Italo / Hi NRG / Freestyle Discussion

[Oz Oz Alice]

This is somewhat blearily written and not as articulate as I'd hope it would be as I'm half asleep but stubbornly my other half is refusing to follow suit.

For the last couple of years I've been entirely obsessed with this music and in the periods of self loathing between circles of mania find it to be a source of solace. There's something about a combination of synth arpeggios, defiantly artificial sounding drum machines and the most banal lyrics imaginable delivered as if it's a matter of life and death that really helps keep me going.

Italo, Hi-NRG and freestyle all sound very similar and are all offshoots of disco but naturally the social conditions that produced them are very different: Italo is a mostly electronic synthesis (pun intended) of American disco and European electronic music; Hi-NRG is very similar but the product of gay black Americans and freestyle is predominantly Latin American and sounds like the other two styles but with more cowbell. That's a very crude summary but I'm no Simon Reynolds.

I know there will have been Italo threads before but I think a catch all for this sort of thing old and new can only be a good idea. I'll start off with my favourites.

Alba - Only Music Survives - https://youtu.be/zcMix-SaTo0

This no exaggeration saved my life. The first time I heard it I played it maybe six times in a row. It brought tears to my eyes and exemplifies the redemptive power of this music. Shades of The Winner Takes It All in the piano intro; most of the lyrics are utter gibberish but the title phrase "only music survives" is delivered with such sincerity that it's impossible to deny the truth in it. It is to me a perfect record: the buried guitars in the choruses, the chiming and fluttering synths and the devastatingly simple drums.

Gina Desire - Breathless
https://youtu.be/bP3953EE6Gk

In the gayest field of music in the world somehow one of the biggest producers was unreconstructed homophobe Bobby Orlando who bizarrely also discovered the Pet Shop Boys. This record is my favourite example of the Hi NRG bass arpeggio and is also utter sleaze. 

International Music System - Dancing Therapy
https://youtu.be/wzK5asq0Dz4

No it's not Bizarre Love Triangle this came first. A lot of these records sound like New Order and that's likely because again there was a two way stream of influence: after making their "Joy Division MKII" Movement they spent a lot of time checking out clubs in America and listening to the early days of Kiss FM. They took the stuff they were hearing and made Blue Monday, 586, etc. Then in turn Bobby O "homaged" Blue Monday over and over, and New Order then covered Divine's Love Reaction live a few times; but I digress. Dancing Therapy is just such a lovely, heart warming record that I first heard while a bit drunk in a friend's living room around Christmas 2016 and that started this whole adventure.

Another Man - Barbara Mason
https://youtu.be/9odNbuVXBDQ

Sadly I've not heard anything else like this from her. The instrumental is phenomenal: the gooey bass synths, the way melodic drums interact with rhythmic synths. The glitches and whooshes that you wouldn't necessarily expect on a record like this. Then atop it all an utterly ridiculous lyric from the point of view of a woman worried that about her boyfriend's bisexuality. It'd be outright homophobic not for the winks thrown in about "they were holding hands down Castro street and y'all know where THAT is" etc. I first heard this playing from a boom box in Paris Is Burning.

Charlie - Spacer Woman
https://youtu.be/nZDPCjEoIMI

An obvious choice in a post like this but the first time I heard this was a major musical moment for me. Serious goosebumps. This is incredibly danceable but when you get past its proto house rhythms pointing forward and the bassy synth breaks pointing back to the League's Being Boiled there's something very eerie. The vocal just sounds evil to me in a way black metal can't manage: the closest a vocal delivery has ever come to making me feel this uncomfortable is Philip Best doing his feral muttering on the last few Consumer Electronics records. I bet Balance and Sleazy had a copy of this.

This has gone on quite long enough now before I even start wittering on about how I sent a subliminal message to my current love interest (was going to put partner but I'm neither a detective nor a lawyer) by beginning the first mix I sent her with Take A Chance by Mr Flagio.

[steveh]

Hi-NRG is very similar but the product of gay black Americans

There were three connected but different hi-NRG scenes in San Francisco, New York and London early on which while often using black female vocalists had predominantly white producers - Patrick Cowley in SF, Bobby Orlando in NY and Ian Levine in London being perhaps the most influential.

Cowley's music I find the most interesting as he began exploring a less poppy path whereas Levine's productions soon became rather cliched and led on to that early Stock Aitken and Waterman sound. Endless cover versions of pop hits with a galloping bassline added and which tiny labels still I think keep pushing out today for gay clubs. As time went on the music got less and less influenced by black music.

Lurking in the depths of my collection I have a couple of compilations that I was sent to review featuring some terrible Italian hi-NRG tracks from the early nineties - some of the most badly-made dance music ever committed to disc. There seemed to be some weird crossover between the Italian scene and the almost happy hardcore-oriented scene in some Scottish clubs around that time which I never figured out. You probably had to be there and taking the right pills for it to make sense.

[Sin Agog]

Agree about Dancing Therapy.  Second favourite Italo-Disco track after Bagarre's Lemonsweet.

