Italo disco

Italo disco is a musical marketing term introduced in 1983 by Bernhard Mikulski, the founder of

Italo disco is a musical marketing term introduced in 1983 by Bernhard Mikulski, the founder of ZYX Music. The term applied to Italian electronic dance music of the 1980s and to music from other parts of Europe and from North America that imitated the sound thereof. A typical Italo-disco song had contrasting verse-chorus form, had synthesizer based accompaniment and was usually sung in English by European artists.

Electronic dance music started to develop in the late 1970s when traditional sounding disco bands began to experiment with synthesizers and other electronic effects. This early form of electronic dance music is unofficially called "space disco" due to its odd sounds and sci-fi stylings. One of the main influences during this period was the producer Giorgio Moroder, as well as the cynical styles of such electropop acts as Telex, Devo, and Gary Numan, and the early Hi-NRG albums released by San Francisco producer Patrick Cowley with such singers as Sylvester and Paul Parker.