i've noticed...

    Italo disco is starting to get popular amongst hipsters once again. I am not trying to be elitist, and like "I was listening to it before everyone else", because I didn't really, I just accepted it before everyone else did. And now it's the standard party music wherever I go.This is very strange to me considering the fact I used to watch my DJ friend, who was and still is heavily into Italo disco, play Italo at parties and such and be booed by the hipster/scenester party goers. I would also constantly hear people complaining about how his choice in music is "gay", and other comments like "What the hell is this crap?". I witnessed this every single time he put on the Italo. It was looked at, treated as an oddity. Everytime the first few notes would start playing, people would immediately get this very confused and unhappy look on their faces.



    I used to sit with my DJ friend and just observe with him the reaction to this. Through him though, I have come to appreciate Italo. I too, at first, was put off by it, but came to thoroughly enjoy it as good party and dance music.
It just so strnage to me now to see those same people have their house parties and be dancing and name-dropping Giorgio Moroder, and other random Italo singles, saying that's their new favorite song, when a little over a year ago they were bitching about how lame it is. But, then again, humans, and especially social views on what is cool or not, what is acceptable is very strange...


If you haven't heard Italo disco, it is dance music composed by Italians (obviously)  in the  late 70's, through the early 80's. Italo disco was inspired by disco music at it's height. Giorgio Moroder was particularly the pioneer of this genre, giving it it's namesake.

The music is characterized by catchy melodies (a lot of times overproduced), and almost always containing lyrics pertaining to love, heartbreak, etc. It was cheap to make and perfect to dance to. A lot of the musicians sang in broken English with very simply lyrics.

Some of the most popular, and best Italo artists (and their singles) include: savage, "don't cry tonight"; alexander robotnick "problemes d'amour"; kl ein & m.b.o. "dirty talk"; charlie "spacerwoman"; fun fun "happy station", gazebo "i like  chopin"; ken laszlo "tonight"...and many many more.

There are countless compilations of greatest Italo hits. It's a hit-and-miss process of going through the songs and determing which ones are listenable.
If you want a more detailed info on history, background, influences, etc., Wikipedia has some pretty good info:

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