Disco culture in Italy

[DiscoSource]

Hello! I'm 20 and i come directly from the homeland of Italo Disco. I listen to disco and italian produced disco since i was a kid, even if at the time i was exposed to 90's italo dance. My parents left me a considerable number of vinyls, audiocassettes and cds coming directly from the 80's and the 90's.

I spent the last years clubbing with my friends and, living in a tourist town in northern Italy, i have a wide choice in matters of clubs (we still call them "disco", because in Italy the disco phenomenon never died, the music evolved, the mentality is the same) and events. Every friday there is a special italo disco night in one of the 8 discotheques near my town, and everytime the DJ plays tunes like P. Lion's Happy Children, Starting From Here by The Creatures, Sabrina Salerno's Boys Boys Boys (i saw her performing in a discotheque back in october-november 2009), i feel like making a jump in the past, even if i wasn't born when those tunes came out.

Like an italo disco artist said in an interview i watched some years ago "Italo Disco is the saturday night celebration of the satisfaction of being an happy consumer" and it's true. Disco culture appeared in Italy in the middle-late 70's when Italy was often shaken by terrorism and political chaos, it was a choice taken by the youth to cut any ties with the excessively politicized life of the country and therefore the society.

I had the chance to read many documents, newspaper articles, watch interviews in Italian, not avaliable in english, i had the chance to meet some Italo Disco artists in the past and they all confirmed that Italo Disco was considered by the remnants of italy's politicized youth "An attempt by imperialist americans and capitalists to colonize Italian culture" because as you know Italo Disco songs, in order to reach foreign charts and markets, had to be sing in english, the language "Of the capitalist enemy". These words came from the extreme-left wing and they somehow persist today.

Boys and girls who listen to dance music (house music) tend to stick togheter, form groups, organize parties with music, in clubs, in private houses and talk about how house music is better than rock and metal.. the same can be applied to youngs who listen to rock or metal, they tend to stick togheter and organize concerts, form bands, and try to convince the public about the fact "disco is a place with no soul and no heart". When i watched the movie "Detroit Rock City", in the scene "Rockers Vs Discomaniacs", it was like of living one of my saturday nights.

Anyway, even if sometimes i look like a relic, i have to say that my passion for dance music is more something like a love. I listen from early discofunk records from 1975 to early 80's italo disco albumns and the latest electro house tracks by David Guetta and Laurent Wolf. This is my youtube channel where i upload some of my favourite italo tunes

http://www.youtube.com/user/DiscoSource

I want to close this thread with a quote from the movie The Last days of Disco:

Disco will never be over. It will always live in our minds and hearts. Something like this that was this big, and this important, and this great, will never die. Oh for a few years, maybe many years it will be considered passe and ridiculous. It will be misrepresented, caricatured and sneered at, or worse, completely ignored. People will laugh about John Travolta, Olivia Newton John, white polyester suits and platform shoes and going like this! But we had nothing to do with those things and still loved disco. Those who didn't understand will never understand. Disco was much more, and much better than all that. Disco was too great and too much fun to be gone forever. It has got to come back someday. I just hope it will be in our own lifetimes.
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http://www.youtube.com/user/DiscoSource#p/u/3/0PWvUZkeWfI

[Pistons]

Welcome on forum Discosource

I wonder if you can tell us what is that great city in Italy and what is the name of this disco club where once in a week you have italo disco night.
I prepare my summer holidays route so I will consider going there

Ciao
Marcin
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[euroflash]

It is great to have new members on the forum who share the same passion for music! It is also fascinating that the young generation finds this music appealing and feel so much love and affection. Fantastic!
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Alex / Webmaster
"I'm walking on music, I'm walking on air"
Peter Jacques Band

[DiscoSource]

[giannicrux]

ITALO AS LIBERATION FROM THE 70S POLITICAL EXTREMIST DIVISIONS.

I totally agree with you. In Italy the left wing culture always considered italo disco like a trash/capitalist genre of music and THAT IS ONE OF THE REASON WHY THE MUSIC DISAPPEARED SO QUICKLY, BECAUSE THEY MADE IT POLITICALLY UNFASHIONABLE! The music that represent 'La milano da bere' , the capitalist explosion of the late 70s/80s, where craxis italy reached the 5th position as a world economy overtaking the uk. Unfortunately italians has always been unable to appreciate their domestic music talent! The music related to leisure in general was downgraded' until the early 90s.

Only with the 80s/electroclash revival int he early 00 many people realized that those producers where real electronic pioneers, but still italo is considered like a subgenre of trash music by the majority (and the music related to the plastic world of Berlusconi s televisioons that in those times where launching many italo stars ). At the moment you can find many 'trash nights'where you can dance an italo tracks mixed up with cartoon songs, but a real italo lover would not like at all.
If you are looking for decent italo night s I would recommend gay/fashion related places in milan or certain squat /clubs in rome where the italo sound is mixed up with electro and nu disco.
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[Rocco S.]

Interesting... It gives to write a book.

[Baby Boy]

Interesting discussion indeed!

The logical follow-up question.
What do the Italian fascists of today and in the past think about italo?
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"It's hard to stay here alone while my heart is with you"

[DiscoSource]

[Rocco S.]

I didn't know that behind Italo-Disco were such strong political connotations in Italy. Otherwise I knew the case of Angelo Bergamini (Kirlian Camera), who shows a ultra-communist ideology in his music acts.

