80s Italo Disco POX

http://www.rephlex.com/2001releases/cat146/146cd-150dpi.jpg

Queen Of Witches - Kano
Happy Station - Fun Fun (especially the Scratch Mix)
Happy Children - P.Lion
I Want You - Gary Low
Lunatic - Gazebo
Masterpiece - Gazebo
Extremix - Novo

Hypnosis - Pulstar was also huge, but I never took to it.

Btw. never been that keen on "Happy Station", even though the sample from Donna Summer's "Sunset People" is at least a sign that the Italo disco producers knew their roots.

"The record is credited to Joachim Sherylee and Junior Claristidge, , pseudonyms of two library writers Bernard Fevre and Jackie Giordiano."

(sez the rephlex site)

"Let’s start with the prehistory of Italo Disco: In the summer of 1978 LA BIONDA had a smash hit all over the world; "One For You, One For Me". LA BIONDA produced several Italo Disco songs in the eighties. RIGHEIRA is the most successful example. But also AIDA COOPER (‘Stand Back’) and ROBERT BRAVO (‘Love Me Like I Do’) were produced by LA BIONDA. Even in a song like ‘One For You, One For Me’ you can already hear the Italian melodies. 1979 One year later JACQUES FRED PETRUS recorded his first disco hits; ‘Walking On Music’, ‘Fire Night Dance’ by the PETER JACQUES BAND, ‘I’m A Man’ by MACHO and ‘Music Man’ by REVANCHE. MAURO MALAVASI was always involved.

http://www.globaldarkness.com/articles/history_of_italo_disco.htm

http://www.radiostaddenhaag.nl

Don't know who did 7-9 but they're faves at the moment.

kinda basic, but I haven't really gotten into the post-'83 pop stuff too much

amin peck-anxiety
bb and band-all night long
brand image-all your loving
naif orchestra-check out five
charlie-spacer woman
mr flagio-take a chance
pineapples-come on closer
giorgio farina-disco cross
lama-love is on the rock
x-ray connection-get ready (special freak mix)

Vitalic is really really heavily influenced by it, I feel, and the better for this.

Jam and Lewis were all over the Change of Heart album.

Since this wasn't mentioned upthread I don't think, it's generally considered the italo starts here:

http://www.xs4all.nl/~halco1/mur/090800/goodycat.html

with the influence of Moroder/Summer something of a given.

The Malavasi/Petrus stuff, as well as the Claudio Simonetti/Giancarlo Meo records are all certified italo-disco in my book, and many predate the 80s.

Having a long and silly debate with a man from eastern europe on another list recently, it's apparent that while there's certainly crossover, most current italo-disco fans from europe consider Italo disco's beginning in 82 or so, and everything from Macho and Easy Going to Black Devil and Vivian Vee, is "pre-italo". Likewise, all the electro/vocoder italo that's so popular in america is "space italo" or "electro-italo". Perhaps all that Simonetti and Malavasi stuff is just space-disco to them?

Regardless, it's like pornography...you know it when you hear it.

oh yeah,

7. ? - Anxiety Outro Dub
8. ? - Angel Eyes
9. ? - Music Colors

7 is an edit of Amin Peck, I think by John Selway! That Amin Peck single is one of my favorite 12"s of all time. Girls On Me, Anxiety(which has vocals) and Coda, which Alec ended his Italo DeRuggierio mix with. I think Selway edited Anxiety, there is no instrumental/dub version far as I know. They have 3 other singles, Suicidal, which is wonderful, Running Straight/My Frames which is ok and I kept getting beat on ebay for it, and apparently a self-released 7" that went for like 200 bucks a few months ago.

and is 8 Angel Eyes by Lime? I played that at Lit tonight!

Look out for the Crazy Rhythms mix cd, it's got a bunch of italo-disco on it.

http://www.igetrvng.com/

funny they'd include Passion by the Flirts considering their historical problems with Bobby O.

