Few artists have been as instrumental in bringing electronic music into the pop realm as Giorgio Moroder. Born in South Tyrol, Italy, in 1940, Moroder found brief success in Germany in the ’60s and early ’70s singing jaunty pop tunes under the name Giorgio. But it was in defying disco's indulgent strings and appeals to “boogie oogie oogie” that he would make his most indelible mark, creating one of the era’s most distinctive sounds. His production and songwriting, particularly with singer Donna Summer (1975’s “Love to Love You Baby”, 1977’s “I Feel Love”), balanced raw sensuality with a mechanised, almost otherworldly sheen—a juxtaposition that would all but define electronic pop from that point onward. In the '80s, Moroder shifted his focus to film, producing and cowriting a string of soundtracks and themes that included Blondie’s “Call Me” (from American Gigolo), Irene Cara’s “Flashdance...What a Feeling” (from Flashdance), and Berlin’s “Take My Breath Away” (from Top Gun). Unbeknownst to him—particularly during his two-decade hiatus, which started in 1993—producers from across the spectrum were taking notes, applying his rubbery basslines and arpeggiated synthesisers to write dance and electronic music’s next chapters. Moroder resurfaced in the 2010s as a sort of emeritus figure, collaborating with Daft Punk on Random Access Memories, releasing new music under his own name, and, at age 73, becoming a club DJ. "I spoke to several guys, like David Guetta, Avicii, Tiësto, they all love me,” he told The Guardian in 2015. "I must have done something interesting, right?”