[Baby Boy]

Wow! Impressing answer. I have to dig deeper into this. My general impression of Italy's interest in italo music when I lived in Bologna for some months was that it was NOT that big at all. But that's the mainstream opinion I guess.

It's interesting that George Aaron (Girogio Aldigheri) is a member of Popolo Della Libertà. Somewhat a high-roller it seems? Or am I wrong?
I really don't care, you may be fascist but as long as you make great italo-music you have an excuse from me.
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"It's hard to stay here alone while my heart is with you"

[Aftering]

It is a pleasure to read your posts Discosource! Great to have another look on it.
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Real gold cannot be seen or even touched, it has to be listened & felt with the heart..

[DiscoSource]

The term "Italo Disco" was rarely used in Italy, and only by foreign producers and record labels to separate discofunk from electronic dance music made in Italy. I watched an interview with Albert One, recorded in 1984, and the journalist asks him "Do you think discomusic is over or does it still have a future?", this means the music we call italo disco, back in the 80's was still considered "discomusic" like the evolution of this music genre was natural and obvious. "Italo Disco" and "Italo Dance" are the terms used by experts like us, not by the main audience. It was popular, but not with the term Italo Disco.. and maybe it's a coincidence, but Bologna has always been known for being a leftist stronghold since the end of the war. The areas with the highest concentration of night clubs and discotheques in northern Italy are Eastern Romagna, the adriatic coast, and the area south of Lake Garda, the one where i live.. so it's also a matter of geographical position.

Anyway today's politics have little in common with the politics of 20-25 years ago. At the time the Soviet Union still played an important role and everything was centered around "Who will strike first?", today is just about living in a polarized society where 49,9% votes center left and 50,1% votes center right, it means 1 person out of 2 votes either left or right, that's why disco culture is still very popular amongst boys and girls, because it's a break from the political chaos that's ravaging the country since corruption scandals of 1992-1993. I vote, i have my ideas, but i do never talk about politics outside the internet, because that would end up in a massive riot, i know that for sure.

Here the discotheque was and is still considered a place where there is no social difference and doesen't really matter who you vote for, everyone is equal there and everyone has the same chances (and naturally sounds strange the left-wing doesen't like discotheques). On a second tought, it's not just the extreme left wing (communist, anarchist, radicals) who dislike disco for being an USA-Imported phenomenon.. even the radical-chics who have to be different in any way, or the pacifists who don't identify in any particular ideology, are usual to listen to rock music rather than house music, or still play the vinyls of bob marley and jimy hendrix to remember the days the hippy movement was at its peak... and even around that kind of rock there was some sort of political or social movement, while dance music in Italy can be considered a classess music genre (and again, shouldn't that be appealing for the left-wing?). Just a funny fact, i do consider myself "leaning towards the left" because i vote a party that's sitting on the left side of the parliament but does not identify with the left itself. There are exceptions to the rule, today things are different.
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[koto]

Rocco S."]I didn't know that behind Italo-Disco were such strong political connotations in Italy. Otherwise I knew the case of Angelo Bergamini (Kirlian Camera), who shows a ultra-communist ideology in his music act


Hello

Bergamini must have canceled a concert in Holland, because of demonstration by left wing people against his band.
He is for shure not a comminist, as far as i know
has he some sympathy for the romenian iron guarde
By the way , this genius deserve more space here.
Koto

[koto]

Mr. discosource

Thanks for your information.
I like to read this stuff besides the music !!

i,ve watched some of your uoloaded vids on you tube.
But is this the music they play nowadays in clubs in Italy ?

i don't want to be a pain in the ash, but when respected clubs
in Holland play this tunes the d.j. will be killed for shure.
However Italy has some fine techno heroes like Rino cirone and Marco Corola techno is very underground what i know.
Frankfurt, Manchester and Rotterdam had (and have ?) a deep black underground.
Were are the best (not commercial) clubs in Italy this days

koto

[DiscoSource]

Commercial electro house music is occupying charts and is indeed the mainstream music.

There is still a genre related to 90's Italo Dance, it's unknown to the masses and i rarely hear those songs playing on the radio, but they are clearly an evolution of the 90's dance music we used to produce here.

However, Italo Disco did not completely disappear.. it evoled in what's know as "Italo dance", and then came back unaltered from the past, a lot of discotheques host italo disco (or just "revival nights" with 70's, 80's, 90's and early 2000's tracks) on friday or tuesday, so whereever you go there is always a chance to hear italo disco, if you know where to go. There is a famous radio here in northern italy called "Radio Studio Più - The Dance Station", famous for being the major broadcaster of dance music from all the decades, there are shows dedicated completely to discofunk or italo disco, and listeners can send their "Dance Time Machine" playlists to be played in the morning when the DTM show is on air.

1 Hour ago i listened to Money by Mozzart (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOlPBc252oQ) on the radio, followed by the latest italo house track with a distinct bassline "Don't let me be misunderstood" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjGbn-SJI9w) by Gabri Ponte, Christian Marchi and Sergio D'Angelo, some of the most popular DJs in Italy

Regarding clubs, the Adriatic "Riviera", in Romagna is an area known for its night life and concentration of clubs and discotheques, clubs like Baia Imperiale (once known as Baia degli Angeli), was one of the first discotheques in Italy and is still open, they organize a "Remember Baia degli Angeli) party with 70's and 80's music. Another area is the one south of Lake Garda, a destination for thousands of tourists from Germany and the Netherlands, there are around 10 discotheques to choose from but only a few host revival nights, one in particural hosts a revival night every friday.
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