Early last year I was desperately looking for new music to listen to. It seemed like all the music I had collected over the years had just been way too overplayed. I couldn’t stand and still can’t stand listening to “Stairway to Heaven” anymore. Just like anything else, too much of it makes you sick of it!

So anyway, I’ve always had a fascination since I was a kid to play the keyboard or synthesizer. The dream has still never came to fruition, due to time constrains and my mental laziness, but this also adds to the reason why I love 80’s music so much. I agree, a lot of the vocals in 80’s songs are not that great. However, I’m not listening to their voices, but the beats, rhythms, and tones they are using.

One day, I was searching the holy grail of music (YouTube!) and found some song made with synthesizer music. Needless to say, I liked it A LOT! The vocals were mediocre, but the sounds brought absolute jubilation to my ears. I looked at the song description and read that the genre for the song is called “Italo Disco”. At first, I think “huh”? A) This song is in English, not Italian. B) Why Disco?

(The song I was listening to is Phoebus – Frankenstein)

So what is Italo Disco? Since I don’t feel like paraphrasing… here’s a quote from everybody’s most used encyclopedia (Wikipedia):

“Italo Disco is a very broad term, encompassing much of the dance music output in Europe during the 1980s. It is one of the world’s first forms of completely electronic dance music and evolved during the late 1970s / early 1980s in Italy, Germany, and other parts of Europe.

Italo Disco music has a distinct, futuristic and spacey sound, which was created using synthesizers, drum machines, and vocoders. The term, ‘Italo-disco’ was marketed only in Europe in the early 1980s by a German record label ZYX Music.”

So what does all that mumbo jumbo mean? Italo Disco is some amazingly unheard of music in the United States! The name may sound horrifyingly corny, but I don’t think the music is.

Here are some more of my favorite Italo Disco songs:

- George Gray – Life

- Michael Cretu – Samurai

- Sandra – Maria Magdelena

- Cyber People – Void Vision (I thought I was dreaming when I first heard this song!)

- Koto – Minoan War

- Atrium – Doctor Jekyl

That should be enough to get you started! Enjoy.

Also check out http://www.italo-disco.net/ and their “MP3 Samples” link, which has just about every single Italo Disco song ever made to listen to for free!

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“Fisting” Monday’s 4-6PM

Paymon Jalali