Tears On A Dancefloor

The happy/sadness of Italo Disco

By Ilan Pdahtzur

Amidst the vast expanse of musical ingenuity in the 20th century, the birth of Italo Disco in the 1980s represented a shift in consciousness.

In the preceding decade, Italy had witnessed civil unrest, with waves of violence carried out by left- and right-wing terrorists alike. The kidnap and murder of prime minister Aldo Moro in 1978 sent shockwaves rippling through the nation and beyond; a brutal crescendo to an era of social and political turmoil.

The arrival of the ‘80s, however, signified a chance for change in Italy; a departure from its troubled past and a portal to an imagined future. As the embers of ‘70s disco began to fade, something improvised and inquisitive rose from the ashes. A budding generation of musicians and producers, often reliant on primitive synthesizers and small budgets, began to concoct a new-found sense of hope and possibility through the conduit of music.

On the surface, Italo offered a re-imagined world underpinned by futurism: of spaceships, robots, glamour, expensive suits and sports cars. But buried under this façade lay something delicate and fragile; a sadness that permeates even the most saccharine and upbeat of tracks. Many of the young, hopeful producers and musicians longed to achieve global pop stardom, and yet most disappeared into the ether as quickly as they arrived. Some fell victim to record label mismanagement whilst others were swept aside by the rapidly changing musical trends in Europe. Listen carefully and you can hear the traces of dreams that seemed so attainable but were dashed or never realised.

In retrospect, Italo appears to brim with a number of paradoxes: melancholy and elation, nostalgia and modernity, reality and illusion, the possible and impossible and all the spaces in between. Its ambiguous flirtation with a happy/sadness, intentional or otherwise, has helped to give the genre an enduring and soul-shifting appeal.

Although a near-impossible task, I’ve chosen 25 of my favourite heart-wrenching Italo tunes (in no particular order). These songs are evocative in their own unique way – and all possess a powerful capacity to turn any dancefloor into a whirlpool of emotion; a space where dreams are made and dissipate in a heartbeat.

1. Lame – You’ve Got The Night

2. Mike Rogers – Just a Story

3. No Ties – Lovely Way

4. The Voyagers – Distant Planet

5. Mac Jr – Elephant Song

6. Domina – You Got My Soul

7. Katy Gray – Hold Me Tight

8. Alba – Only Music Survives

9. Shirley Ross – If You Leave Me Now

10. Angie Care – Your Mind

11. Paul Paul – Burn on the Flames

12. Decadance – On and On (Fears Keep On)

13. M Like Moon – Sunlight

14. G.J. Lunghi – Acapulco Nights

15. Amin Peck – Suicidal

16. East Wall – Eyes of Glass

17. Ranko – Happy World

18. Valerie Dore – The Night / Get Closer

19. Karl Olivas – Follow Me

20. Sensitive – Driving

21. Venise – Roissy

22. Massimo Vita – Jenny

23. Savage – Radio / Don’t Cry Tonight

24. Helicon – You… See

25. Myxoma – Don’t Runaway

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You can find Ilan’s musical discoveries here. He’s also been behind two perfect compilations: Night City Life I and Night City Life II. Bless him.

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