When HI-NRG fell from grace....

[Energyguy]

Here in the UK, HI-NRG started to lose its overall impact and dancefloor popularity towards the end of the 80's when House took its grip. I would be interested to know what happened in other countries. Did HI-NRG/Italo disco survive longer ?

[kdavid13]

Same in Canada and the States.

The house scene saturated the market and soon every track had to have the token "house mix" whether it fitted the style or not.

The BPMs slowed down until the 90's with the explosion of CAPTAIN HOLLYWOOD PROJECT,HADDAWAY and other Euro groups.

It sorta brought back the peak tempo but some of the tracks were so cheesy and sounded more like novelty that the genre went nowhere.

Later on ; Thunderpuss brought back the 4 on the floor beats and the larger than life drama so any DJ could speed up the tempo and some tracks like WHITNEY's IT'S NOT RIGHT BUT IT'S OKAY and DONNA SUMMER's LOVE IS THE HEALER were considered NRGetic.The I FEEL HEALED mix of HEALER revisited the I FEEL LOVE bassline.


ALMIGHTY has kept up the pace [but it's not everyone's cup of tea] and KLONE but the scene is definitely changed.

All the hip-hop and Timbaland inspired beats might fall from grace and the clubs will bring back the fluffy stuff again...

[Andy Farley]

I dj'd Hi-nrg right up until 1994. I stopped because it started to get saturated with covers and remixes and hardly any original songs. The last couple of years I played a lot of the Euro stuff, with the Rhythm Is A Dancer type basslines. They still had the nrg, and were original songs, but not really in the league of the stuff from the 80s. It's interesting hearing things like Bobby O being sampled by Felix The Housecat etc, and a lot of the Electro stuff around basically sounding like Italian tracks from 82-83. I guess everything comes full circle, so maybe Nrg will come back. I find the music on the gay scene these days is absolutely dire. Predictable house and housed up R&B tracks. Quite sad really (shuffles away on his zimmer)

[Simon White]

Seemed to me that every time I went on holiday in Europe throughout the late 80's & early 90's that it hadn't died at all... it just got more formula bound and PAPPY !

[mrkick20000]

In Japan somehow hinrg/italo survived the 1990 tuning point and was redifined as more up-tempo & hyper ''eurobeat,'' while techno, trance and house also became influential like other countries.

That eurobeat was also known as ''parapara (music)'' which was very popular especially among high school girls with unique dance style and choreography. The boom went out several years ago. Eurobeat (parapara) is still in existance now, but has lost steam.

[Energyguy]

Originally Posted by mrkick20000

In Japan somehow hinrg/italo survived the 1990 tuning point and was redifined as more up-tempo & hyper ''eurobeat,'' while techno, trance and house also became influential like other countries.

That eurobeat was also known as ''parapara (music)'' which was very popular especially among high school girls with unique dance style and choreography. The boom went out several years ago. Eurobeat (parapara) is still in existance now, but has lost steam.

I recall reading an article in a UK music mag that HI-NRG/Eurobeat was huge in Japan during the 80's.

[SandraDee]

Originally Posted by Energyguy

I recall reading an article in a UK music mag that HI-NRG/Eurobeat was huge in Japan during the 80's.

I think the fact that Dead Or Alive are the best selling act of all-time in Japan (bigger than the Beatles!) gives us some idea of how big that sound was/is in that country.

[Energyguy]

Originally Posted by SandraDee

I think the fact that Dead Or Alive are the best selling act of all-time in Japan (bigger than the Beatles!) gives us some idea of how big that sound was/is in that country.

Well.. Im sure we would much prefer pete Burns over John Lennon any day!!

[mrkick20000]

Originally Posted by SandraDee

I think the fact that Dead Or Alive are the best selling act of all-time in Japan (bigger than the Beatles!) gives us some idea of how big that sound was/is in that country.

Yes, indeed. I am at age of 42, and used to hear DOA being playd almost everytime I went to any disco in around 1985-90, when Japan was having the crazy bubble economy and disco itself was in full swing. It was the second boom since the 70's 'Saturday Night Fever.'

