By Ilan Pdahtzur
Amidst the vast expanse of musical ingenuity in the 20th century, the birth of Italo Disco in the 1980s represented a shift in consciousness.
In the preceding decade, Italy had witnessed civil unrest, with waves of violence carried out by left- and right-wing terrorists alike. The kidnap and murder of prime minister Aldo Moro in 1978 sent shockwaves rippling through the nation and beyond; a brutal crescendo to an era of social and political turmoil.
The arrival of the ‘80s, however, signified a chance for change in Italy; a departure from its troubled past and a portal to an imagined future. As the embers of ‘70s disco began to fade, something improvised and inquisitive rose from the ashes. A budding generation of musicians and producers, often reliant on primitive synthesizers and small budgets, began to concoct a new-found sense of hope and possibility through the conduit of music.
On the surface, Italo offered a re-imagined world underpinned by futurism: of spaceships, robots, glamour, expensive suits and sports cars. But buried under this façade lay something delicate and fragile; a sadness that permeates even the most saccharine and upbeat of tracks. Many of the young, hopeful producers and musicians longed to achieve global pop stardom, and yet most disappeared into the ether as quickly as they arrived. Some fell victim to record label mismanagement whilst others were swept aside by the rapidly changing musical trends in Europe. Listen carefully and you can hear the traces of dreams that seemed so attainable but were dashed or never realised.
In retrospect, Italo appears to brim with a number of paradoxes: melancholy and elation, nostalgia and modernity, reality and illusion, the possible and impossible and all the spaces in between. Its ambiguous flirtation with a happy/sadness, intentional or otherwise, has helped to give the genre an enduring and soul-shifting appeal.
Although a near-impossible task, I’ve chosen 25 of my favourite heart-wrenching Italo tunes (in no particular order). These songs are evocative in their own unique way – and all possess a powerful capacity to turn any dancefloor into a whirlpool of emotion; a space where dreams are made and dissipate in a heartbeat.
1. Lame – You’ve Got The Night* 2. Mike Rogers – Just a Story 3. No Ties – Lovely Way 4. The Voyagers – Distant Planet 5. Mac Jr – Elephant Song 6. Domina – You Got My Soul 7. Katy Gray – Hold Me Tight 8. Alba – Only Music Survives 9. Shirley Ross – If You Leave Me Now 10. Angie Care – Your Mind 11. Paul Paul – Burn on the Flames 12. Decadance – On and On (Fears Keep On) 13. M Like Moon – Sunlight 14. G.J. Lunghi – Acapulco Nights 15. Amin Peck – Suicidal 16. East Wall – Eyes of Glass 17. Ranko – Happy World 18. Valerie Dore – The Night / Get Closer 19. Karl Olivas – Follow Me 20. Sensitive – Driving* 21. Venise – Roissy 22. Massimo Vita – Jenny 23. Savage – Radio / Don’t Cry Tonight 24. Helicon – You… See 25. Myxoma – Don’t Runaway
Tears on a dancefloor YouTube playlist
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