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Faking it Without Faking The Fact You're Faking It: The Authentic Joy of Italo Disco

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Over the last thirty years Italo has gone from being a tasteless novelty item (and guilty pleasure) to a snobbish cult, presided over by the techno elite. Here we turn the lights on at the disco in an effort to find out exactly what Italo is and why it still matters. While the tension between nonsense lyrical translations and fierce synth-lead melodies is an acquired taste, the joy of Italo is that it does not take itself too seriously. It celebrates the synthetic in a way that, from a 21st Century perspective, seems joyously ahead of its time. It is little wonder Italo now finds itself at the cutting edge of the Berlin club scene and the EDM mainstream.

Track 1:  There is no better entry point into the crazy world of Italo than Miko Mission's 'How Old Are You?' (1984). Originally using the name Don Miko, Mission was nearly forty when this track came out in 1984. With a recording career that went back to the Sixties, he was previously known for Italian language covers of sixties hits by the Beatles etc. A club hit in Italy and Sweden,  with its nonsense chorus and heavy synth hooks, it is a cult classic of the genre.

 

Why Italo Failed in the UK... 

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It is not difficult to work out why Italo disco failed to make an impact in English speaking territories: awkward translations and the absence of quality music videos, was obviously problematic in a market dominated by MTV. Likewise, the proliferation of synth pop between 1981 and 1984 meant that by the time Italo got a real foothold it already sounded a bit dated to British and American audiences familiar with Yazoo, Eurythmics and Depeche Mode. Live Aid was also a big game changer: from 1985 onwards, the move towards band sounds, live instrumentation and stadium rock influenced the adult orientated flavour of pop radio. 

 

Italo's success in Northern European countries like Holland, Denmark, Sweden and Finland, however, left a legacy that has spawned numerous revivals. The narrative attached to the genre has moved from the ironic consumption of Club Med-style Euro pop, to a more serious appreciation of its innovative production, and role in the development of house music and techno. In this direction, Italo is seen as the missing link between Kraftwerk and Giorgio Moroder in the 1970s and  Frankie Knuckles and Bobby Orlando in the 1980s. Pivotal records include: Klein + MBO's 'Dirty Talk' (1982); Kano's 'Another Life' (1983); and My Mine's 'Hypnotic Tango' (1983). 

 

An oversimplification perhaps. And what this story avoids is an appreciation of Italo in the terms of its own definition. Unfortunately the Italo canon is incredibly difficult to understand: a myriad of producers, vocalist and artists, with a convoluted and contradictory back catalogues of hits, misses and cover versions. So here goes, with an inevitably flawed attempt to explain the inexplicable: the authentic joy of Italo...

Key Track 2: My Mine's 'Hypnotic Tango' established the formula: recorded in Bologna, but a top five hit in Germany in 1983. Revered by Italo snob's: the bass-line throbs and vocal lines cross-cut between the spoken word verses and mannered falsetto choruses.

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Where Italo Fits 

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In the UK, the history of Italo is usually mediated by a number of big name Eighties acts: specifically Pet Shop Boys, Erasure, and Depeche Mode. They frame the legacy of Italo in a way that tends to position it as inferior to these higher budget appropriations of the Bobby O electro pop sound that New Order made famous with 'Blue Monday' (1983).

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Only a hand-full of Italo tracks made the Top 40 in the UK during this period: Ryan Paris's 'Dolce Vita' (1983); Baltimora's 'Tarzan Boy' (1985); Spagna's 'Call Me' (1987) and Sabrina's 'Boys' (1987). These tended to be fetishised as exotic novelty items: tacky souvenirs from Mediterranean beach resort discotheques (the Spanish Costas as opposed to Rimini); very much in the mode of George Baker's 'Paloma Blanca' (1975). The situation was confused further by the number international imitators of the Italo sound: Fake (Sweden), Real Life (Australia), Falco, Modern Talking and Alphaville (Germany), F.R David and Desireless (France), and Bad Boys Blue (UK) could all be mistaken for 'genuine' Italo. 

