ItaloDisco, nw's illegitimate neglected cousin?

[Crimsor]

[quote][i]Originally posted by goutroy[/i]
<br>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.
[/quote]

Wow, I think thats really hard to find. I know Robert Calvert (Hawkwind) sang on some of the songs.I think its pretty rare! I could be mistaken though.

Keith

[pilon]

[:)][:)][:)]

dont forget the italo disco diva and star from the 80's rettore with this incredible hit " kamikaze rock'n' roll "

[goblinboy]

Hi, I'm new here. I LOVE New Wave,but I also LOVE 80's dance music,all kinds(of which New Wave was a version). The Italo disco subject was what caught my eye first. I've always loved it,it was what was mostly being played in the mixes I used to listen to in the mid-eighties when I first started listening to underground dance music. The similarities of some synth pop/New Romantic music and groups like Dead Or Alive,Erasure,The Pet Shop Boys,Soft Cell,and even Heaven 17 is unmistakeable,a lot of it basically is HiNRG music. A lot of Eurodisco/Italo/HiNRG cuts are classics,many are considered some of the first house tracks or at least an influence in the house sound. Total classics here(Chicago) that you will hear are;
Feel the Drive-Doctors Cat
Watch Out-Doctors Cat
Dirty Talk-Klein&M.B.O.
Go Go Gorilla-Kazuzu
Future Brain-Dan Harrow(was big back in 86'but not really played much in old school mixes)
I Love My Radio(Midnight Radio)-Taffy(the same as Future Brain)
Colour My Love-Fun Fun
Happy Station-Fun Fun
Moskow Disco-Telex
Problems L'amour-Alexander Robotnik
Hi Energy-Evylyn Thomas
Hypnotic Tango-My Mine(they were actually from Chicago,was a huge hit here)
Anything by Lime
I am also going to address the connection of Electro and Hip Hop with New Wave in another post
Brian

[CarlaRH]

Really! I've been looking for "Disco Dream and the Androids".
Where can I find that album/CD?

[quote][i]Originally posted by goutroy[/i]
<br>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.
[/quote]

[react010]

Here in Europe Italo had it's peak in 1983 when they were all over the charts with even a lot of singles making it to no.1. As being a radio-dj in those days (on an italo/disco station) i must say that the term italo was allready used in the beginning of 1982. The ZYX label from germany started to jump in on these commercial succeses by releasing compilation albums with the name "The Best Of Italo Disco" (with only originally italian produced disco on them).
So they didn't really invent the term 'Italo' but did come up with 'Italo-Disco' which in the years after 1983 was really a sort of an umbrella for all sorts of synth based European disco, lots that did not do more then copy the original italo sound.
In fact 'Italian Disco' started in 1978 with La Bionda's 'One For You, One For Me' and between 1978-1983 with a lot more bands (Peter Jacques Band, Azoto, Righeira, Macho, Revanche, Vivien Vee, Capricorn, Gary Low & Gazebo, etc). For the die-hard italo fans it now seems that they saw 1983 as the best italo year. After that many thought it went to commercial, and with too many artists wanting to jump on the bandwagon, an made crap records that didn't chart over here.
Even in the Italo scene there were a few different styles from Italy alone, there was the happy holiday-feeling italosound, but there was also a lot of 'much more sophisticated' italo 12"s released but they were more underground then the commercial stuff (and with more beats-per-minute).
In a way these underground italo tracks contributed to the beginning of house/dance/trance/techno music. But personally i think that all the Bobby-O (Bobby Orlando) produced and made 12"s contributed more to the house-sound then italo did (listening back to the whole 1980-1988 era). One great thing about dance music is that it is always developing, and this development has never stopped really, so never a dull moment !! (if you that kinda music that is).
The gay clubs were always heavy on top of the whole dance/disco/italo scene and that's where all the trends started. And to my knowledge Italo (or Italian Disco Music) was being imported a lot in the Usa clubs from 1980 onwards because the 'official' disco was declared dead by then, and they just wanted those records to keep on coming, and to be able to keep on dancing to disco.
For me the dance subcultures were very clearly defined up until about 1983-1984 (Disco, Euro, New-Wave, Hi-NRG (officially from the UK Passion Label) and so forth. But after that everybody started calling nearly all dance music all sorts of names, so it's a bit confusing really. For me Italo is the original italian disco, and not the groups from all over (Germany, etc) that started out just copying italian disco because it was so popular in the charts.
All a matter of opinion though [;)]

[italianwave]

[quote][i]Originally posted by Sean[/i]
<br> 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.
[/quote]

[:D]
I don't think so.. In the 80'es prices were almost identical for export or italian records.

I don't have anything against the term "ItaloDisco", but I think it's a bit phony. Nobody use it here in Italy (try with google, you won't find any italian site about italodisco). I think it's like C86 of Twee pop, labels created recently to identify bands of the past. Anyway pepole like Gazebo, Spagna, Raf in Italy were considered "musica leggera" (translation of "Easy listning"). Of course many pop songs in the 80's sounded nw, but just because they wanted to be "modern". And because the producers (always dj's coming out from the boom of free-radio of the Seventies) wanted to export something different from traditional italian music. They obviously failed. Raf (Self control) and Spagna now play traditional italian musica leggera.

