Italo disco

Italo disco is a style of electronic dance music that was popular during the 1980s. The style contains more synth pop/electro elements than does American disco, which developed from funk and soul. As the name implies, many italo disco artists came from Italy but the term applies to music in this style irrespective of the performers' origins.

Related Topics:
Electronic - Dance music - 1980s - Synth pop - Electro - Disco - Funk - Soul - Italy

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Electronic dance music started to develop in the late 1970s when traditional sounding disco bands began to experiment with synthesizers and other electronic effects. This early form of electronic dance music is unofficially called "space disco" due to its odd sounds and sci-fi stylings. One of the main influences during this period was the producer, Giorgio Moroder.

Related Topics:
1970s - Synthesizers - Sci-fi - Giorgio Moroder

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Italo appeared as a developed form in 1982 in Italy, with artists releasing completely electronic songs using drum machines and other equipment. Synth-pop, New Wave and the New Romantic genres were the foundations for italo taking off, as these became very popular around the world at this same time during the early 1980s. Typical songs were simple, with catchy melodies, and were often sung using vocoders and overdubs. Much of the genre featured cheesy love-song lyrics sung in heavy English accents—in most cases such accents were affected; English was the artists' second language. This combined with the monotonous synthetic rhythms was unattractive to some listeners although many gay communities embraced the style as part of disco. Along with love, italo disco themes deal with robots and space, sometimes combining all three in songs including "Robot is Systematic" (1982) by 'Lectric Workers and "Spacer Woman"(1983) by Charlie.

Related Topics:
1982 - Drum machines - New Wave - New Romantic - Vocoders - English - Robots - Space

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Many see 1983 as the height of italo, with frequent hit singles and many labels starting up around this time. Such labels included American Disco, Crash, Merak, Sensation, and X-Energy. The popular label Disco Magic released more than thirty singles within the year. The term "italo disco" was reputedly coined by Bernhard Mikulski, the founder of ZYX Music (Germany), in 1984 when ZYX released their first volume of "The Best Of Italo Disco" series.

Related Topics:
Germany - 1984

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During the late 1980s italo began fading away and some groups moved into the HI-NRG genre, which combined high-paced italo and house. Such artists include Divine and The Flirts. Also during the mid-1980s Spacesynth developed as a sub-genre of italo. This style of italo was mostly instrumental and focused more on space sounds than the earlier pop-oriented songs.

Related Topics:
HI-NRG - House - Divine - Spacesynth

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Italo disco developed a cult following and releases in 1998 by Legowelt, and in 2000 by Jeans Team, Bangkok Impact and Hong Kong Counterfeit were among those that fuelled renewed interest. As of 2005 several online radio stations stream the genre and underground clubs are playing the records widely again. Its renewed popularity is inspiring re-releases and new mixes on many of the record labels that released the genre initially. ZYX records has released many new CD mixes since 2000. Labels like Panama Records and Radius Records have gone through great lengths to find the original artists of obscure italo tracks for re-release on vinyl.

Related Topics:
1998 - Legowelt - 2000 - Jeans Team - Bangkok Impact - Hong Kong Counterfeit - As of 2005 - Online radio stations - Vinyl

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