But also Celestial Choir, Carl Bean, Roedelius?!?! That's pretty hip.

watch me download every song on this thread

dear riaa,

jk bros. Also my name is actually Tuomas.

love,
Tuomas

hey curt1s i have an idea

when u graduate lets start a neo-italo duo

it's a deal.

ok i think i might drop out since this will so clearly work out

btw i dont play any instruments

all u need to know:
http://www.dustygroove.com/images/products/m/morode_gior_fromheret_101b.jpg
http://www.excitementmachine.org/log/zlad.jpg
http://artificeeternity.com/voltage/images/20060817_tribecagrand_robotnick_2_400x300.jpg

http://myspace.com/thegiorgiomarauders

my mine - can delight

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2wAxm6M3d0

crutis i will handle costume design + hair stylin if you write all the songs

5. Rockets - "On the Road Again"

this is so hilariously good!

still waiting for output from the crutis/max neo-italo duo

this monster jam is so perfect for a saturday night... (nemesy - 24 hours)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KvaRnX5tg0

is Italo one of those things that just didn't happen in the U.S.? Or did it happen and I just missed it?

I've never heard any of these songs. I've never even heard of any of the performers (except Moroder)

exactly one italo song happened in the us - "tarzan boy". (and italo wasn't really ever about the performers, so it's not terribly meaningful that you wouldn't have heard of them - i think it was mr. master where the producer just found some random guy on a beach and got him to sing the song.)

Den Harrow's "Broken Radio" has amazing lyrics and incessant hooks throughout:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqxXcWVnztA

"self control" by laura branigan is an 'italo' cover:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3zP3ziq738

xpost to lee

The early Madonna singles like Holiday and Intro the Groove are essentially Italo too.

Italo artists were never really promoted abroad, the main driver for Italo success was through holidaymakers bringing the occasional Italian summer hit home, but the vast majority of ‘real’ Italo hits were a local thing only.

At the time, you mostly had local artists in each market emulating the style (Modern Talking in Germany, Pet Shop Boys in UK, the Sabadell Sound in Spain, Madonna in the US, etc) rather than the actual Italo artists being successful. The Italo rediscovery post-2000 did more for Italian artists than the original wave ever did, really.

Italo artists were never really promoted abroad, the main driver for Italo success was through holidaymakers bringing the occasional Italian summer hit home, but the vast majority of ‘real’ Italo hits were a local thing only.

Yeah this has been my understanding too. Along with 'Tarzan Boy' I think the only other one that made any impact on the UK charts was 'Dolce Vita' - I wonder why these crossed over and so many others didn't (I guess timing must be part of it).

I was thinking about this recently after watching some of those 'Top of the Pops 198x' programmes - on one episode Kid Jensen talked about how they'd occasionally make these half-hearted attempts at covering international charts which never really took off.

xp Funny how that worked out. I mean, it would be weird if there was suddenly a big global interest in French language 80s zouk music and er... whatever you call this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2IScq44jts

@siegbran - yes I was also thinking to my ears alot of this sounds like the first Madonna album, the Hi-NRG and other alt-dance music on the sidelines in early to mid-'80s America, though rarely on the pop charts. By 1981 the term "disco" had become poison in the US and was considered hopelessly passe, even though disco was all over the charts just two years earlier and elements of the music itself were occasionally still present in new releases. But there was still a market for danceable music, though it was around this time that mainstream pop hits and dance/club tracks seemed to completely diverge; before that the disco hits you heard on pop radio are what you heard at dances (and I don't mean exclusive, trendy big-city venues but rather the real clubs young suburbanites could go to). By the mid-'80s even low-rent college dorm dance parties were relying on 12" DJ mixes of club hits rather than dance-pop radio hits.

