https://youtu.be/7EC-v2g_euQ?si=K1hEVnEe7BR6eHP7
Italo-Disco is a genre of music that doesn’t include just Italian music, but music by other European artists. Primarily popular in the 1980’s, it first entered global consciousness with Donna Summer and Giorgio Moroder’s “I Feel Love”, which was a ground-breaking song that dominated dance floors throughout the world. Italo-Disco is the step-child of both dance music and Kraftwerk, a hugely influential german band that made synthesizers a mainstay in popular music.
Synthesizers went from being very expensive studio gadgets to instruments that many could afford in the 1980’s with the advent of digital synths. In addition, sequencing several synths together became much easier with the arrival of midi – a standard that allows synths and computers to talk to each other. You could now mix and match equipment and have it all work together. It is still the standard for electronic instrument communication.
While Italo-Disco wasn’t particularly popular in the US, it was very popular in Europe, spawning a wave of artists that combined driving beats with the synthesizers to create an entirely new form of music. It can’t be stated enough how much this genre influenced many bands and individuals – from Industrial to modern EDM to hiphop – particularly the electro sub-genre of the 1980’s and 90’s.
I picked this song for a couple of reasons. It is very representative of Italo-Disco, with it’s heavy use of programmed beats. It helps that the lyrics are in Italian as well. I like the song a great deal (the title translates to “Adventurer” in English). Jo Squillo sounds a bit like Debbie Harry. When it pops up on my car’s sound system it puts a smile on my face.