In my opinion the best follwers of this traditions are Planet Funk, a band formed by two dj's with a strong NW background.

[st arry]

[quote][i]Originally posted by Sean[/i]
<br>To me, Italo Disco is pretty much New Wave.
[/quote]

Let's just simplify things and call it Italian New Wave. Nobody can ignore it then.

[quote][i]Originally posted by Sean[/i]
<br>It basically came out of Italy and all of the other countries in Europe excluding the UK.
[/quote]

One British song that I see now and again on greatest Italo songs lists is The Shooting Party - I Fall To Pieces.


[quote][i]Originally posted by Sean[/i]
<br>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.
[/quote]

That's true, if you don't like melody you won't like the best of Italodisco. But then if you don't like melody you don't like good music in my opinion.

[quote][i]Originally posted by Sean[/i]
<br>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.
[/quote]

None of those appeal to me, others that were hits in Britain were terrible too in my opinion. I don't like songs like Rhythm is a Dancer, Living in a Box, Living in Oblivion...which may or may not be Italodisco. But definitions are a bit boring really anyway, the only real one that matters is between good music and bad music.

The good music I've found through September and some of October is certainly now over 130 songs, and I'm a very critical person. I think the great years were 1984 to 1987. 86 and 87 were far superior to what Britain or America offered. The style of the Italian New Wave (as I'll call it now) changed over time just like the other New Wave did. Like in Britain I think a big change in sound occured around 85, but whereas I think British music had crumbled by the end of 85 Italian music just kept on going. It started later than the New Wave elsewhere (it really starting properly around 83 in Italy) but went on later. Not many of the best songs are well known, apparently even outside of Northern Italy from what I read on the internet. Ryan Paris - La Dolce Vita was a big hit in Britain, Gazebo - I Like Chopin wasn't a hit at all there to my knowledge. Of course there are weak songs among the thousands that must have been released but never judge any genre by the worst songs, judge them by the best. And by that standard Italy has lots to enjoy. It has things like the music of this period elsewhere - atmosphere, passionate vocals, bold melodies and great energy. British NW has it's classics and obscurities, and so does Italian NW. If you know one but not the other you are missing out.

[fritzb]

[quote][i]Originally posted by goutroy[/i]
<br>Wow, I didn't know "Self Control" was a cover![/quote]For anyone who's never heard the [i]original[/i] RAF version, check it out: <a href="http://s49.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=2TRL3SFK9D03L347SZIY3VKJ8H">RAF - Self Control</a>

[2Nu]

Cool One Fritz
Well...since I'm in the sharing mood, here are two Ital disco classics

This one got some mainstream airplay in the summer of '83

<a href="http://s54.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=2K2B6G6O71HU60W3W1SVV1WZT3" target="blank">Clubhouse - 'Do It Again/ Billie Jean'</a>

The other was a LI niteclub staple and WLIR fave.

<a href="http://s56.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=1WDRDUWBDS5YN043A2MY9CITTG" target="blank">Silver Pozzoli - 'Around My Dream'</a>

Cheers!
[:D]

<IMG SRC="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v395/richp62/Icons%20Avatars/inot.gif">

[italianwave]

italian new wave was:

Litfiba, Diaframma, Neon, Not Moving, Militia, Aidons La Norvege, Kirlian Camera, Moda and many others.

Gazebo, Raf and other musician now labeled as Italo disco used to play at Sanremo Festival, not in Nw club.

[British]

[quote][i]Originally posted by whistledog[/i]
<br>One I really liked was "Dancin' the Night Away" by Voggue. They were a duo from the producers of Lime
[/quote]

Hey wait a minute, I HAVE a Voggue album. Has 2 women who's hair is stuck in the late 70s, right?

[Bitter Almonds]

I found a music video for a song called "Fotonovela". That song is fucking schweet! I LOVE THAT SOUND! I need to start collecting this junk[8D]

[hutter]

[quote][i]Originally posted by XXX[/i]
<br>I found a music video for a song called "Fotonovela". That song is fucking schweet! I LOVE THAT SOUND! I need to start collecting this junk[8D]
[/quote]
Dude, ask Frayo for the hook-up. The kid has a crapload of great italo tracks.

<a href="http://electricdreams71.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">My Blog: <FONT COLOR="CCFF33">E</FONT><FONT COLOR="0000CC">l</FONT><FONT COLOR="CC00CC">e</FONT><FONT COLOR="003300">c</FONT><FONT COLOR="FFCC33">t</FONT><FONT COLOR="9999CC">r</FONT><FONT COLOR="003399">i</FONT><FONT COLOR="FF3333">c</FONT><FONT COLOR="CC00CC">D</FONT><FONT COLOR="003300">r</FONT><FONT COLOR="FFCC33">e</FONT><FONT COLOR="9999CC">a</FONT><FONT COLOR="003399">m</FONT><FONT COLOR="FF3333">s</FONT></a>

[Rat_Scabies]

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

Which button do you push to listen?

[Bitter Almonds]

That's an old post. Here's where you can see F.R. David's music vid:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ba49UDwi31s


Here's "Fotonovela":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrivqafkyqY


I LOVE THESE SONGS![}:)]