Italo disco
Italo disco (variously capitalized, and sometimes hyphenated as Italo-disco)[1] is a music genre which originated in Italy in the late 1970s and was mainly produced in the 1980s. Italo disco evolved from the then-current underground dance, pop, and electronic music, both domestic and foreign (hi-NRG, Euro disco) and developed into a diverse genre.[2] The genre employs electronic drums, drum machines, synthesizers, and occasionally vocoders. It is usually sung in English, and to a lesser extent in Italian and Spanish.
This article is about the music genre. For the song, see Italodisco (song).Italo disco
The origin of the genre's name is strongly tied to marketing efforts of the ZYX record label, which began licensing and marketing the music outside Italy in 1982.[3] Italo disco faded in the early 1990s and then split into many genres (Eurobeat, Italo house, Italo dance).
Terminology[edit]
The term "Italo", a generic prefix meaning Italian, had been used on pop music compilation albums in West Germany as early as 1978, such as Italo Top Hits on the K-Tel label and the first volume of Italo Super Hits on the Ariola label.[4]
There is no documentation of where the term "Italo-Disco" first appeared, but its origins are generally traced to Italian and other European disco recordings released in the West-German market. Examples include the phrase "Original Italo-Disco" on the sleeve of the West-German edition of "Girls on Me" by Amin-Peck in 1982, and the 1983 compilation album The Best of Italo-Disco.[5] These records, along with the Italo Boot Mix megamix, were released by Bernhard Mikulski on his ZYX label, who was therefore credited with coining the term "Italo disco".[1][6] The Best of and Boot Mix compilations each became a 16-volume series that culminated in 1991. Both series primarily featured disco music of Italian origin, often licensed from independent Italian labels which had limited distribution outside Italy, as well as songs in a similar style by other European artists.
The presenters of the Italian music show Discoring (produced by RAI) usually referred to Italo disco tracks as "rock elettronico" (electronic rock) or "balli da discoteca" (disco dance) before the term "Italo disco" came into existence.
Giorgio Moroder, pioneer of Eurodisco and electronic dance music and highly influential to the Italo disco genre
![La Bionda, considered among the pioneers of Italo disco[10]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/cc/LA_BIONDA_%26_ETIENNE.jpg/200px-LA_BIONDA_%26_ETIENNE.jpg)
Space disco
Mid-1970s, Europe