Fun Fun/Italo Disco hits

[Masdefi]

Hi euroflash,
in your list you miss one of the most beautiful italo disco song:
Double Dee "Found love"
Ciao
Masdefi

[Masdefi]

[quote]
On 2002-07-13 02:55, Giovanni wrote:
[quote]
To Giovanni: you are most welcome! You can make a "small fortune" on some of those records. However, if you are intending to trade them for funk - it is going to be a tough task! There are very few italo disco collectors who like, know and understand disco and funk. Most of them are Italian record dealers

Yeah man!!!!!!!!!

Yesterday I sold 2 of them:
ROSE "Magic carillon" and MOSKOW "Come back" to a friend who is a record reseller for EUROS 400!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In turn, he has customers ready to pay EUROS 450 for MOSKOW and 200 for ROSE!!!

Giovanni let's create a company for trading italo disco songs in the US....
If you go in Rome there's a shop with about 60,000 records (Lps and 12") mostly of italo disco! I went there one time and I spend one day to check it. But at the end of the day I didn't make it all... and my fingers were sooooo dirty...

[Giovanni]

Giovanni let's create a company for trading italo disco songs in the US....
If you go in Rome there's a shop with about 60,000 records (Lps and 12") mostly of italo disco! I went there one time and I spend one day to check it. But at the end of the day I didn't make it all... and my fingers were sooooo dirty...

There are so many dirty unsold stocks of italo disco here, but you have to know the stuff to make business with them.
Anyway, many people in Italy is doing business with these plastics. They especially sell to France, Germany, eastern Europe and Canada.
But I really dislike that kind of stuff!!!! Would not be able to get involved with...
........... I always respect every kind of music but italo is not my stuff.....
and while writing I'm listening to "Joy" by ISAAC HAYES........ and this is the kind of music I like the most!!!

[euroflash]

To markydefad:

Well, I have been a collector of obscure Italian disco since the early days. I think it is something you are drawn to, and if it is foreign, then it has a greater charm Just kidding!

Many Italian record dealers are adamant fun/disco and soul collectors, and I found that there are very few of them fond of Italian disco. Alberto Carpani (Albert One), one of the big stars in Italian disco and even now in Italian dance, openly admitted liking and drawing inspiration from American music - soul and r & b.

To Masdefi:

Unfortunately, I don’t know anything about Double Dee. Could you please help me with year of release/cat # and record label? I will really appreciate it!

About the business: Giovanni is correct – you have to know the right stuff. You can’t sell Ryan Paris “Dolce vita”, but when it comes to MOSKOW – you got it made… Personally, MOSKOW is highly overrated song, it is just a highly collectible record, but there is very little redeeming musical quality to it. Speaking of boring!! I know that if some die hard italo –collectors read my statement they will be ready to hang me, but this is my opinion. ROSE is FABULOUS – one of the best classics!!!

If you are serious about making some money, you can start here: my personal wanted list – I will pay competitively for good records, and can also advise you on what is hot and what is not – just a good business proposition. Here is the link:

http://www.parametrix-inc.com/italo/wanted12.php

To Giovanni:

If you have something from my list – please let me know. If you want to know the mareket value of some of the records I can help advising and also can help you find customers – DIRECTLY.

My regards to you all, gents!

[Giovanni]

Euroflash,

I completely agree with you!! Especially the perfect definition you do of italo disco.
At the begginning of the 80's, in the US disco was considered dead after the "disco sucks" campaign and some other nice fires. Maybe that was true for the music, since then it began to change with the introduction of electronic drum machines and a huge use of synths (Prince was musically born that time). Hip hop was growing stronger and electro was the new thing in black music.
But in Europe we never had a "disco sucks" phenomenon and disco (or, call it as you like it) was at the top. Most FM radios used to have a very disco-dance orientated airplay, and so that music (mostly mainstream) was well known by everyone.
That was the time when many italian djs began to practice with keybords and synths (playing keybords slowly with just one finger and then elevating the speed with computers) and many young musicians began to try to make some easy money with low cost & fast consuming products.
Another important reason for the rise of italo disco is purely economic. In the early 80s US dollar was so strong against italian lira that US (imports here!)) records reached a very very high price, and so the main importers slowed down with imports and began to concentrate on production: DiscoMagic, Lombardoni, Discotto and others are labels born from the main italian disco importers who shifted to italo production to keep up their business too. Many italian productions began to flood the market and it began difficult to find US imports in the shops (Around 82-83 I began to buy records by mail order from London since I couln't find in the shops some titles that were high in the black charts... Billboard, Blues & Soul, etc).
The classic italo sound, perfectly described by Euroflash, is done only by keyboards. The rhythm section is totally electronic and there are no strings at all. The voice is used only as an instrument, in order to complete the melody. Nobody cared about the lyrics!!!!
The english was poor but that was not a problem. Many djs turned singers could'n sing and speak english at all, and so very often the voice was manipulated by computers with overdubs etc.
Italo was short lived in Italy and was swept away by house in 85-86, but has been pivotal in the developement of house itself since many "old school" Chicago tapes I have (around 84-85) have plenty of italo. Italo disco survived and began a collector's choice, and, even if one does not like it we must admit it has its place in dance music history.
One last point: "italo" is a definition of a sound, like Euroflash defined it, but does not identify italian disco productions of the earlier years (Change, P Jacques Band, DD Sound, Easy Going), that were done by musicians, or even of later periods (like Double Dee's "Found Love" from 89), that were done mostly by those djs who in the meantime had learned how to play.

[euroflash]

Hi Giovanni,

thank you for your interesting post... I would like to add a few more lines to the "history" of Italo Sound:

I am probably at an age now where I can REALLY appreciate many of less commercial, "darker" sounding tracks (my personal PREFERENCE), a lot more than in my youth of 15 or so years ago. Many of the Italo tracks that appeared on previously posted top 100 list are strictly domestic affairs, keeping to their borders within Italia, and never seen the light of US disco clubs. I believe (and not in the solitude) also that many of the late 70s/early 80s singles were actually quite regional. Most of the tracks are from North of the Po Valley in the richer and more industrialised section of Italy and from what I gather in the last few years of the 80s, were very difficult to find and buy in the south, even in Rome from independent mainstays like Claudio Donato's 'Goody Music' Record store.

All of the major labels tended to be Northern too. Time and Media in Brescia, Memory in Mantova (and now the location of Dave Rodgers ABeatC, SAIFAM in Verona, Expanded, first in Udine, then Bologna, to say nothing of Baby, Discomagic and all the distributors in Milan. The only ones I can think of in Rome are X-Energy, Discoclub/ACV and lond dead Cat Music (the Mincioni's label) and Flying in Naples.

So this italian disco phenomena is a very very interesting for a collector like myself...

Giovanni - I will reply in provate to you shortly.. Thanks for readin'