Italo Disco
My introduction to Italo Disco came during the early to mid-1980s from club mixtapes, Scout Hall discos, High Energy and Eurobeat compilations, and the Carlton Ice Rink on a Saturday afternoon.
Once I was at a debatable club-going age (14 thanks to my height), I heard some of this music in its proper environment: a packed nightclub with pounding bass, flashing lights, and smoke.
Oddly, I’ve never been a massive fan of Italo Disco. It was an unavoidable part of the scene in the mid-to-late 80s in Johannesburg. Certain clubs played more of it than others, but there were always a few tracks played almost everywhere. Some songs even made it onto radio and charted in South Africa: Silver Pozzoli – Around my Dream, Fun Fun – Colour my Love, Ryan Paris – Dolce Vita, Righeria – Vamos a la Playa, and Baltimora’s Tarzan Boy to name a few.
San Lorenzo, Qs, Top Club, and The Dome of Carlton were a few of the clubs I went to (often only once) where Italo Disco was prevalent. There were also events at the Italian Club that likely played massive amounts. I never went to any of these because I wasn’t Italian* or a member of the club, and by 1988, I was already in goth-lite mode, having discovered a whole new world of music that pushed me to places like Le Club and The Junction.
While putting the finishing touches to this playlist, some of it reminded me of being abused or chased by occupants of Alfas and XR6s while walking innocently through town on my way to, or back from work or a night out. Wearing all black with Docs or pointy shoes were blind triggers for some, and I dodged many a tossed bottle or pointless street chase. It was always Italo Disco banging from the Kenwoods cut into the backboards. Some tracks still bring back visions of snow denim jeans, tan moccasins sans socks (with the little dangling double tassel in the front), tucked-in golf shirts, gold chains, one earring in the left ear, mini-mullets, and Paco Rabanne Pour Homme.
Not all Italo Disco is/was strictly Italian or listened to by Italians. The sound was picked up by producers and groups in Germany, France, and Spain starting in the late 70s and found fanatical dancefloors all over Northern Europe. One article claimed that mainstream Italian audiences had no idea what Italo Disco was and that some of the biggest artists couldn’t speak English. Some ‘artists’ were often just fronts for the producers and labels, sometimes not even signing on the records (read: models with made-up names who looked good on the sleeves to sell singles, not something unique to Italo). Either way, these tracks found their way around Europe, and into Johannesburg clubs via the DJs who played them purchased from the stores who imported them. Some were then picked up by local labels and licensed for compilations that spread beyond the clubs. One important but overlooked source of dance/club records in the late 70s/early 80s were air hostesses who would bring back the biggest releases from the US and Europe each week. Those club DJs with SAA connections got big tracks months before they hit the mainstream.
Fast forward to the late 1990s and early 2000s, and while working on the labels and distro side of the music business, there was a resurgence in demand for early 80s club music. It was now hard to find, as all the SA compilations were out of print and never re-licensed for CD. We used to deal with a few distributors in the UK and Germany and managed to import a bunch of High Energy and Italo Disco compilations (mostly from the ZYX label from Germany). We also found a bunch of companies that dealt in cut-outs or deletions and came across old dance CD Singles and compilations that didn’t do well in those countries at a fraction of the price. Music stores we supplied couldn’t get enough. It was around this time that I started trying to collect (for posterity, of course) all the High Energy and Italo Disco tracks I could remember that I liked. Some were only ever released on vinyl, and I tracked down DJs who still had them and got them digitised (DAF – The Gun, being a track I searched for forever and eventually found), while also managing to pick up some of the original 12”s.
Later, with the launch of digital services – specifically iTunes, and later Apple Music and Spofity et al – much of this music became easily available. Many labels went on a re-release drive digitising their older catalogues and making them accessible. Even my beloved DAF track was eventually re-issued despite the ZZ Top sample. Whatever hasn’t been officially re-issued can often be found on YouTube uploaded by purists and collectors.
If you’ve got this far, thanks and well done! May I present my ITALO DISCO playlist featuring my most memorable tracks from Johannesburg nightclubs of the 80s.
I’ve added a few older but influential tracks for reference like Gino Soccio and Cerrone, and then mixed in some later radio hits that are not strictly Italo, but were influenced by the genre (like Modern Talking, Spagna, and Samantha Fox).
Standout tracks for me were those that were part of my early youth growing up in Kensington and Rhodes Park. I still clearly remember listening to Ken Lazlo’s ‘Hey Hey Guy’ on my Walkman in 1985 while speeding down the grassy bank at Rhodes Park toward the lake on my BMX. The sound was so big, that it sounded like it was coming out of giant speakers in the sky.
Other notable standouts (for me at least) on this playlist are Fun Fun, Koto, Valerie Dore, Fancy, The Twins, and Mike Maureen. I tend to favour the earlier era, rather than the more commercial releases from 87 onwards. Same goes for High Energy in general.
For a more detailed musical history of Italo Disco, check out this great article.
*It has recently transpired that I’m actually of Italian descent. We’re talking 8th generation removed traced back to one of the church painting Latilla brothers from Napoli who left for England in the late 1700s. The soccer team I’m meant to support is doing quite well I’m told…
As always, thanks to Andrew Wood and Gary van Riet who officially brought us these tracks via the High Energy and Eurobeat compilations. Unofficially, I have to thank all the DJs and clubs whose tapes I managed to get hold of via older friends. Those mixtapes from Mandy’s, ZIPPS, and Scants were like gold.
Thanks also to Paul Almeida who was the DJ at the Carlton Ice Rink, and gave us pre-clubbing age teens a taste of the nightclub experience. I never knew Paul personally back then but knew him via Top Club and all his dance releases over the years. We only met in 2008 and discovered our shared love for early dance music.
Thanks to Fiona O’Connor for the amazing playlist artwork. It really screams Italo Disco in Johannesburg in the 80s!