Searching the site…
Try a search
Site search
Search covers page content as well as titles.
Nothing found. Try another word.
Sixth track already - save favourites and download without limits
Sign upThe core of Disco Magic - Italo Disco of the 80s: history, formula, artists.
205 articles newest first
5 May 1983: Righeira release "Vamos a la playa" in Spanish. The chorus is about the beach; the verses are about a nuclear bomb. #1 in Italy and Switzerland, #3 in Germany, 3 million copies. Writers, single versions and the nuclear subtext.
1974: Tom Moulton and Jose Rodriguez create the 12-inch single - a hybrid with a wide groove and maximum volume. A 7-inch holds 3 minutes; a 12-inch holds 9 minutes at 4-6 dB louder. Why Italo Disco lived on this format.
Autumn 1984: Giacomo Maiolini, 21, founds Time Records in Brescia. With the duo Farina-Crivellente - the label becomes one of the biggest in Italo Disco. Atrium, Albert One, Ken Laszlo. In 1988, the shift to Eurobeat for Japan.
December 1985: Silent Circle release "Touch in the Night" - #15 in Germany, 14 weeks in the chart. A West German trio: Tychsen, Breitung, Behrens. Producers Dietrich and Simons, label Blow Up. Ten tracks, charts and Russian popularity.
24 April 1956: Roberto Turatti is born in Milan. With Miki Chieregato he created Den Harrow - a project named after the Italian "denaro" (money). Stefano Zandri was the face, Tom Hooker the voice. An Italo-disco factory, 1983-1988.
January 1980: Hugh Padgham accidentally opens a talkback mic above Phil Collins's drums. Reverb is chopped by a gate after half a second. Gated reverb - the effect that defined the sound of the 80s. Processing scheme, AMS RMX16 and five imitation mistakes.
1978: the Prophet-5 at $3,950. 1983: the Yamaha DX7 at $1,995 - 200,000 sold. 1988: the Korg M1 at $1,800. In ten years the price dropped threefold while polyphony doubled. Three waves of 80s synthesizers - analog, digital and workstations.
1978: the Roland CR-78 - the first drum machine with a microprocessor. By 1980 two approaches: analog synthesis (TR-808, $1,195) and samples (Linn LM-1, $4,995). How 16 buttons in a row rewrote the rhythm of pop music - in plain words.
1977: Space releases "Magic Fly" - 12 million copies in a year. Space disco was born not on singles but on full-length records. Twelve albums from Space and Cerrone to Koto and Laserdance - a guide to the genre through the LP format.
July 1986: Ivana Spagna with producer Pignagnoli. UK #2 (blocked by The Communards), #1 Germany 5 weeks, #3 France. First Italian woman in UK top-3 with an English-language track - and one of the last Italo-disco UK mainstream hits before house.
October 1984: Bohlen and Anders launch Modern Talking at Hansa Tonstudio. The single flopped in week one; the German #1 came after their January 1985 Musikladen TV spot. 6 weeks at #1, #1 in three neighbouring countries, 8M copies. Chorus secret: Bohlen sang the falsetto, not Anders. In 1987 Moscow's Olimpiysky sold 18,000 tickets in four hours.
May 1980: Steven Greenberg of Minneapolis under the alias Lipps Inc. #1 Billboard for 4 weeks and #1 in 28 countries - a single's world record until 1984. Vocal: Cynthia Johnson (Miss Black Minnesota 1976), Oberheim OB-X, EMS Vocoder 2000, $8,000 budget.
December 1984, Milan: Den Harrow was fronted by Stefano Zandri, but every vocal was tracked by American Tom Hooker on 1.5% royalties. Four years - 12M records, 240 shows a year. Italian TV exposed it in February 1988, two years before Milli Vanilli.
October 1984: the Juno-106 at $1,295 - an affordable 6-voice polysynth with built-in chorus and MIDI. 66,000 units in four years, second best-selling 80s analogue after the DX7. Heard on Madonna's “La Isla Bonita”, Sting's “Russians”, a-ha, Human League. The BBD chorus burns out; in 2024 originals sell for $1,500-2,500.
Summer 1987: 19-year-old Sabrina Salerno from Genoa with producer Cecchetto. #1 Italy, France, Germany, #3 UK, 5M copies. The Grand Hotel Alassio pool video with a “slipped” strap was BBC-banned by day - only fuelling demand.
March 1983, Rome: Paul Mazzolini (Gazebo) with Pierluigi Giombini. #1 Germany for 6 weeks, plus the Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland and Japan - 8M copies. UK and US never noticed. Yamaha CP-80, Jupiter-8, LinnDrum; the melody echoes Chopin's Prelude Op. 28 No. 7 - heirs considered suing in 1985.
June 1979, New York: #1 Billboard for 6 weeks, 5M copies. Bernard Edwards plays an E-D fingerstyle riff on a Music Man StingRay through an Ampeg SVT. Sugarhill Gang copied it on “Rapper's Delight” - the first hip-hop hit. Queen paraphrased it on “Another One Bites the Dust”. 1,900+ samples by 2024.
Favourites, the live chat and requests come with the account.
Free of charge. Favourites, the live chat and playlists come with the account.
Enter the email your account is registered with - we will send a reset link. It is valid for 1 hour.
Enter the 6-digit code from the email and the account is ready.
The link from the email works too - it is valid for 24 hours.
Loading your saved tracks…
