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Italo disco

Italo disco (variously capitalized, and sometimes hyphenated as Italo-disco) 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. 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.

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. Italo disco faded in the early 1990s, then split into many genres (Eurobeat, Italo house, Italo dance).

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.

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. 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". 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.

Italo disco originated in Europe in the late 1970s. After Disco Demolition Night in 1979, American interest in disco sharply declined, whereas in Europe the genre maintained mainstream popularity and survived into the 1980s.

The adoption of synthesizers and other electronic instruments by disco artists led to electronic dance music, which spawned many subgenres such as hi-NRG in America and space disco in Europe. Italo disco's influences include Italian producer Giorgio Moroder, French musician Didier Marouani, Italo-French drummer Cerrone, and the San Francisco-based hi-NRG producer Patrick Cowley, who worked with singers as Sylvester and Paul Parker.

In the late 1970s, Italo disco group D.D. Sound (La Bionda) released the song "1, 2, 3, 4, Gimme Some More". In 1979, Jacques Fred Petrus and Mauro Malavasi created the soulful post-disco groups Change and B.B. & Q. Band. In 1981, both groups gained US R&B and Dance hits with "Paradise" and "On the Beat" respectively.

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