I'll upload a communal Italo-Disco mix I put together from a bunch of RYM'ers nominations a few years ago later today.  It turned out pretty special and better than any actual comp I've heard on the genre.

[Sin Agog]

OK, upped it to google drive: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-ppuMKpcjBysUGNKip514zbl_gcyRGws/view?usp=sharing

Tracklisting

Mix 1

1. BWH - Stop chosen by FedeRovi
2. Barry Mason - Body! Get Your Body chosen by TheProfessional
3. Digital Emotion - Electric Love chosen by Alfred_Pok
4. The Creatures - Believe In Yourself chosen by never_knows_best
5. International Music System - Dancing Therapy chosen by nang4
6. Bagarre - Lemonsweet chosen by sinagog
7. Clay Pedrini - New Dream chosen by AntiWarhol
8. Witch Elizabeth - My Destiny chosen by No_
9. Dharma - Plastic Doll chosen by 40footwolf
10. Kasso - Brazilian Dancer chosen by chandlerfx
11. Hipnosis - Argonauts chosen by Tropylium


Mix 2

1. Azoto - San Salvador chosen by antreas72heep
2. Crysalis - I Never Dance chosen by alliveeverwanted
3. Memory Control One - Basic chosen by uphrates
4. Miko Mission - How Old Are You chosen by UrbanIndustry
5. Gino Soccio - It's Alright chosen by Plaistow_Patricia
6. Diana Est - Tenax chosen by CynthiaMask
7. Amin Peck - Coda chosen by henry_rawlinson
8. Tantra - The Hills of Katmandu chosen by Moonbeam

(Off-topic, but that AntiWarhol geezer still has the most interesting taste of anyone I've ever known.  Interacted with him a couple of times and he seems like an anomic, surly git, but it's always worth browsing through his ratings: https://rateyourmusic.com/~AntiWarhol).

[monkfromhavana]

There seemed to be some weird crossover between the Italian scene and the almost happy hardcore-oriented scene in some Scottish clubs around that time which I never figured out. You probably had to be there and taking the right pills for it to make sense.

The Hi-NRG sound was apparently quite popular in straight clubs in Scotland as well as on the gay scene, especially as it morphed into quite a "white" sound. Italo-house is quite "white sounding" as well, so it simply followed on.

Basically, not many black people in Scotland, not many black people in Italy. Same reason as to why jungle never really caught on north of the border.

[steveh]

Think Tom Wilson, who was kind of the Scottish Pete Tong, was also instrumental in pushing a lot of Italian releases in Scotland that never did anything further south.

Some time back watched a documentary on Amazon called Legends of Freestyle, which while very low budget and mostly talking heads in dressing rooms is still interesting on the development of that scene and the events that still go on featuring the stars from its heyday.

For the cheesiest Euro Hi-NRG it's hard to beat L-Vira's Talkin' Bout Rambo, a Dutch rip-off of FGTH's Relax which I've only just discovered has a terrible video too.

[bushwick]

There's something about a combination of synth arpeggios, defiantly artificial sounding drum machines and the most banal lyrics imaginable delivered as if it's a matter of life and death that really helps keep me going.

Totally agree. Italo is probably my favourite genre of music, I'm always in the mood for it and I basically love every song I hear, be it cheesy or classy. Constantly finding amazing old tracks on youtube that I've never heard before. I love it all the way through its existence, into Italo House which I probably love equally, up until about 1993 - Glam "Hell's Party" may be my cutoff point.

I never knew it's name till the 90s but I liked a lot of freestyle records in the early rap/electro days when I was little, things like C-Bank "One More Shot" and Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam etc. Then some of the Todd Terry and Frankie Bones stuff had those flavours in the early 90s

Have been on a Hi NRG kick recently, I just like fast arpeggios innit. Lots in the charts when I was a kid - I had a mad deja vu hearing this on youtube by chance the other day, had forgotten how much I loved it as a kid (Living On Video by Trans X):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9xBAtCsCTQ

and another act I knew nothing about, another Canadian duo - Lime. Big influence on Chicago house apparently and it's all 100% belter down to the airbrushed record covers. This tune is called "Babe, We're Gonna Love Tonight" blew my socks off the other week - like David Coverdale and Kate Bush on a hi-NRG track:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PggKxIAL1bg

and just to stretch the disco into house, this 1991 Italo track reduces me to tears. Even the more "cheesy" side of this music genuinely emotionally resonates with me, but I think this is just flat-out beautiful, you would have to be horribly cynical not to feel it IMO (Johnny Parker - "Love It Forever" Orchestra mix):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ds7_rRIgnDc

[Oz Oz Alice]

That Johnny Parker track is lush, it also got me. That piano and synth string intro could have gone on forever. I like a bit of Italo house as well myself although I'm by no means as well versed in it as I am in the disco stuff. The Dream House compilations are excellent and get a lot of play round here but my favourite Italo house track is Trust The Night by the Grant Brothers. It has a lovely vocal melody as well as the cascading piano you'd expect from a track in this style: https://youtu.be/XnUcT27-ODQ. There's something very innocent and joyous about it.

