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Sean
Room at the Top
2658 Posts |
 Posted - 06/02/2004 : 11:40:31
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Do you guys consider Italo Disco as New Wave? I've always considered this style of music as New Wave but I think the "Disco" in the name scares everyone off. It has all the elements to qualify it as being New Wave. Here are the most popular acts/bands from the genre:
Savage
Gazebo
Ken Laszlo
My Mine
Fake (although they weren't from Italy)
Sean
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schwenko
Room at the Top
USA
4508 Posts |
Posted - 06/02/2004 : 12:18:33
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quote:
[i]Originally posted by Sean[/i]
[br]Do you guys consider Italo Disco as New Wave? I've always considered this style of music as New Wave but I think the "Disco" in the name scares everyone off. It has all the elements to qualify it as being New Wave. Here are the most popular acts/bands from the genre:
Savage
Gazebo
Ken Laszlo
My Mine
Fake (although they weren't from Italy)
I don't know if it is New Wave; I do know that it is fun!
Fun Fun-Color My Love.......Great driving song! |
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fritzb
Room at the Top
USA
1108 Posts |
Posted - 06/02/2004 : 12:43:05
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I consider Italo Disco to be a bit of a misnomer. In America, "Disco" is of course associated with the style of music from the mid to late 70s (The BeeGees, KC & The Sunshine Band, The Village People, etc...), whereas in Europe, "Disco" is what they call the dance clubs.
Anyone who clubbed in Europe in the 80s, probably went to a place called a "Disco" where they played all kinds of dancable music. I remember going to a "Disco" in Paris in 1989 where they had two floors. Downstairs they played old American Disco records that we all would recognize as "Disco". Upstairs they played music like New Order and Depeche Mode. Other places would play everything from Metal to Celtic Folk music, hardly what we would call "Disco" music.
Some "Italo Disco" is certainly disco, but much of it is not. Much of what Europeans call "Disco Pop" is really very New Wave-ish. I'm sure they played New Wave right in there with it at the Discos in the early 80s as long as you could dance to it. |
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devildog
Room at the Top
809 Posts |
Posted - 06/02/2004 : 13:13:42
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| Sean, I am not familiar with the bands you mentioned. However, I have an ep from 1984 called Fuzz Dance which features the bands Naif Orchestra, Gina & The Flexix, Mya & The Mirror, and Alexander Robotnick. This ep is all Italo Disco but it certainly sounds like new wave to me. |
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fritzb
Room at the Top
USA
1108 Posts |
Posted - 06/02/2004 : 14:18:57
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I have Fuzz Dance too; it's all in the same vein. I even featured that Alexander Robotnick song in NTT2.  |
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Sean
Room at the Top
2658 Posts |
Posted - 06/02/2004 : 16:08:53
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Yeah, Italo Disco is a horrible term for a great style of music. First of all, it scares off half of the people because the term "disco" just conjures up the late 70's. (Nothing wrong with the late 70's I might add) Anyways, I believe this music originated in Italy (hence the name Italo) and was really dance music created for the club scene there. I believe a lot of these Italo Disco bands wanted to follow in the footsteps of bands like Depeche Mode, Alphaville, Boytronic, etc. You can often hear similar sounds and patterns when listening to Italo. In response to Devildog's comment, Italo Disco was also used to classify bands such as Laserdance, Daylight, Hypnosis, Koto, etc. That style of music now has it's own name, "Synthesizer Dance". Anyways, to continue on, Italo Disco got quite popular in Europe and set off this Disco/Dance 12" frenzy which took over the European charts for awhile. Other countries started contributing to this like Germany with Modern Talking, Bad Boys Blue, C.C. Catch, France with F.R. David, and Spain with Daydream, David Lyme, Squash Gang. For a period of time, this was all I was listening to. This stuff can be beautiful but it can sometimes be as cheesey as hell. The music is often rich with synth layering and strings and the vocals are usually dreamy and melodic. The best stuff usually came in the form of one hit wonders. Many Italo Disco 12" singles fetch around $50-$200 on Ebay. Don't know where I'm really going with this but I totally love Italo Disco and just wanted to know if other New Wavers love this music too.
My 5 favourite Italo Disco songs:
Call My Name - Lisa G (the greatest Italo Disco song ever)
Give Me One Day Give Me One Night - Europe
Take A Moment - Cherry
Only Music Survives - Alba
Look At Me - Alex Molo
My 3 favourite Euro Disco songs:
Help Me Through The Summer - Neil Smith
Hold Me Tight Tonight - Night Society
You Are The One - Black Denim
Sean
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magic
Running Up That Hill
1 Posts |
Posted - 06/06/2004 : 17:13:36
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Hello, this was going to be the topic of my first post, but I will make my first post as a reply to your original message. I am a very big fan of both new wave music and european music (e.g. italo disco, sabadell sound, laserdance, and high energy), and I must say that I always have considered a large portion of italo disco music to be part of the new wave era. However, my music is distinguished like this:
new wave (80's) --- includes late 70's post-punk, punk, and even late 80's and early 90's artists such as Celebrate The Nun.
high energy - as Sean mentioned, this includes the German and surrounding countries response to italo disco. It is also known as Euro Disco. Germany was the main contributor, with Modern Talking Bad Boys Blue, CC Catch, Fancy, Sandra, and Silent Circle. They all had a very distinguished sound that allowed these artists and others to stick together to form their very own genre.
italo disco --- includes anything pre-italo disco (1979) all the way up until 2004 with anything eurobeat (which is italo disco music with a 150+ bpm) and this is a huge scene mainly in Japan. The main key to being italo disco is being made in ITALY. The italo disco core years were definitely 1982-1986 and the key artists were Scotch, Ken Laszlo, Albert One, Alphatown, Eddy Huntington, Gazebo, and the list could go on. These artists are what I consider new wave music. Their music is not very different than the stuff that is defined as new wave. Two italo disco artists are actually considered new wave, and they are Baltimora (Tarzan Boy) and Paul Lekakis (Boom Boom, Let's Go Back To My Room). Both artists are actually Italian and have full albums. Their sound is similar to that the other italo disco artists, but the reason most new wavers know them is because they are one hit wonders. I could go on forever, but now I am opening up about 50 possible stories and sequences of italo music to discuss. The end point is that there are 1000's and 1000's of italo disco artists, and 100's of immaculate gems in this genre that are literally unknown to almost all new wave fans. This should not be the case.
One thing I will agree with is that some of the italo disco and euro disco songs are so beautiful and awesomely enjoyable, but others are just cheesy and terrible. It really just depends on what your taste is and what kinda italo you're in the mood for today.
-John |
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tborg1987
Switchin' to Glide
42 Posts |
Posted - 06/06/2004 : 17:48:06
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| Do yall intentionally ask questions that only a few would understand, really, WTF is italo disco, i don't even see that on allmusic.com |
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fritzb
Room at the Top
USA
1108 Posts |
Posted - 06/06/2004 : 18:20:45
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| AMG (allmusic.com) is a good overall reference, but it is pretty focused on American music and english vocal foreign groups that are popular in the US. There is a whole world of music out there that AMG has little or nothing on. |
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