Clubbers’ Decktionary: Italo disco
17 October 2011
Italo (disco), adjective
Style of disco music commonly attributed to records of Italian origin, c.1978- 1985.
Essentially electronic disco made with synthesisers and drum machines, Italo has a very white, rigid, European feel compared to its much looser, black American cousin (which had its own roots in soul, jazz, funk and R ‘n’ B). Earlier releases tended to focus on futuristic, sci-fi themes and (at the time) bizarre robot love songs, usually sung in English with a dodgy continental accent and characterised by an arpeggiated bass-line and baroque melodies – much catchier, poppier hooks for the European market than those found on US disco records at the time. As the genre became more popular, the subject matter and style of the records became more ridiculous and overblown, with the music emerging in cheesier and cheesier incarnations, until it eventually turned into a complete caricature of itself. Italo later morphed into High-NRG (eg Canadian act Lime and US act Sylvester), Euro-pop (eg Taffy) and Italo house (eg Black Box).
Origins: A national disco sound, surely not?! In fact, Italo was a broad European phenomenon that developed as much via labels in Germany, the Netherlands and, later, Canada, as well as Italy.
Key figures: Giorgio Moroder is probably the most famous Italo producer and pioneer, following his immortal I Feel Love smash with Donna Summer (both pictured above) and British songwriting collaborator Pete Bellotte in 1977 (not to mention his other 1977 hit, From Here To Eternity, and The Chase, equally big in 1978. (The Chase was especially big as it formed part of the score to the hit film, Midnight Express, a true story about a drug-smuggler who ended up in a Turkish jail). I Feel Love established a template for everyone making electronic dance music ever since, allegedly after the moustachioed Moroder accidentally knocked the arpeggiator switch on his analogue synth and subsequently had a eureka moment when that much-imitated propulsive bass-line spontaneously emerged. Although of Italian origin, Moroder was actually based in Germany when he struck gold, while fellow Italo dons Gino Soccio, Alexander Robotnick and Patrick Cowley were respectively Canadian, Italian and American. Cowley was behind an essential I Feel Love remix (which some would argue is the definitive version of that track), some equally timeless work with Sylvester on Do You Wanna Funk and a more obscure but no less brilliant remix of Portuguese outfit Tantra‘s ace, The Hills Of Kathmandu. Another American, the highly prolific, Bobby Orlando, aka Bobby ‘O’ (also behind The Flirts, whose Passion song was famously sampled by Felix Da Housecat for Silver Screen), famously inspired The The Pet Shop Boys, with Neil Tennant tracking him down in New York and getting him to collaborate on their early singles, including West End Girls, which he released. Soccio is possibly most famous for his classic Dancer cut, Robotnick will undoubtedly never make another track as big as Problemes d’Amour. Salvatore Cusato, aka Casco (RIP), who just died (in January 2011), was also a significant player, perhaps most famous for his killer, Cybernetic Love, but also involved in BWH’s equally immortal Stop. And, as a good friend and erstwhile hardcore fan of Italo disco rightly pointed out, no article on Italo is complete without at least a passing mention for the production outfit known as Kano, one of the earliest groups in the scene, who were behind It’s A War and I’m Ready, both of which still do the damage on the dance floor.
An earlier (and much shorter) version of this feature was published in March 2011 by The List magazine. The article has been reproduced with their permission.
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