[ASFTSN]

Why is the genre name for this stuff 'Freestyle'? What does that refer to?

[Better Midlands]

another act I knew nothing about, another Canadian duo - Lime. Big influence on Chicago house apparently and it's all 100% belter down to the airbrushed record covers. This tune is called "Babe, We're Gonna Love Tonight" blew my socks off the other week - like David Coverdale and Kate Bush on a hi-NRG track:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PggKxIAL1bg

Lime - On The Grid is a good one, It's where The Grid took their name from - their first release is a cover of this.

[Better Midlands]

Why is the genre name for this stuff 'Freestyle'? What does that refer to?

Freestyle is Latin Hip Hop, it's US poppy electro really

Xena - On The Upside is a club banger

[monkfromhavana]

Freestyle is Latin Hip Hop, it's US poppy electro really

Xena - On The Upside is a club banger

See also Shannon - 'Let The Music Play' and anything by Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam.

[bushwick]

This just came up on my recommends - "Turbo Diesel" by Albert One. This lad just died of corona apparently, sad news. Not heard any by him before but this one puts a smile on my face. Makes me want to do coke and wear all my jewellery at once.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNMWObqkNNk

[bushwick]

This one is a slow valium/qualuudes jam (but it sounds banging at x1.25 speed). Topo and Roby with "Under The Ice", 1984.

"Just a robot man trapped in a foreign land/He was beeping out to someone/To come and give a hand". I think Roby is the little robot and Topy is the lass singing about him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RXSD_6FXXA

[madhair60]

Fantastic thread thank you

[Astronaut Omens]

Passion by the Flirts is another brill Bobby O production.

[bushwick]

"SEXY TEACHER" by CECK UP TWINS

refreshing lack of fucks about spelling with these guys (on their other release "Working In The Factory" they've spelled 'check' correctly). A real pumper from 1985 with deranged and affecting lyrics and vocals, very European sounding. "My sexy teacher's/Walking down the road/Ooh, I need you/Ooh, my bad girl". Always a fan of "walking down the road" in lyrics. These guys seem to have a submissive relationship with their sexy teacher.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAVzIZYge_k

"SLAPPING SONG" by CECK UP TWINS

B-side to the above, mixing very Euro synth parts with American sounding slap bass, funk guitar and drums. there were some very good writers and production teams with this stuff. Chop up the first bit of the intro and use it in a hardcore record go on I dare ya

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjRQo6pUqmI

[chveik]

Charlie - Spacer Woman
https://youtu.be/nZDPCjEoIMI

love that one, first heard it on the "I-Robots' compilation (which is ace)

[Harry Badger]

Some great tunes here already - here are a couple of newer takes on the genre.

Currently getting some big airplay on 6music is Jam Fam by Planningtorock https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTnc0rCJ9aY Some lovely Bobby Orlando-esque stabs in there.

This 21-minute epic was the soundtrack to a gay porn short (based on a script by John Gielgud) made by film historian and drug dealer to the world of light entertainment David McGillivray. Morodor and Cowley influenced, this is Trouser Bar Suite by Stephen Thrower https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7fukGOYxGk

Here's some others, possibly (definitely) cribbed from my posts in other Italo threads:

Silver Pozzoli - Around My Dream https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Fs3UcO_JhU
Miko Mission - The World Is You https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THGhHlVm_Gk
Ken Laszlo - Hey Hey Guy https://youtu.be/Mz6EijdvyFw
Jock Hattle - Yes/No Family https://youtu.be/vU-BFHBPa9E
My Mine - Hypnotic Tango https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHvA0QFDoVY
Gibson Brothers - Que Sera Mi Vida - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOqSaNWtlA8
Fun Fun - Colour My Love https://www.discogs.com/Fun-Fun-Color-My-Love/release/666225
Lime - I Don't Wanna Lose You - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6hrkTzBgWU
Azoto - Firefly (the Disco Fizz album is awesome) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNwJ6bYSM8c
Girly - Working Girl - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHOQcCzBEA4
Hotline - Guilty - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOvEWc0C4bk
Alexander Robotnik - Problemes D'amour https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMN9_7tPFCY
Raf - Self Control - https://youtu.be/1_TQjEn6cpQ
Koxo - Step By Step - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnIsjV6mVG0
Elektra - Feels Good (Carrots And Beets) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkjzPuWDBx0

Probably half those links are dead now.

[Harry Badger]

Currently getting some big airplay on 6music is Jam Fam by Planningtorock https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTnc0rCJ9aY Some lovely Bobby Orlando-esque stabs in there.

Wrong link - here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOkudlbmBR0

[Oz Oz Alice]

Girly - Working Girl - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHOQcCzBEA4

This is a standout example of the "we've worked out how to stutter samples so we're going to keep doing it" approach to technology which is why I love all this stuff. Gleefully ignoring any idea of "good taste" (eurgh) to use their new toys.

The Planningtorock track is pretty special as well.