La musica si muove appena: The ILM ITALO Poll (Results Thread)

Absolutely astonished that "You're My Heart, You're My Soul" has had over 44 million YouTube views...

Three tracks so far that I have (knowingly) danced to in actual nightclubs in the actual Nineteen Eighties: Gazebo, Trans-X, Modern Talking.

up next, the first entry on the list with a 1st place vote...

Doesn't surprise me at all, AFAIK Modern Talking was the second best selling disco act of all time after Boney M.

that's a very loose definition of "disco", though

Now I guess, but at the time this was disco to 99% of the population.

they were immensely successful, no doubt about that

something doesn't quite add up for me in "Fotonovela" but it does scream "Classic".

I guess "disco" in the eighties was more or less a synonym for "club music".

xpost - Perhaps that the xylophone riff doesn't really fit, melodically, with the rest?

I think that't it for me but it's also what makes it great.

yeah, it's like that is just one element too many - but it's also the best one!

daavid stop dragging this out, got a horrible feeling my first to show will be my number 1 now.

I think it's the clashing overtones in the xylo.

http://i.imgur.com/ptDsWnS.jpg

39 LOUI$ "Pink Footpath" [122 points, 4 votes, 1 first place vote]
http://youtu.be/plXB4MFZSMw

And there you go... :(

Can only assume this is so low cos most haven't heard it, it's peerless and unique.

yeah, I'm not familiar with this one. Almost jazzy in the first 2 minutes.

xps

I was thinking about this during the nominations thread but don't think I ever put it out there: who was the audience for non-crossover Italo releases? Was it mostly nightclubs? How many young people in Italy (or France or Spain) in the 80s have heard e.g. "When I Let You Down" or "Hey Hey Guy"? Were there clubs in the UK playing this? (I guess mike t-diva addressed that one a bit)

i think that's a glockenspiel in "Fotonovela" not a xylophone

I personally like my Italo to be on the pop side, but I didn't vote anyway.

I am definitely in the minority who find "Pink Footpath" overrated, but it gets a super amount of love from even non-italo fans.

xxpost, you are right. The bars in a xylophone are made out of wood. But what's a marimba then? I'm confused.

The first time I heard Pink Footpath (in an old Aeroplane mix iirc) was one of those moments you just know right away you're hearing a song that will be an all-timer.

Seandalai: there's an interview here, in which a Venice DJ talks a bit about the perception of Italo in Italy at the time:
http://thump.vice.com/words/bottin-and-mike-simonetti-obsess-over-italo-disco

I feel Italo also appealed to record collectors as well as clubbers: so many devoted labels and sublabels, so many strange aliases and one-offs to geek out over.

oh awesome, thanks!

Xylophones and marimbas are made out of wood, I believe. Glockenspiel has metal bars. Probably more likely that it's a glockenspiel in Fotonovela, but it looks like a xylophone in the video.

LOL at his example of bad Italo. That really is bad.

Interesting interview but both of those guys sound like Italo rockists.

…especially Bottin.

http://i.imgur.com/mAasX49.jpg

38 VALERIE DORE "Get Closer" [123 points, 4 votes]
http://youtu.be/DkQu9CPrrfw

My top 5 dropping like flies all of a sudden

way too low but i'm guessing Valerie Dore was sabotaged by people nominating like 10 million of her tracks

maybe 38/39 isn't dropping like flies idk

And a quick look at my actual ballot shows I only had this at number 10 so my bad.

Also agree that "Get Closer" placed too low. The delay on that synth is classic.

I like how "Get Closer" is pretty much the same song as "The Night" but just as awesome.

I think someone nominating the entire Valerie Dore Lancelot album was amusing. Love the title track from that though.

Yes, they just shifted the chords and tweaked the melody a bit… but the instrumentation is identical.

who was the audience for non-crossover Italo releases? Was it mostly nightclubs? How many young people in Italy (or France or Spain) in the 80s have heard e.g. "When I Let You Down" or "Hey Hey Guy"? Were there clubs in the UK playing this? (I guess mike t-diva addressed that one a bit)

I was living in West Berlin in 1983/84, and heard Italo in gay and mixed-gay clubs alongside hi-NRG, as well as on the radio. I doubt it had much traction outside gay cubs in the UK, give or take the odd Ryan Paris crossover hit.

Get Closer is a good example of a particular type of pop alchemy then, it does something much more with those parts than The Night imo.

http://i.imgur.com/tHniMTb.jpg

37 FANCY "Slice Me Nice" [129 points, 4 votes]
http://youtu.be/Nlnoa67MUJU

Maximum dodgy accent points.

Slice Me Nice is a total classic. The video is properly creepy.

"Slice Me Nice" was 84, not 85. Another one I used to dance to in public...

It has been removed from his wiki page but it used to be claimed that Bolero was the longest reigning No.1 single in the history of the Spanish charts. There are lots of videos of the latter day Fancy, looking like Kim Jong Il, turning up at tiny conventions of about a dozen awestruck fans. He still plays big nostalgia events in Russia and Germany.

He looks like an even creepier version of Barry Manilow.

"bow and arrow" is the other valerie dore song i really like

Xps, I'd always had the impression that Hey Hey Guy was a fairly canonical Italo hit but I think my perception of a lot of this is skewed by my window on the genre being primarily Eastern European. About 75% of the comments on the YouTube videos of Laszlo's songs are from people with Russian, Polish, etc names. I heard it played over the store radio in a supermarket in Armenia last year and didn't find that surprising. I love the fact that there seems to be an overlapping, but not entirely overlapping, Italo / Eurodance canon between Western and Eastern Europe. The Dutch group Digital Emotion was another that was huge in Russia, having been featured extensively in an episode of the Soviet rip off of Tom and Jerry, but are largely unknown here.

Last one for the day...

Fancy: "I'm like a cake that wants to be baked"

So classic