ItaloDisco, nw's illegitimate neglected cousin?

[British]

So for variety and fun i decided to listen to(still am) an all-Italo Disco shoutcast station.

Interesting little parallel universe of music that was still in the early 1980s. I assume, with the prefix "Italo" this stuff never made it out of Europe, despite tons of english language tracks?

It has synth, it has, uh, vocals. Okay, it has like 1 or 2 items in common with new wave, but still light years away from new wave/new romantic, etc.

I think I am slightly attracted to it for its nostalgic value, for it being smack dab in the early 80s. It's not full-blown '70s disco, but it's definitely not new wave either. It's in-between.

Or is this the last throes of disco, sitting on a Roland/Korg death bed?

[Bitter Almonds]

I always associated it to the even-more upbeat take of New Romantic. Just listen to Erasure and The Pet Shop Boys! If you cannot hear a semblance to ItaloDisco, then you need to turn in your New Wave badge immediately. I love that stuff. I may not know the names and titles as I do with New Wave and New Romantic, but it's definitely one of the better subgenres of music around.

Check out this site (repost!):

http://www.disco80.ru/index.php?an=video_cl80&page=7

I LOVE the music vid for "Words"... it's so nostalgic.

[British]

Yeah, the disco80.ru site came to mind instantly when thoguht of "italo disco" since 90% of their video library is goofy, cheesy Italo Disco.

One downside of ItaloDisco is that it's too freakin' happy. You almost need to listen to Siouxie Sioux a bit to come down from the artifical happy.

[quote][i]Originally posted by XXX[/i]
<br>

http://www.disco80.ru/index.php?an=video_cl80&page=7

I LOVE the music vid for "Words"... it's so nostalgic.
[/quote]

[Bitter Almonds]

A lot of it makes me feel sad despite its saccharine sound. It's definitely a nostalgia thing.

[WolverineSyr]

Italo was pretty huge with the gay club crowd.

Dance Music Authority Magazine put out a couple of compilations which were pretty solid Italo. I liked it, but it was pretty happy, bouncy sound-alike stuff.

I could probably upload the comps to the hub if anyone's interested. I think one has a very happy cover of More Than This!

[Arcadia]

I enjoy Italo Disco quite a bit. But I like disco/dance music in general, so it comes as no surprise. I tend to group German and Italian disco together under the Italo Disco heading. If you get too picky about it then you'll waste all of your time deciding if a song is Eurobeat, Italo Disco, Euro Disco, Hi NRG, blah blah blah. Too many categories! Wolv is right, at least in North America, Italo Disco was (and still is) extremely popular on the gay club scene. It's the only setting I can hear it in these days at all, but thank god really, because those boys and girls like to dance, and so do I. There was a ton of ID released, and I felt the bulk of it was pretty generic or silly. There are, however, quite a few excellent tunes that came out of that genre. Some of my favorite Italo Disco acts are:

Ken Laszlo
Mike Mareen
Fancy
Bad Boys Blue
Savage
Den Harrow
Modern Talking
Silent Circle

[b]"Tonight" by Ken Laszlo[/b] gets my vote for [b]Greatest Italo Disco Song of All-Time[/b].

[getyourbootson]

*laughs*
When I saw this thread it made me think of Fancy, then I saw it in Arcadia's list. One of my female friend's turned me on to a song Slice Me Nice by Fancy, and looking back I can't figure out what I liked about that song! I think it was the synths, cause there are some really nice sounding chimy synths in that song. However, "I'm like a cake that wants to be baked. I'm like a pie made for hungry guys..... It's time for action baby cut me in two?" Yikes! What the hell? That is aweful! *chuckles* Scarey!

[Arcadia]

[quote][i]Originally posted by getyourbootson[/i]
<br>*laughs*
When I saw this thread it made me think of Fancy, then I saw it in Arcadia's list. One of my female friend's turned me on to a song Slice Me Nice by Fancy, and looking back I can't figure out what I liked about that song! I think it was the synths, cause there are some really nice sounding chimy synths in that song. However, "I'm like a cake that wants to be baked. I'm like a pie made for hungry guys..... It's time for action baby cut me in two?" Yikes! What the hell? That is aweful! *chuckles* Scarey!

[/quote]
LOL! I know! Slice Me Nice is soooooo corny. But those synths, what can you do?[:D]

[WolverineSyr]

I really can't tell the difference between Eurodisco, Hi-NRG and Italo. It all has the synths, the happy girl singing english phoneticlly, the bouncey beat.
Great song: Fun Fun - Color My Love

[schwenko]

[quote][i]Originally posted by WolverineSyr[/i]
<br>I really can't tell the difference between Eurodisco, Hi-NRG and Italo. It all has the synths, the happy girl singing english phoneticlly, the bouncey beat.
Great song: Fun Fun - Color My Love


[/quote]

YES!!!! I totally agree!!! I tracked this down on CD in Washington DC about 10 years! Incredible energy!! (Can you tell I'm excited? [:)])

[WolverineSyr]

A DJ friend gave me an extra copy of his waaay back when. Still have it - still love it. They did another song called "Living in Japan" that was a lot more synthy (I think.)

I know Lime wasn't Italo - but man, Babe We're Gonna Love tonight - incredible song. That whole Canadian Hi-NRG genre was great.

[Sean]

To me, Italo Disco is pretty much New Wave. It basically came out of Italy (hence the term Italo which was coined by the Bernhard Mikulski the owner of ZYX) and all of the other countries in Europe excluding the UK. The music mostly came from Italian DJ's that wanted new dance music for their clubs because import 12" singles were too expensive for them. Italo music was dominated by primarily by keyboards but you will find some guitars in there once in awhile. The one thing about Italo is they use the singer's voice as another instrument. This always created this really melodic sounding tunes that really get you hooked. Italo tried to break through the America market and was played early on by dj's but they found it to be to slow for the American market. The emergence of other dance music in America quickly saw the disappearance of the Italo entirely from the American market. It was here though long enough that there are a few fans of Italo in America. These Italo fans, like myself, are pretty die hard fans and most likely still collect Italo to this day. Due to their rarity, Italo records now sell for hundreds on ebay all the time. It's worth mentionning that a lot of Asians listen to Italo in the 80's and oddly enough call Italo, "New Wave". If you go to Asian stores, you will most likely find Italo under the term "New Wave". [:)] Well to cut a long story short, Italo peaked it's head into the US and quickly found itself locked outside the door. Here are some of the hits that actually made it up the American charts:

Tarzan Boy - Baltimora
Self Control - Laura Branigan (she covered the original that was an Italo Disco song)
Baila Bolero - Fun Fun
Boom Boom - Paul Lekakis
Don Quichotte - Magazine 60

These songs aren't bad but by far are not good representation of how good Italo music and we know how the US charts is notorious for not having the best music on there.

[whistledog]

One I really liked was "Dancin' the Night Away" by Voggue. They were a duo from the producers of Lime

[goutroy]

Wow, I didn't know "Self Control" was a cover!
I don't know if Voyage Voyage by Desireless counts as Italo per se, but I think it's close, and I love that song.
I also recently bought an album called "Disco Dream and the Androids", which has some weird sci-fi themed Italo.

[Ollie Stench]

Hey British!!!

If you look in the "various" section of the 12" singles at Cheapo on Snelling there are about 5 compilations of ItaliDisco. I think they're even called something like "ItaliDisco Bootlegs" or something.