 

By 1986 Stock Aitken Waterman were also beginning to corner the market: re-purposing the Hi-NRG Euro pop sound for a pre-teen audience. Records produced for Dead or Alive, Rick Astley Kylie Minogue, Jason Donovan incorporated elements of Italo, blending it with classic pop and Motown stylisations, to create a formula that dominated the UK charts between 1987 and 1990. In the club scene, the emergence of acid house also made the beats and melodic emphasis of Italo seem dated when compared to the sounds generated by the latest Roland TB 303. The inevitable evolution into Italo house in the late 80s superseded Italo disco, with Black Box's genre-defining 'Ride On Time' reaching the Top 10 everywhere in Europe except Italy.

Key Track 3: Sabrina's "Boys (Summertime Love)" got to number 3 in UK in 1988 in a chart filled with Italo sounds: Stock Aitken Waterman; Pet Shops Boys, Kim Wilde etc. A befitting anthem for the Indian summer of Eighties pop and  a pool party video memorable for its nip-slip.

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Defining Italo

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Like every pop subculture from punk to grime, the term Italo obviously simplified the nuanced aesthetics of a wide genre. Originally known as 'spaghetti disco', the term 'Italo' was first used by the German label ZYX to market compilations of Italian records that were popular in the clubs of Northern Europe. It is perhaps the 're-presentation' of Italo disco's 'Italianness' that marks it out. Merseybeat; New York punk; Chicago house; Detroit techno:  when genres are identified geographically typically it is with markers connected to specific  urban locations. Not since the 'British Invasion' of the American charts in the Sixties had a genre been so nationally generic. 

 

What is clear, however, is that Italo is not a genre that mainstream Italian audiences identified with. Responding to an Instagram story showcasing Italo on an alternative rock profile, one follower was moved to write the following: 'I was a teenager in Italy in the Eighties: we listened to English and American music: post punk, dark, rock music... ITALO??? Never heard of it... it must be another commonplace like 'pizza e madolino'...I was in England for four month in 1986 and no one every point at me  laughing and shouting ITALO'. It is this contradiction that makes Italo so elliptical. It is less a recognisable culture, and more of a cipher: an aesthetic rational for decoding and a marketing device for pop as export product.

 

Like the 'pizza e mandolino', Italo had limited connection to authentic Italian culture, but rather was a way of presenting slices of the club scene on menus aimed at tourists. Few people who consumed what they thought of as Italo would ever  listen to it in context: to travel to the Adriatic beach resort of Rimini; or see the Creatures perform at Altromondo nightclub. So what Italo meant was already much more abstract and ambiguous, shrouded in space age allusions and generic holiday fantasy.

Key Track 4: 'Donna Rouge' (1985) by Swedish group Fake proved that Italo was as much a concept as a geographic marker, and also the significance of the genre in Scandinavia.  Their follow up single 'Another Brick' was another classic, reaching #1 in Italy and #6 in France; it was remade by house DJ Laurent Wolfe in 2006.

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What makes Italo Italian

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There is, of course, a romance associated to Italy framed by the the legacy of the Renaissance. Destinations like Florence, Rome and Venice became cultural hot spots for Northern Europe's expanding middle class in the Sixties and Seventies. Synonymous with Art and high culture, Italy was at the forefront of the collective conscience when it came to popular images of 'abroad'. Italian cuisine had also become more routine in Northern Europe, both in the home and also the rising popularity of the trattoria and pizzeria: giving people a taste of Italy without ever having been there.

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The aesthetics of the Italian club scene of the 1980s, however, were far removed from these cultural cliches: the visual code of the infamous  L'Altromondo nightclub owed more to science fiction than da Vinci or Bernini. Mythologies perpetuated by 1970s advertising had more influence on the branding of Italo disco internationally: campaigns for Martini and Campari made contemporary Italian culture a byword for aspiration and gracious living. 

 

Gangster films also played a part in cementing this glamour: particularly when Italian culture was looked at through the lens of  Hollywood, in movies like Mean Streets (1973) and The Godfather (1972). This mystique was perpetuated further with rise of fashion houses Armani and Versacci, whose clothes were in turn appropriated by the Paninaro youth cult at the end of the 1980s, and its obsession with Italian designer labels.

