Origins Italo disco originated in Europe in the late 1970s. After
Disco Demolition Night in 1979, American interest in disco sharply declined, whereas in Europe the genre maintained mainstream popularity and survived into the 1980s. The adoption of
synthesizers and other electronic instruments by disco artists led to
electronic dance music, which spawned many subgenres such as
hi-NRG in America and
space disco in Europe. Italodisco's influences include Italian producer
Giorgio Moroder, French musician
Didier Marouani, Italo-French drummer
Cerrone, the
New York-based Bobby Orlando and the
San Francisco-based Patrick Cowley, hi-NRG produces who worked with singers and performers as
Divine,
Sylvester and
Paul Parker. In the late 1970s, Eurodisco group D.D. Sound (
La Bionda) released the song "1, 2, 3, 4, Gimme Some More", produced in Munich, Germany. In 1979,
Jacques Fred Petrus and
Mauro Malavasi created the soulful post-disco groups
Change and
B.B. & Q. Band. In 1981, both groups gained US R&B and Dance hits with "
The Glow of Love", "
Paradise" and "On the Beat" respectively. Although these have retrospectively been considered early examples of Italodisco, they are actually pre-electronic disco and euro disco productions, and were generally recorded abroad. 1980s Italodisco often features electronic sounds,
electronic drums,
drum machines, catchy melodies,
vocoders, overdubs, and heavily accented
English lyrics. By 1983, Italodisco's instrumentation was predominantly electronic. Along with love, Italodisco themes deal with
robots and
space, sometimes combining all three in songs like "Robot Is Systematic" (1982) by Lectric Workers and "Spacer Woman" (1983) by Charlie.In 1983, there were frequent hit singles, and labels such as American Disco, Crash, Merak, Sensation and X-Energy appeared. The popular label
Discomagic Records released more than thirty singles within the year. It was also the year that the term "Italodisco" became widely known, although only outside Italy, with the release of the first volumes of
The Best of Italo Disco compilation series on the West German record label ZYX. After 1983, Italo-sounding tracks were also produced in countries other than Italy. Although Italodisco was successful in mainland Europe during the 1980s, only a few singles reached the
UK charts, such as
Ryan Paris's "
Dolce Vita",
Laura Branigan's "
Self Control",
Baltimora's "
Tarzan Boy",
Spagna's "
Call Me" and
Sabrina's "
Boys", all of which were top 5 hits. Italodisco maintained an influence in the UK's underground music scenes in the UK, and its impact can be heard in the music of several British electronic acts such as the
Pet Shop Boys,
Erasure and
New Order. File:Carmen Russo cropped.jpg|
Carmen Russo File:Sabrina Salerno 30 October 2010 2.jpg|
Sabrina Salerno Derivative styles Canada, particularly
Quebec, produced several remarkable Italo-sounding acts, including
Trans X ("
Living on Video"),
Lime ("Angel Eyes"), Rational Youth ("City of Night"), Pluton & the Humanoids ("World Invaders"), Purple Flash Orchestra ("We Can Make It"), and Tapps ("Forbidden Lover"). Those productions were called "Canadian disco" during 1980–1984 in Europe and
hi-NRG disco in the U.S. In English-speaking countries, it was called Italodisco and hi-NRG. In Mexico, the style is known just as "disco", having nothing to do with the 1970s genre. West German productions were sung in English and were characterized by an emphasis on melody, exaggerated production, and a more earnest approach to the themes of love; examples may be found in the works of:
Modern Talking,
Fancy, American-born singer and Fancy protégé Grant Miller,
Bad Boys Blue,
Joy,
Silent Circle,
the Twins,
Lian Ross,
C. C. Catch,
Blue System and
London Boys. During the mid-1980s a mix of 1980s high-energy and 1970s space disco, developed. It was mostly instrumental, featured space sounds, and was exemplified by musicians, such as:
Koto, Proxyon, Rofo, Cyber People,
Hipnosis,
Laserdance and
Mike Mareen (whose music inhabited the spacesynth/hi-NRG overlap).
Eurobeat In the late 1980s, as Italodisco declined in Europe, a handful of Italian and
West German producers adapted the sound to Japanese tastes, creating "
Eurobeat". Music produced in this style is sold exclusively in Japan due to the country's
Para Para culture, produced by Italian producers for the Japanese market. The two most famous Eurobeat labels are A-Beat-C Records and Time Records. S.A.I.F.A.M., still produces Eurobeat music for Japan. Around 1987 in Italy, Italodisco evolved into
Italo house when Italian Italodisco artists experimented with harder beats and the "house" sound. ==Related styles and legacy==