Patrick Cowley – Menergy / Megatron Man, Opaque Teal with pink/black swirls, 33 ⅓ RPM 12" Vinyl
Patrick Cowley – Menergy / Megatron Man, Opaque Teal with pink/black swirls, 33 ⅓ RPM 12" Vinyl
Factory Sealed (New)
In the late 1970s, producer Patrick Cowley‘s work on Sylvester’s Step II album (as well as an epic 15 minute megamix of Donna Summer’s I Feel Love) gave the young San Francisco producer a pedestal from which to launch a solo career.
In 1981, Cowley released the Menergy EP on Fusion Records, with its title track arguably one of the high-water marks of the Hi-NRG genre.
Opening with Vangelis-style lushness, the track descends into a pulsing electro riff backed by lyrics bursting with sexual energy “The boys in the back room / Laughin’ it up / Shootin’ off energy / The guys in the street talk checkin’ you out / Talkin’ ’bout Menergy…”
One can only imagine what it sounded like at the Paradise Garage, or similar timeless venues of the era.
It’s also one of the first dance tracks to adopt a ‘drop’, a hallmark of modern EDM. As Gawker’s Rich Juzwiak observed in 2013, the drop in this instance is “particularly exhilarating, […] because it functions as a climax in a song so sexual. There are three of these drops that build and explode (shooting into the air like…a spaceship) in this song. “Menergy” is multi-orgasmic.”
Sadly, Cowley never got the opportunity to build on the success of Menergy, and the well-received Megatron Man album that followed; in November 1982, he died at the age of 32, an early victim of the then-relatively unknown AIDS virus.
Groundbreaking at the time, his passing meant that Cowley’s music would be forever embedded in 1982, for future musical archaeologists – New Order, Depeche Mode, Daft Punk, Pet Shop Boys et al – to unearth.
