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What is Italo Disco?
Italo disco refers to an entire genre of dance music that evolved mysteriously and very quickly during the early 80's in Italy and other parts of Europe. Italo Disco music was and still is considered to be quite futuristic and spacey in regards to the massive effects created with the first generation of true synthesizers, drum machines, and vocoders. From the standpoint of a true italo disco enthusiast, a true and authentic italo disco song is Italian produced on an Italian record label. Anything similar but produced outside of Italy can be described as euro disco. The name 'italo disco' originates from the Italo Boot Mix series, created in 1983 by Bernhard Mikulski, the founder of German-based, ZYX Music - a megamix featuring Italian produced disco music. Prior to 1983, the genre was simply referred to as 'disco music'.
read more about the history here...
Revival, 1993– (electro)
Italo disco developed a cult following in the early 1990s, and electro releases in 1993 by I-F, in 1998 by Legowelt and Tobias Bernstrup, and in 2000 by Jeans Team, Bangkok Impact, and Hong Kong Counterfeit were among those that fuelled renewed interest. I-F's 2001 Italo-cum-electro mix Mixed Up in the Hague was equally important to the reintroduction of the genre.
As of 2005 several online radio stations stream the genre and underground clubs are playing the records widely again. Its renewed popularity is inspiring re-releases and new mixes on many of the record labels that released the genre initially. ZYX records has released many new CD mixes since 2000. Labels like Panama Records and Radius Records have gone through great lengths to find the original artists of obscure italo tracks for re-release on vinyl.
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