80s Italo Disco POX

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