Italo Disco

[Voyage]

Why do some people consider Divine, Lime, The Flirts, and Sylvester (his early 80s stuff like "Do You Wanna Funk") Italo Disco when they're HI NRG stuff as far as I understand?

And in what genre would F.R. David's "Words" fit?

Voyage :P

[euroflash]

Hello Voyage,

I think it is a common mistake to place Divine, Lime, The Flirts, and Sylvester into "Italo Disco". They are not Italians and their music was not written/produced by Italian composers either. IMHO HI NRG stuff is a perfect description for that style of music .

I always placed F. R. David as Italo Pop (just like Umberto Tozzi, Toto Cutugno, Lucio Dalla, Eros Ramazzotti etc.). He only sang a few Italo Disco-ish songs like "Sahara Night", "Words" and "Pick up the phone". The rest of it was clearly pop. Stevie Wonder sang a few Disco songs, but it didn't make him a Disco artist, right?

[Giovanni]

Originally Posted by Masdefi

I can certanly assure that a very few people here in Italy know as much as you do. Nevertheless I have to say I too was not so in deep in that matter, but that's maybe normally italians prefers us or generally foreign disco music. Giovanni what is your opinion?

Yes of course, most people into disco and dance music here in Italy do like US funky & disco and dislike italo. But I don't think because we prefer foreign music. I think there are several other reasons:
most of the italo records were done by djs-turned-musicians that had few or no knowledge of music, but their ears, or otherwise by studio session men (mostly keyboardists) often working with nicknames. This was around 83 to 85. We were in our 20s and we liked the music of ten year before, even if someone of us was making records to raise up some money. This represents a decadent time for all of us old school djs.
The music itself is completely different from what we were used to listen to: no bass, no brass, only synths & keyboards & drum machines. Absolutely simple melodies, always in 4/4. It was so easy to record an italo track that almost every dj in Italy recorded his song: Florence, the city where I live, is relatively small (0.5 million), but almost all the djs working here did their track (Ago, Riccardo Cioni, Grecos, Marzio Dance, Eddy Trauba, Miki Fornaciari & others I can't remember now). And this was happening all around Italy. And, believe me, none of them can't sing!!! That's why I don't like Italo... I know many of them personally!
On the other hand, younger people (younger than me, I mean, that is people that were in their teens in the italo years) do like this sound, the sound of their first discotheque days. And many people in Italy too collect italo.
We went thru a sort of "italo sucks" phenomenon in the 80s, but now, 20 years later, italo has its place in dance history. And what a place! I recently received from a friend in Chicago a couple of CDs recorded in 83-85 by local dj stars, just to let me listen to the birth of the famous house sound of Chicago. And what?!?! Italo disco all the way!!!!!!!!!!
And so, no italo = no house

[Burgersdijk21]

If you really want to listen to the old Italo,Hi-Nrg and Disco-records 24/7 check this link:
www.radiostaddenhaag.nl
Look for "Tune in met..." ( on the left in red )
Choose your player ( Live365 / Winamp / Real Audio )
Great!!

CU...

[react010]

i bought a great vhs videotape a while back 'the story of disco' (even some giorgio - 'from here to eternity' footage on it!)..and its really a very objective story about the whole disco scene exploding in NY, and when disco 'died' in the states it sort of went underground into the gay clubscene (only in the states). Those clubs just wanted to continue with the whole disco thing, and as it was dead in the states they bought the imports from italy etc... So in the states disco went underground, but dont forget that disco never died in europe, so it wasnt underground over here, and was all over the charts until after the HI-NRG stuff from the UK (around 1987). After that there was a bit of a silent period until the whole chicago house & Acid scene started picking up where disco left off...
Just a great story of how dance-music never dies and how one thing leads to another.....

[euroflash]

Love to read the posts like yours with some "personal touch" and inside information. Long live Italo!

[goblinboy]

I've been reading all the posts on this subject and I have to add my two cents. I grew up in Chicago and the importance and popularity of Italo and HiNRG in the dance scene here and the birth of house and techno cannot be understated. I started listening to radio mixes in 84' a bit, really got into them the year after that, and have been listening to dance music on and off ever since. I don't know a lot of the artists you guys have mentioned,in fact I just recently heard of the label "Italo" sometime in the nineties, but I can tell you what was popular here. "Feel the Drive"by Doctors Cat was really big,"Watch Out" was popular too. "Dirty Talk" was extremely big,as you probably all know its considered one of the songs that influenced house(although I might go farther back than 82 for house foundations). I don't remember "Wonderful",although I got some old school mix cds that has a song that I think might be that tune. I don't know for sure if its Italo,per se, but Alexander Robotnik's "Problems Amour" was really big. Fun Fun's stuff is also considered classic. I remember Dan Harrow's "Future Brain" and Taffy's " I Love My Radio". Frankly I wouldn't know who was Italo or who was HiNRG if I listened to an old school mix. Which brings me to my next topic-whats the difference between Italo and HiNRG,really?
To my ear,Italo is more ambient,with lots of "throbby","flowy" electronic bass,just like Donna Summer's "I Feel Love", and it also seems to have a touch of the electro sound,with "spacy" kinds of sounds and the Roland 808 drum programming. The best example of this would be the previously mentioned Alexander Robotnik single(If he is considered Italo,that is). It does seem to have kind of childlike singing,a little cheesy to my ear. HINRG seems to be more percussive and kind of blunt. But a lot of times there seems to be almost no difference at all. It probably has more to do with where the music came from and less to do with the sound.