Key Track 5: The Creatures ' Believe in Yourself' was musical project that began at L'Altromondo Studios in Rimini. It found a wider audience when release in Germany by ZYX Records. ZYX coined the term Italo disco and The Creatures went onto record the soundtrack to Jocks (1984): a film which documents the early Eighties club scene in Italy.​

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So Macho

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The male form, however, is a singular feature of Italo disco that is often overlooked. The genre produced a number of extremely flamboyant performers in the mode of US disco stars like Sylvester and Divine: including Fancy, Miko Mission and Albert One. Far more common place, however, was the iconography of the brooding Latino archetype: Fred Ventura, Brian Ice, Eddy Huntington etc.  Like the Paninaro, these performers looked like they had just stepped off a Milan catwalk. Some, in the case of fashion model Den Harrow, actually had.

 

Harrow's subsequent dispute with US singer Tom Hooker (who alleged to have sung on a number of Harrow's hits) highlighted the modus operandi of Italo producers. Harrow (born Stefano Zandri) was recruited for his good looks by producers Roberto Turatti and Miki Chieregato to front promotional duties for their records: videos, record sleeves, television lip-synchs etc. The soubriquet Den Harrow (a pun on the Italian for money) was created, along with a complicated back story that he was American. 

Key Track 6: Den Harrow's 'Future Brain' was an Italo Disco project produced by Roberto Turatti and Miki Chieregato fronted by model Stefano Zandari. Controversy surrounded the recordings when it was revealed that Zandari didn’t sing on any of the records: Unusually for an Italo track the video for 1985’s “Future Brain” had relatively high production values: complete with apocalyptic montage sequences including images of Mick Jagger and Margaret Thatcher. In the end it got to #9 in Italy, #6 in Spain and #17 in France. 

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Faking it (Without Faking The Fact You're Faking It)

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In the world of Italo the identity of the singer is not the most important thing. According to Pietro Anton's documentary Italo Disco Legacy (2018) producers hedged their bets, and optimised their chances of scoring a hit, by releasing multiple records under different aliases, while using the same restricted panel of vocalist. It was a marketing strategy that meant the visual component of an artist only became a necessity once the record was in the chart.

 

As producer and vocalist Federico Di Bonaventura (aka Fred Ventura) states: 'This rumour that most Italo artists weren't actually singing it became a sort of legend people didn't want to believe. But as insiders we were fully aware of that and we accepted it'. Bonaventura also went by the names Flexx and Pleasure and Pain, but these were more arms length projects:  'Even if the tracks became successful, I had nothing to do with them anymore. It all ended with the cheque'. 

 

Of course, from a 21st Century perspective, this kind of rationale for pop is routine, with DJ producers like David Guetta, Martin Solvieg, Swedish House Mafia etc dominating mainstream tastes. No one is problematising their disconnect from vocals or instrumentation. However, as the Milli Vanilli Grammy scandal of illustrated, Eighties audiences were not yet ready to accept the exposition of pop's back story. The duo had, put together by Boney M producer Frank Farian, had to give the award back after it was revealed that they didn't sing on the record. What this modus operandi did facilitate, however, was a panache of extremely stylised pop stars, whose glamorous good looks have resonated down the decades.

Key Track 7: Fred Ventura's 'One Day' (1989) is late showing for the genre: blending a Donna Summer-esque Moroder intro with synth lines and song structure more redolent of Stock Aitken Waterman. Ventura was a veteran of the scene, beginning in several punk and new wave bands before defecting to synths upon the purchase of a Roland Juno. Like many Italo artists he recorded under various aliases.

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The Camp Aesthetics of Italo

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While many contemporary Italo DJ's speak critically of the vocal intonations on their favourite tracks (preferring to play the instrumentals), what this overlook is the fascinating subject positions of the protagonists. Back in 2005, at a conference at La Sapienza University in Rome, for  the International Association for the Study of Popular Music, New York academic Kai Fikentsche delivered  a fascinating paper in which he explored the gender ambiguous dialogue at the beginning of Ken Lazlow's 'Hey Hey Guy" (1984). The exchange could not be a more homoerotic. And yet, 'the sign of gayness', which runs throughout the history of mainstream British pop since the 1950s, is not generally acknowledged in Italo.