Hi-NRG/Italo/Eurobeat disco music like DOA and Michael Fortunati was a kind of symbol of the latter 80's flamboyant era here. Japanese labels such as Pony Canyon and now-defunct Alfa released so many a comiplation records and CDs consisting of Europe(especially Italy)-made disco at that time.

After the burst of bubble economy and the beginning of the drawn-out recession in around 1991, disco also went rather sluggish, and was transformed into diversified and less popular club culture. But Eurobeat/Parapara was still there as I mentioned before.

As for DOA, even now there are many hard-core fans of Pete Burns here, including young women, even teenagers (they seem to like his fashion).

Of course I like his music, and just bought Pete's auto biography 'Freak Unique' on-line and it reached a few days ago. I am looking forward to reading it.

[marmite7]

I reckon you can blame the death of Hi-NRG on three little letters!

S.A.W *spit*

Hi-nrg was (and should've remained) the underground sound of gay clubs, unfortunately SAW took it overground, into the charts & unleashed it on the masses :(

There had always been cross-over hits (usually due to people flocking back from European holidays in Ibeefa or Spain etc - Sabrina, Spagna, Man 2 Man etc), but in the main, we were dancing n lovin the tunes which only stayed in the clubs.

Once the commercial, music-by-numbers tracks started appearing, it was the end!

Thank God House music stepped in to take its place and fill the gap :)

[SandraDee]

Originally Posted by marmite7

I reckon you can blame the death of Hi-NRG on three little letters!

S.A.W *spit*

Hi-nrg was (and should've remained) the underground sound of gay clubs, unfortunately SAW took it overground, into the charts & unleashed it on the masses :(

Sorry Marmy, I don't agree that SAW were responsible for the death of hi-nrg. Hi-nrg would've come to an end anyway; many gays hated the sound & constantly pushed for a new sound in the clubs in the 80s whether it was rare groove or house/garage or balearic or whatever the trend was, especially in London. SAW's productions were often far superior in sound to many of the eurobeat/hi-nrg tracks that were around at the time & took the genre to new heights IMO b4 it's sad demise. I always hated the way that SAW got so commercial & successful because it then made everyone hate them - a real shame 'cos they are probably one of the best production teams this sad little country has ever seen. I miss 'em terribly. Pete Waterman for prime minister I say.

[marmite7]

I was sorta joking there Ms Dee, cos let's face it no-one can put the blame on the fall of hi-nrg on just one sole thing. (Although SAW certainly didn't help, by making it accessible and therefore "boring" imho, to everyone n his sister!)

Music evolves at a frightning rate and something had to change, in order for the clubs to remain full on a Fri & Saturday night.

Good ol House came along in 1985, just at the peak of Hi-nrg (imho) and seemed to blur the edges somewhat. Hi-nrg (for me), then continued weakly in the same vein, becoming more n more diluted, cheesy & fluffy, until it imploded in on itself with what seemed like every other record being some lightweight Eurovision song or dodgy cover-version!

The early 90's was definitely the end of a good thing, although to be honest it should've quit whilst it was still ahead around 1987/8

Hi-nrg for me is (and always will be) the sound of the underground - where it should've stayed, but like every other musical genre before it, it had to change, adapt and re-invent itself...............hence I spose, Liquid Trance, Hard House and the like.

It's all horses for courses innit..............

Oasis or The Beatles? Couldn't have the first without the second!

Tiesto or Patrick Cowley? - as above

Evolution........................one small step, a heavy wooden club & a glitter ball for Neanderthal Man, or glowsticks, Vics Vapour Rub & disco biscuits for his son

You can't stop progress and you can't live in the past, although the memories are here to stay!

xx

[Energyguy]

PWL/SAW produced their best work in the early 80's with artists such as O'CHI BROWN, DIVINE, HAYWOODE & PRINCESS. From 1987 onwards they became too commercial. IMO their material was good, disposable, lightweight & catchy pop music.
Mark makes a valid point that, in order for club life to remain successful it has to evolve and offer something new.

