was great for Harmless to reissue all of Midney's disco records and the Tantra albums, because they are classic material that wasn't available on CD before... But many others in the Recharge series are hardly as solid, acts like THP Orchestra or Barbara Pennington are better served by their singles, unless you're a completist there's really no need to own full albums by then.