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The camp aesthetic that defines so much of the genre is not discussed, especially by the audiophile DJs espousing the genres proto-techno credentials. Hiding in plain-sight perhaps: the solemnity with which Italo aficionados discuss the technology and song writing proves the adage  coined by the novelist Christoper Isherwood that you 'can't camp about something you're not serious about'. However, it also elides one of the most interesting aspects of Italo from a contemporary perspective, which is the male vocal.

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Key Track 8: On Ken Lazlow's 'Hey Hey Guy' (1984) you can really hear the influence of new wave on Italo. It got to  number 21 in France; however, for the video its eerie and ambiguous spoken word intro is edited out. Lazlow also recorded under various pseudonyms including Ric Fellini, DJ NRG, and Ricky Maltese.

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Boys Sing Girls Songs

 

In the carnivalesque world of Italo, boys sing lyrics and melodies that in English language genres would be delivered very differently. At the one extreme, within the synth pop genre, we have the dead-pan delivery of Neil Tennant, Bernard Sumner and David Gahan. At the other: the transvesticised effeminacy of Jimmy Somerville or Andy Bell. Italo vocals strikes a very different note: that of 'machismo'. 

 

It is the contrast between the soaring synth lines and the aggressive masculine pride intoned in the vocal style that makes Italo stand out. The limited melodic range and slow pace of harmonic change creates a prowling sense of menace. This is often then augmented with female vocal riffs and interjections in instrumental sections when the pace of change speeds up and the structure becomes more unpredictable. Thus Italo often conforms to a binary in which the power of the masculine vocal is undiluted, with the feminine relegated to background decoration.

 

The masculine qualities of Italo can partly be attributed to the influence of new wave on its earlier incarnations. Also, the way in which keyboard lines are used to conceal limitations in the musical range of the singers creates a stark juxtaposition. The end result is no less transgressive than punk. The difference between Raf's original version of the Laura Branigan hit 'Self Control' is a case in point. Anglo-American audiences were not ready for a song like this sung from a male perspective; its impassive lyric at odds with the 'macho' delivery.

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Key Track 9: Raf’s (Raffaele Riefoli) version of ‘Self Control’ is the original, but it was covered by Laura Branigan almost immediately with both records battling for chart supremacy. Raf’s version hit #1 in Italy but in US and UK Branigan’s version won out, reaching top 5 in both territories, as well as #1 in Sweden, Austria, Canada and South Africa.

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Italo Legacy

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American scholar Laurence Grossberg memorably suggested that the 'The only authenticity is to know and even admit that you're not being authentic, to fake it without faking the fact you're faking it'. He may as well have been writing the brief for Italo disco. Italo combines the DIY aesthetic of punk, with Andy Warhol's mass production Factory processes. The end result continues to beguile because, like The Creature's spaceship DJ Booth at L'Altromondo Club in Rimini, Italo remains ahead of its time.

 

In the intervening years few artists have successfully appropriated the Italo sound. Clearly its influence can be felt on UK synth pop acts. And also the more melodic aspects of Nineties Euro-dance (Haddaway, Culture Beat, Dr Alban etc). In the 21st Century superstar electroclash DJs Fischerspooner and The Hacker have kept the genre alive, alongside French electro house producers like Laurent Wolf, Alan Braxe and Fred Falke. More recently Italove, who describe themselves as 'the heirs of Italo' have gained a cult following, particularly with the video to the single 'Follow Me to Mexico' (2013). However, within the mainstream, perhaps the last time Italo had a moment of real crossover was  with US alternative rock band Bloodhound Gang's 'The Bad Touch' in 2000...

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The Bloodhound Gang's 'The Bad Touch' hit UK 4 in May 2000 and was a number one in the big Italo markets including Germany, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Spain and Sweden. Less a homage and more of a parody: the video courted controversy for its depiction of a rock band beating up two gay sailors. An edited version was reissued by their record company.

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