There was a big change in the overall sound too. Gone were the elaborate orchestral production from late-'70s disco, replaced with the new drum machines, synths, and sequencers. This further increased starting in 1983 when MIDI quickly became ubiquitous and enabled easy programming of sequenced, synchronized electronic sounds from an array of different sources. But also missing from most of the Italo tracks i've been listening to are the strong melodies (and sometimes lyrics) that typified '70s disco. What they really remind me of is going to music stores as a teen and playing with all the new Fairlights and DX7s and LinnDrums and the early digital synths and samplers i couldn't come close to affording. Many of them were pre-programmed with Italo-esque rhythm tracks that could be used as is or modified as desired.

Italo artists were never really promoted abroad, the main driver for Italo success was through holidaymakers bringing the occasional Italian summer hit home, but the vast majority of ‘real’ Italo hits were a local thing only.

I'm not sure I entirely agree with this. While it's true that not many people cared about the artists themselves, italo records were definitely being played abroad. I remember this was at least true in Mexico (where I grew up) and some parts of South America. I also read somewhere that Italo records were big in some parts of Asia.

Honestly, I think it just skipped the US.

i mean, there was synthesized disco music in other european countries too, it all folds into EURODANCE or DISCOFOX

Hmm there are a lot of italo threads to choose from, idk if one is preferred. Since this one was mentioned recently…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZhOkYj_F0o

4 M International - Space Operator (Donato Dozzy Cadillac rhythms reshape)

My bad, it’s still Bandcamp Friday isn’t it.

https://goodymusicproduction.bandcamp.com/album/space-operator

There's a ton of awesome retro/pastiche italo around, like this one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twbw2JvvIWg

Sure I don’t doubt there are multiple threads dedicated solely to Italians Do It Better. Donato Dozzy tho, it’s like we’ve come full circle. I just noticed the YouTube link I posted is only a preview but the full track is in the Bandcamp link sorry.

Giulia Tess is an interesting Italian DJ who I’ve heard mix some italo with other styles. The most recent mix I heard from her was headed in a trancey breaks direction tho, hopefully that was just some exploration.

Sadly it does seem like the (‘nu’) disco edit movement is slowly merging with prog house.

Guess it’s like my OG DJ friend told me when I asked her about when trance started to infiltrate house music dance floors, how she could tell what was trance and she said she knew it was trance when she heard the whooshy sounds (they were pretty similar initially).

cosmic disco - whooshy sounds - trance - prog house

a pure slice of disco faboulosity! Yes, I want to funk with you, Sylvester, thought you'd never ask!!

Sylvester - Do you want to funk with me (video mix)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQ9lXRy7ys0

My friend played me the vinyl of this last night, a track I hadn't heard in years, and I've listened to it about 20 times today. It is perfect.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXNe1vQNQ5k

It’s a good one! Instrumental is nice too, it popped up on my playlist earlier this year. Synths remind me of early/Please-era Pet shop boys.

Just came across this nice slow track - Schiffer "Get It Right"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFYNESk9GKc

Vocals (by Albert one?) are a bit too sleepy on that for me, so I prefer the other mix, but the production / synth melodies are classic!

This thread is delivering! Just catching up and after hearing Dozzy remix italo I know want to see him DJing stuff like it for 5 hours. I started searching and noticed a year ago he put out a dreamy synth-pop too> https://raster-raster.bandcamp.com/album/il-quadro-di-troisi

Love the Lisa G and Schiffer tunes posted too.

Anachronistic question: any recommendations for essential compilations in 2021? In one of the other threads here someone recommended the Italo Dance Classics series, and then ZYX has a zillion comps of what I imagine are varying quality. Wish there were a comp that had both sides of B.W.H.'s "Stop"/"Livin' Up" on it.

Hadn't heard this before. Instant classic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJKvf5B772k
Agatha de Co - Avion de nuit (1988)

xp there’s this comp of Casco’s productions that has both BWH tracks: https://www.discogs.com/master/881058-Casco-The-Cyber-Album

That's a great track