[fabbathanabba]

I am surprised that no-one has mentioned HI-NRG's Fall from Grace could be related to the changes to the Gay scene
What I mean is that.... here in the U.K. a lot of the clubs had a men only or members only policy and when changes to attitudes started to take hold rules were slackened and the clubs began to allow a mixture of gay and straight people in
Therefore Hi-NRG seemed to loose it's appeal as far as the younger club goers were concerned possibly relating the music with the older Leather/Uniform Queens (who I have Had and still have many friends who I love Dearly so am not trying to insult) and the days of Knock the door and see if you can come in,.... and perhaps wanting to be more in tune to their 'straight' mates and following the crowd, influenced their attitudes
I went to many gay clubs in my late teens and twenties and noticed the changes
Slowly things began to change, Membership rules changed and people would start to request more House tunes.
I Guess that as the majority of us are 'Sheep' and are easily led by others to what seems to be the fashion of the time, many of the Die hard HI -NRG fans moved on to the 'more popular' music of the time and that was the end of that.

[Simon White]

I suppose any musical genre moves on or evolves...didn't Hi Nrg do just that ?
Was there really ever a true sound for Hi Nrg or was it just an amalgamation of Disco and pure Pop that surfaced in the early 80's after the big players writers and producers on the Disco scene moved on to pastures new and the tempo went down from 128 + ...but the gay punters wanted the sounds and the faster tempos???
Didn't it become (very quickly) by the mid 80's just uptempo and rather trite light and fluffy dance-y POP music that got played in Gay clubs? Certainly the worst of the PWL stuff fits that description and a number of Mr Levine's worst records too....

I stopped clubbing in the late 80's, settled down, mortgage, two kids, extramarital affairs, sex change, changed back, conquered Mars...you know the kind of thing...but my last clubbing years were the start of all the Chicago house stuff being played in the Gay clubs in London and I got tired of it very quickly...no melodies, no songs, no big diva vocals and no fun. It was often like listening to someone in a war zone being shelled while rattling a stick in a dustbin for hours on end...the drugs did work but I wasn't taking the drugs. Amongs the last couple of things I bought in the genre were the Barbara Doust record 'If You Love Somebody' and Eria Fachin 'Savin' Myself' (which I'm playing right now on Saturday Records - the Ian Levine remixes...totally and completely bonkers !...I love it !)
But the 1991 Loading Bay Classics reissue of Barbara Doust tells a story about what happened to Hi -Nrg in itself..the sleeve has, on the back, the address of London Lighthouse, the Aids hospice....and the guys who were throwing themselves around the floor to Lisa's 'Jump Shout' a few years earlier were either older or...not.

So is Kelly Marie 'Feels Like I'm In Love' Hi-Nrg? Is Katmandu 'The Breaks" ...and....if so, is Lime's 'Agent 406' ? Anything by the Pet Shop Boys?
Is Jessica Williams 'Queen Of Fools' ? Is Stereo Fun Inc ? Is 'YMCA' or 'In the Navy' ? Is Laura Branigans 'Gloria'
'Cos some of those records were made before the term was coined I think.

The Divine records all are, but...but....do they actually fall into the same pattern as the others ...given that 'Love Reaction' is er....very similar to New Orders 'Blue Monday' which wasn't made as Hi-Nrg at all but I remember very clearly hearing it at Heaven....so then was Yazoo's 'Don't Go' Hi-Nrg?

I'm not sure what Hi-Nrg is or even was anymore... at the time it all seemed pretty clear cut, but in retrospect I'm not so sure. Once the sound had played itself out surely all it became was fast, disco based europop that little girls liked having no idea that the sound came from something you only heard in a dark, smoky nightclub full of sweaty men ?
And yes PWL took it out of that dark corner and into the light...step forward Kylie Migowasit, bright shiney paper thin pop princess... gay liberation became a thing of the past in the UK when she became a hit machine. You didn't need it, it was OK to be Gay because everyone was allowed to like Kylie, she was the all embracing, clean version of what went on in Gay clubs (although as soon became clear - no PWL, no Kylie..people forget how long she was in the wilderness without a hit or even any public interest )

In that respect then, all Hi Nrg was was the music they played in Gay clubs because thats what they liked in Gay clubs. And if you go to a Gay club now I suspect that what you'll hear...music they like ! Bless 'em !