Friday, February 11, 2005
Italo Disco
Came across a great webpage today.
Called Ishkur's Guide to Electronic Music, it is a Flash site that does a great job of explaining the history and classification of electronic music, complete with examples of all the genres for your listening pleasure. From cheesy dance music of the 70s to underground hip-hop to cheesy dance music of the 90s, every type of music that has ever used a drum machine is explained and exhibited here. You can spend hours reading about the genres and subgenres and listening to all of the samples.
I'm a big fan of cheesy music, so I liked a lot of this stuff. If you follow the link and then click on "House", you'll find a category of music called "Italo". It's great. As Ishkur (I guess that's how I'll refer to the proprietor of the site) says, the genre evolved in Europe after Disco had lost its popularity in the States, but all of the artists "sang in English, which is odd because English was universally a second language to them, as evidenced by the fact that the lyrics make no sense and the vocalists have thick accents of indeterminate origin." The first example of Italo contains the lyrics "Now how old are you/ Where is your hardwood [I think]/ How many things to do/ Open the door." Classic!
I also got my fix of Synthpop and Vocal House. Well, almost- I'm still thinking of going on iTunes and downloading some of this stuff. I think I need to add a track or two to RockOut Mix CD. Some thumping beats somewhere after "Come On Eileen" would really get the sweat going.
Hmm...
Called Ishkur's Guide to Electronic Music, it is a Flash site that does a great job of explaining the history and classification of electronic music, complete with examples of all the genres for your listening pleasure. From cheesy dance music of the 70s to underground hip-hop to cheesy dance music of the 90s, every type of music that has ever used a drum machine is explained and exhibited here. You can spend hours reading about the genres and subgenres and listening to all of the samples.
I'm a big fan of cheesy music, so I liked a lot of this stuff. If you follow the link and then click on "House", you'll find a category of music called "Italo". It's great. As Ishkur (I guess that's how I'll refer to the proprietor of the site) says, the genre evolved in Europe after Disco had lost its popularity in the States, but all of the artists "sang in English, which is odd because English was universally a second language to them, as evidenced by the fact that the lyrics make no sense and the vocalists have thick accents of indeterminate origin." The first example of Italo contains the lyrics "Now how old are you/ Where is your hardwood [I think]/ How many things to do/ Open the door." Classic!
I also got my fix of Synthpop and Vocal House. Well, almost- I'm still thinking of going on iTunes and downloading some of this stuff. I think I need to add a track or two to RockOut Mix CD. Some thumping beats somewhere after "Come On Eileen" would really get the sweat going.
Hmm...
