30 Years Ago A DJ Saved My Life: The Re-emergence of Italo Disco

Italo Disco has made a bit of a comeback in the six months, with Glass Candy, Invisible Conga People, Mirage...well the whole Italians Do It Better roster basically. Which is no bad thing, I've long been a fan of 'space disco' (as it used to be called). But what most people seem to forget is that most Italo disco was shit:



'Italo disco', as a term, originated from Germany and this bloke in particular, not Italy.

As cool as it is now, people also don't realise it later morphed in to 'euro disco' and 'Hi-NRG', with Stock, Aitken and Waterman stealing the sound (disco with synths and drum machines basically) for their PWL pop monster. Which was mostly bad.

However, there were some great moments:

Giorgio Moroder 'The Chase'

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Indeep 'Last Night A DJ Saved My Life' (later remixed by Mirage on the After Dark compilation)





I remember when I played Glass Candy at a club I was booked to DJ at in Southend about 3 years ago (it was before GC went disco and still sounded quite no wave), I was asked to stop playing at that point, 15 minutes in to my planned hour long set. Still got paid in full*. So hearing the Glass Candy album 'B/E/A/T/B/O/X/' last year was a bit of a surprise, it sounded like Madonna gone balearic house in places:



I haven't fully got in to the Chromatics album yet, but the After Dark compilation is well worth getting, even just for the Mirage remix of Indeep and this from Farah:



You should also head over to the Italians Do It Better shop and pick up the Tiedye 'Nothing' 12" (a cover of Metallica's 'Nothing Else Matters') and the Invisible Conga People 12" 'Cable Dazed'.


*If you're interested, the other songs I played in that set were 'Get In To The Groove(y)' by Ciccone Youth and 'Fur Immer' by Neu. All dancefloor fillers...