[react010]

I reckon that the difference between Italo and Hi-Nrg is very simple really: Italo came from Italy only really, starting in 1978 with Peter Jacques Band, La Bionda, Azoto, and a lot of other acts. That developed more and more in the years after that, as more advanced electronic equipment was affordable, and the italians experimented more with the 'spacey ambient-like' discosounds. The Italo blossomed in 1982-1985, and the tracks from those years were (as you stated) really spacey, and a lot less funky then the whole NY/Usa disco stuff from 1975-1980 (except for the Giorgio and Gino Soccio electronic kinda stuff off course) until disco 'officially' died in the states).

Looking back a lot op people nowadays associate a lot of non-italo recordings with Italo (Bobby-O and a lot of other stuff coming from the rest of Europe are found on a lot of Italo-Sites now !) just because (in my opinion) it sounded as spacey as the original Italo did....

After the Italo boom, there was another style popping up all over from (mostly) the UK: Hi-NRG. Those were more really uptempo blunt, and less spacey sounding discotracks, as in: Stock Aitken & Waterman productions, Ian Levine productions, and the whole 'Record Shack' lable stuff from the UK from 1984-1988 or so....(Marsha Raven, Charade, Flirtations, Hazell Dean, etc).
It all seems a little complicated doesn't it :)
It's all just dance music in the end, and in my opinion every country has devoloped to what it is today....and will be tomorrow ....
That's what makes dancemusic so great !! It's always changing.

[Mixmachine]

Here is an early ItaloDisco song that was reasonable hit with dancers of the day.

DiscoQuando (Medley) by Toni Renis & Toni Renis (WB/WEA Italiana 12" t26068), 1978, instrumentation here is top notch including beautiful strings arrangements, but can't say the same for the Frankie Valli vocal simulation, luckily they are very limited.

[waterfronthome]

I think Italo Disco was more underground than High-Nrg in the 80's because a lot of the italo artists were not recognized or acknowledged. Italo Disco and High-Nrg are pretty much toe to toe with cool songs. Some all time Italo Disco and High-Nrg Classics are "Don't Stop Lovin" by J.D. Jaber, "Robin Hood" by William King, "She Has A Way" by Bobby Orlando, "Come On Closer" by Pineapples.

[Energyguy]

Originally Posted by waterfronthome

I think Italo Disco was more underground than High-Nrg in the 80's because a lot of the italo artists were not recognized or acknowledged. Italo Disco and High-Nrg are pretty much toe to toe with cool songs. Some all time Italo Disco and High-Nrg Classics are "Don't Stop Lovin" by J.D. Jaber, "Robin Hood" by William King, "She Has A Way" by Bobby Orlando, "Come On Closer" by Pineapples.

Italo disco was very popular on the UK gay club scene right through to the early 90s.

[SandraDee]

Yes, around the mid-late 80s Italo hi-nrg like Taffy, Fun Fun & Aleph kinda morphed into Italo house like Black Box, Capella, 49ers and Gino Latino. Italians have always made the best 4/4 on-the-floor exciting disco whether it's the 70s, 80s or 90s or disco, hi-nrg or house IMO.

[JohnBoy]

I loved the Italian dance music of the 80's. Artist like C.C.Catch, Joy Peters, Modern Talking, Fancy, Anthonys Games, Rocky M, Attack, King Kong, Peppermint, Charlie, Fake, Valerie Dore, Linda Jo Rizzo, Secret Service. Wow! I could go on and on. Those were the days!

[David b]

Originally Posted by JohnBoy

I loved the Italian dance music of the 80's. Artist like C.C.Catch, Joy Peters, Modern Talking, Fancy, Anthonys Games, Rocky M, Attack, King Kong, Peppermint, Charlie, Fake, Valerie Dore, Linda Jo Rizzo, Secret Service. Wow! I could go on and on. Those were the days!

I know i would love to be 23 and living in 1983 think of what was to come instead we are stuck in the days of rap and hip -hop
Bring back the 80s/early 90s

[David b]

Originally Posted by Voyage

Why do some people consider Divine, Lime, The Flirts, and Sylvester (his early 80s stuff like "Do You Wanna Funk") Italo Disco when they're HI NRG stuff as far as I understand?

And in what genre would F.R. David's "Words" fit?

Voyage :P

I think its difficult sometimes to distinguish whether a song is italo or hi-nrg and some songs are considered italo-hi nrg (a combination of both)
But Divine , Lime , The Flirts and especially Sylvester i consider hi-nrg along with Hazel dean ,Dead or alive , Bobby orlando ,Evelyn thomas , Eria fachin.
Italo would be Ken laszlo , Fun fun , Savage , Den harrow and italo-hi nrg
Cafe society , X-ray connection , K barre.
There is a slight difference , i think italo sounds more 'euro'.