I sense an obsession coming along - ITALO DISCO

Disclaimer: Due to laziness and a lack of ability to articulate my thoughts and feelings this post may be all over the place, it may jump from past to present tense, please READ ON, it is for your own good.

Intro
For the last few years it has always been there, waiting for me... we have finally met and infatuation has set in, i love you italo disco. Everything that is not Italo Disco is just a cheap imitation of your greatness. Yes exaggeration is taking place.. right now, in this very moment, there is nothing greater. Everything new and good these days that i like I can see how it is influenced by this, it is the source.

How I came to know Italo Disco
Early this year I was browsing a last.fm forum (this one) and I came upon a post by safesurfer, here is the most important part of his post:

The CBS Top 100 2005. Top 100 as voted by fans of online radio Cybernetic Broadcasting Systems. 100 of the best electronic tracks from late 70s to today. And all very obscure! Since i'm in a happy and loving mood today i'll give you the link of your life:

http://www.elektrosonik.com/cbstop100/

Well there it is, your express highway to a far more interesting taste in electronic music. If you don't like any of this you simply don't have anything to do in this genre, period.

- and he was dead on 100% right!

Here is the link again to download the CBS Top 100
http://www.elektrosonik.com/cbstop100/

So I downloaded the TOP 100 of 2005 and loved it, I briefly listened to a few songs here and there never really focusing on one as there was 100 to sort through. Every now and then I would find a song in the list that blew my mind.

Jump to last week, hang on a sec how can u jump back into the past.. thats some back to the future type shit right there. Anyway, last week i absolutely fell head over heels in love with this song "Fockewulf 190 - Gitano"... i played this amazing song over and over and over and over, my love for it only grew. This led me to go back and listen to other songs from the 2005 CBS Top 100. And then i started finding other absolute gems, like "Crazy Gang - Every Sunday", "Sissy - Queen Of Discoteque" and "Peppermint Lounge - Perfect High".

Then last saturday I decide to download the top 100 of 2004 to see what other songs i had missed out on. Today something in my head burst, some synapses fused together and saw a connection, they had located the source of all that is correct. A classic case of "when the student is ready, the teacher appears". Pleasure went through the roof, it was as if nothing else mattered and that I had to know more, more, more. I searched google for song lyrics, i search google images for "italo disco", soaking up every relevant piece of information, i searched myspace finding some great resources. It happened like that, for the last 4 hours i have been doing nothing but research and listening to italo disco. This will be my new obsession i can sense this right now. I feel 15 years old again where Basketball consumed my existence, posters plastered on walls, basketball cards, bball at lunch, taping nba games.. etc etc.. As a kid when i got into something, i really got into it.. Im feeling like this will be the same kinda thing, its a natural reaction. Total devotion, all or nothing. No effort wasted. All other music right now pales in comparison, nothing creates the feelings, excitement sheer delight that i am experiencing with my new love, italo disco. It is times like this i wish i worked in a store where i got to play music so i could play italo disco out loud and bless the ears of all shop goers.

I am still very much a newby in the ways of Italo disco and related genres so to a person knowledgeable on this subject excuse my perhaps uninformed enthusiasm. Also anyone interested in Italo Disco, please contact me and let me know everything i need to know about this amazing music. Songs mentioned in here may not actually be italo disco, if they are not please forgive.


This kid knows the feeling of italo disco

A little bit of background knowledge (taken from this myspace page):

Italo Disco
Europe never experienced "Disco sucks" phenomenon and Funk & Disco remained at the height of its popularity. Many FM radio stations had Disco-focused shows on the air, featuring mostly top-chart hits. Another important reason for the speedy development of Italo Disco in Europe was purely economic. In the early 80s US dollar was traded too high against Italian lira. Records imported from US were expensive. Main music importers were forced to drastically reduce orders for imports and refocused their business on the local productions. Discomagic, Lombardoni, IL Discotto and many other record labels were born from the main Disco music importers out of sheer economic necessity. Italian productions began to flood European music market and it was difficult to find any US imports in Italian record shops.

Most of the Italo-Disco records were produced by studio session men, mainly keyboardists, or Dee Jays-turned-musicians who had little or no skill of playing musical instruments. Their sole assets were only their ears and uncanny feel for dance music. That was the time when many Italian Dee Jays started to experiment with synthesizers and electronic drum machines, playing keyboards slowly with just one finger and then elevating the speed with computers.

Italo Disco was all about percussion. The classic Italo sound was created only by keyboards. The rhythm section is totally electronic. The voice is used only as an instrument, in order to complete the melody. Most of the songs were very simplistic in structure, but infectious melodies, with catchy hooks, and always in 4/4. The "classic" synthesizer sound heard on Italian tracks was created by ROLAND JX-8P, Roland Juno 60 and Roland Juno 106, Yamaha DX7, ARP Odyssey, Roland TR 808 drum machine, Simmons Drums (electronic, but played live), Minimoog, Oberheim, Linndrum, and sampler Emulator II. This sound is very unique and special in dance music history.

It was Bernhard Mikulski, the late founder of ZYX Records, Germany, who coined the ubiquitous term "Italo Disco" in 1984. The name caught on with the fans and it was destined to describe perhaps the most misunderstood and under-appreciated genre of electronic dance music. Regrettably, lyrics played a minor role in Italo Disco songs. Many Italian Dee Jays-turned-singers couldn't really speak English at all, therefore you can often hear voices being manipulated by computers or using a vocoder with overdubs. Lyrics in Italo Disco were often just outright gibberish. I am not asserting that a dance song must reach a high mark in poetry, but it certainly helps if you could sing along. "…A perfect example where the melody is amazing and the lyrics are awful is in the song "Love In Your Eyes" by Gazebo. Could be as pop perfect a song you'll ever hear, however, "You are just a damn sequencer/Digital Delay" would not go down in history amongst the most beautiful or meaningful lyrics ever written." In spite of all those obvious limitations, Italo Disco became enormously popular in Central and Eastern Europe, Russia, Asia, and especially in Japan.


Giorgio Moroder



If you like what you hear, all these posted mp3's were from the CBS Top 100 2005, download the entire top 100 - 2005 here: http://www.elektrosonik.com/cbstop100/

Links
The Roots of Italo Disco - Very Good/informative link
http://www.euro-flash.net/italo.php

Lover of Italo Disco - great comprehensive resource
http://www.italo-disco.net/

Last.fm
http://www.last.fm/group/Italo%2BDisco
http://www.last.fm/group/Italo%2BDisco%2B80s

Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italo_disco

MySpace
http://www.myspace.com/iloveitalodisco

Radio
Cybernetic Broadcasting System - http://www.cybernetic-broadcasting.net/
(This radio station plays the most rare tracks and the most unknown disco, from the 80's as well as recent tracks, both disco and electro[clash])

Posted by Nathan Kowald @ 8:21 PM