Italo Disco RFI

Most of the Italo disco songs that did actually become hits had a bit too much of that typical late-80s digital synth sound to them. The best ones used mainly analog ones.

At the moment I'm feeling

Koxo-Step By Step

Also alot of the others recommended above. Actually just recommend any proto house or stuff like that. I am still consistently blown away listening to "She Can't Love You", by Chemise, which the Glimmer Twins introduced me to. Sounds like Frankie Knuckles gone goofy, ten years or so earlier.

So yeah anyone got more recommendations?

my all time favorite italo tracks are:

Gaz Nevada-IC Love Affair

and

Mr. Flagio-Take a Chance

I like the spacey electro-y stuff but am also feeling the more organic earlier stuff, the same basslines but more guitars and the occasional sax solo.

I like a lot of the proto-house electronic disco that crossed over, NYC labels like Emergency releasing italo like Kano, Elektra's Feels Good and Capricorn along with Chemise and Shannon, and Sleeping Bag putting out Video's Hey Girl and the even better Video feat. Buckelew Hey Boy (somebody) and a recent fave, Tonight by Synomin or something, how's that spelled?

http://www.irmagroup.com/php/scheda.php?release=NEW&label=Irmagroup

It has some instrumental versions where I would've liked the vocal versions in many cases, though not Penguin Invasion...that's a terrible vocal.

and you should all go to:

http://www.viewlexx.net/cybernetic-mixage.htm

and dl some mixes, especially the 2 I-F Mixed Up at the Hague mixes, which are mixes of hip italo-disco electro and other euro and NY club tracks. The first one really helped set off this recent trend of interest.

I'll second that.
"Cybernetic Love" by Casco, "We Just" by Moses and "Mister Game" by Klapto also rule.

there was a period of one week or so last month where i only downloaded italo tracks. it was wonderful.

I also like:

Fancy "Bolero" (veerrry cheesy, but fun)
Company B "Fascinated"
Fun fun "Colour my love" / "Baila bolero" (both pretty obvious, but I hadn't seen them mentioned).
La bionda "One for you, one for me"

The Casco track is brilliant! Couldn't believe it had been made back in the 80s...

Over here in the Netherlands, we had the Italo Dance Classics 1 to 4, which contained some of the tracks mentioned in this thread...

I'm listening to the 3 part Bootleg DJ Cafe mix by I-F right now...fantastic.

ok, here are 3 favorites of mine that always "get the party started" right, they all feature a mix of early 80s italo and electro-funk and all feature women saying motivational things about dancing:

Digital Emotion-Get Up, Do You Wanna Funk
D.F. & Pam-On the Beat
X Ray Connection-Get Ready(special freak mix)

note there is no question mark after the first title. Because with a beat like that, it's a rhetorical question.

Yeah - it's as good an introduction as any. Alec D(eRuggiero) knows his Italo.

there are many schools and sounds of italo, ranging from 77 to 87 or so, the hippest stuff being around 82/83, depending on yr taste. We'll see what Alec D's got!

NY's real italo luminary was Generic Costume's Kevin Carney, but he moved to LA, I think.

Cyber People - "Void vision"
Koto - "Dragon's legend", "Chinese revenge" and "Japanese war game"
Kano - "Another lover"
Ken Laszlo - "Hey hey guy" (which is really actually fucking twisted lyrically)
Radiorama - "Desire"
Scotch - "Delirio mind"

'84-'86 style. All bombast and drama. Like if you take all the strings-y bits and overblown 20-minute concept EPs from disco (that were never part of any trendy revival) and execute them with synthesisers and sci-fi, you get this type of italo.

The tasteful stuff is all well and good and fine for indie-rock revivalists but italo can also be like the happy hardcore of disco.

Video feat. Buckelew-Hey Boy (as opposed to Video's Hey Girl)
Taffy-I Love My Radio (midnight radio)
Fun Fun-Happy Station

if you're there, the track I was talking about a while back, I found it out, remember I mentioned about an italo track with a phone ringing in it and thought it was one of the great tracks ever:

ken lazslo, 'hey hey guy'

this classic track sung by some asian guy. so bad it's great. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SusP8Y4xEdM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eAjZ_0jHsE

Love that track. Didn't know the whole "chopped/screwed" thing went back to the early 80s.

might as well mention "KKK" while we're at it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0n7iRFpCp0&

there is so much good stuff in this thread!

Are there many italo/eurodisco songs with Steve Perry-esque vocals like Secret Service - "flash in the night"?

