Why Is 80s Italo Trendy And 90s Europop Not?

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

The subject line sez it all frankly!

I am assuming - from the evidence of my ears - that the one is no better than the other. How did Italo become such a buzzword? Do you like it? If so why? (Please do not be defensive and assume I do not like it!!)

Comments

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

the age of the young people? ie italo house (OH DERE GOD) before they were actively listening to music, 90s europop (OH MORE DERE GOD) what they danced to at school discos and thus naff for another 5-10 years...

also 80s italo is ALL EXCELLENT and well due a revival innit ;)

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

I'm almost sure it has something to do with my Grand Unified Theory Of Italian Piano House^TM. If only I could remember what it was.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

There's the time factor obv but I'm not sure how untrendy 90s Europop actually is: some of the er sillier stuff (Scatman or Eiffel 65 for instance) may never come back into vogue but I think - esp with the current rave revival - that a lot of it, starting with the more credible stuff like Altern8 but certainly not excluding 2 Unlimited and N-Trance - would go down v well at dance-friendly hipster parties these days.

Confession

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

Can someone explain what Italo is please? Is this stuff like Penguins Invasion (as collected on that great i-robots CD) which sounds more like electro? Or is it more housey?

[koganbot]

The question contains a mismatch, since "80s Italo" and "90s Europop" are not equivalent categorical levels. (Cf. "Why are 80s crickets trendy and 90s insects not?")

But also I cannot answer your question for many other reasons, including that I don't know why (or if) '80s Italo is trendy and I don't why or if '90s Europop isn't trendy, but also I don't know what '80s Italo is, since I discovered '80s Europop (in the '90s!) on old Mexican dance comps I bought in the Mission and Singapore pirate cassettes that I got three for a dollar in Chinatown, and these comps did not indicate where the various tracks had been recorded (some didn't even bother with performer names). Also they would include Brit acts like Hazell Dean and Canadian acts like Tapps and American acts like the Flirts and Sylvester and Divine whose sound clearly fit the mold (may have even helped create it; in fact, a lot of '80s Europop might be described as freestyle lite). Anyway, I still have no idea where Eddy Huntington and Marce and Trans-X and Lou Sern ("Swiss Boy," the yodel answer to "Tarzan Boy") and Magazine 60 and Kinky Co and Click and Ross and Chip Chip and Ken Heaven and Lime made their music, but I'm guessing that it wasn't all in Milan. The Off (Belgians and Germans) were big on these comps. One thing I noticed, though: many of the Mexican compilations were compiled by year (Hits Collection '87 and the like). Starting about 1991 the cassettes got to be way more boring, and this was around the time that house and techno rhythms began working their way into Europop and that rev-it-up bombastic oppressively obvious (and just not all that tuneful) stuff by Black Box and 2 Unlimited began to dominate the collections. So to sum up I would say that '80s Europop that hit in Mexico City and Singapore was way way way better than early '90s Europop that hit in Mexico City and Singapore. I don't really have a sense of '90s Europop. If it means "Everybody Everybody" and "Get Ready For This" it's basically mediocre; if it means "Mambo No. 5" and "Lollipop (Candyman)" then it's fine.

By the way, I once shelled out the bucks for an Italo Disco import compilation and thought the music was a lot drier and duller than the "Bailo Bolero" and "Tarzan Boy" and "1, 2, 3" Italian stuff I loved. Is "Tarzan Boy" typical of "Italo" or is it actually a poppier outpost?

[koganbot]

Radio Disney still plays "Get Ready For This" and "Blue Da Bee" and "Mambo No. 5" regularly. Don't know if this makes those songs trendy or un-.

I'm not thinking of Roxette and Midi, Maxi & Efti and Ace of Base (not to mention Rednex and Backstreet Boys and *NSync) as Europop but as Something Else, though obviously those were European-made pop that hit in Europe.

[kill-yr-idols.livejournal.com]

lot of Italo stuff's very um cosmic or space-y, while I can't think of many equivs in Europop (which has faster BPM + more uh "clarity" in the production?) . . . will have to go & listen to a bunch of 90s Europop when I get off holiday to think this through s'more.

(Did anyone ever do one of those "Rough Guide To..." for it? I think there was a Europoptrance one . . .)