S/D: Dario Raimondi & Alvaro Ugolini

S: Fun Fun - "Happy Station", Advance - "Take Me To The Top"

not particularly a good song, just thought I would share this childhood classic:

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

About halfway through this thread -- and put this together:

http://open.spotify.com/user/124420673/playlist/1eT41Z2Pj1JYSj2xe5mUTA

I just started paging through this thread and then fast-forwarded to the end in hopes that the last post would be a Spotify samaritan. Hooray!

Thanks. It's part Samaritan -- and part just a really good way to learn a genre and artist. I did the same w King Tubby and Lindstrom and Prins, using awesome ILM threads to cut thru the chaff. In the case of King Tubby, I think I basically saved myself about a decade of fruitless record buying and god knows how much money -- getting shit comps on dodgy labels just so I could acquire a single track.

check this out, great obscure italo from my country: https://soundcloud.com/cowboykillah/deddy-dores-demam-breakdance

Diux - Comet (1986)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ulvk8nLXJs

I thought I had heard all the known Italo classics, I was wrong. Surprised this tracks never turned up on a CBS Top 100 (which, according to IFM, will be happening again this year on Christmas.)

A couple of other new discoveries hitting me hard:

Esavu - Sia Siou (Breakin' Up)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qttJkmRnd5o

Louise Freeman - Mirage
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQRboKNcy-I

Very nice tracks, especially like Sia Siou

just picked up this today for a coin :

http://www.discogs.com/DJ-Hell-Hellboys-Italo-Megamix-By-DJ-Hell/master/71175

seems to have a lot of connection to many suggestions in this thread.

Just reissued on Dark Entries, and new to me at least:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0c28sFBE_A

That was something on my never-gonna-happen Italo wantlist, nice to have it on its way.

I did splash out a ridiculous - for me - amount on a bootleg of the Victrola track they have just reissued too, but glad to see it get a proper release, and the bootleg has some other great tracks on it too.

Quite interested in what else they will be re-releasing in this series.

Has anyone posted this one here yet?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3IfGC_zTvU

^ The track is Helen 'Witch' in case the link goes down.

Big Ben Tribe is super classic, didn't know about the reissue.

Italooooo.

Funnily enough Dark Entries are rereleasing Helen Witch.

This afternoon I'm checking out these Italo videos - mainly ordinary-looking folk lip-synching on some TV show:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mceq3eUWh7Y&list=PLAA551ED1687D4093

Excellent compendium of retro hair and fashion and being Italy, there are no apologies for excessive hair mousse!

For an Italian-American, it's like a dream journey to some super-Italian shamelessly frothy world.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmxXIS2ot8w&feature=youtu.be

i haven't found a lot of decent "subreddit" about music and this is one of em https://www.reddit.com/r/italodisco
it's active but not too much and most of the recommendations are interesting /new to me , like this one

https://youtu.be/XP-GSfC1ePc

also, man, these guys in general... they had a knack to find off beat names for their act.

To my surprise I made some new Italo discoveries. I wrongly thought I exhausted this genre.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HTzbUku42Q

RUINS - Fire!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hi73wlMaJOE

Blackways - New Life

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A72wR9g8-Hs

Diana Est - Tenax

I love the instrumentals to Diana Est's Tenax and Le Louvre. pretty classic.

Music For Us by Blackway also rocks.

I'll have to check out the instrumentals. Here's another good one, it's French, but close enough to my American sensibilities.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=866Jzm6bahM

my "latest" finds: a balearic italo masterpiece, much better than "Witch"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfFcvlqRrHQ

and this cover of the Jethro Tull Classic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyqbTz6l57w

and this, which is German but could be italo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlGFU3BsAAs

That Angela is great, never heard it before. Always preferred "Zanzibar" over "Witch" too.

Also good by Plastic Betrand: Stop Ou Encore

GAY CAT DISCO

apologies if this has been posted before, it's quite wonderful

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBI4v-F0jpY

sound quality is bad, sorry

that's "din don" by EXO

A Classic!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0ZE3SaKjXI

https://clone.nl/item48884.html

that Expansives track is so great

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZvEp-fpjEY

I was just about to come here to post the Expansives track. So awesome

Might fit in better in a Cosmic Disco thread but these videos are lush:

http://www.electronicbeats.net/the-feed/italy-discos-abandoned/

I’ve been playing Check-Up Twins all day.

https://youtu.be/HAVzIZYge_k

Gucci (yes, that Gucci) and Frieze collaborate on an italo disco fantasy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hp7pE0k5BBQ

"The film imagines a universe where mid ’80s New York runs riot for the latest italo releases and Campari fountains are installed by Presidential decree. It presents the genre in all its glamour and artifice, celebrating its anonymous stars who sang in borrowed English under invented American names."

whoah