Here you can read about: The genre - The sound

The genre:

The conceptions “Italodance/Italo-disco” was founded in the middle of the 80’s, where one began to made electronic dance music. The genre developed a lot in the end of the 80’s from Italo-disco to Italodance, and gradually more and more European countries realized the genre. In countries like the Nederlands, Germany and Scandinavia the music got popular on the discos.
The genre Italodance was realized from the genre HI-NRG and italo-disco. Then out from Italodance came Eurodance which is a more trancet version of Italodance, especially developed by the Germans .

Up through the 90’s there was plenty of italo-“euro”-dance hits such as Corona, Cappella and Ice MC and in Italy the development of italodance continued. In 1994-95 there was a big change from the Eurodance style. The change developed to the sound we today know from artists like Gigi D’Agostino, Mauro Picotto and Robert Miles. Especially these three guys had big influence on developing the sub-genre of italodance, Mediterreanean Progressive –which nowadays is a big part of italodance. This new sound was lead by the music-genius Gianfranco Bortolotti, who is a producer and the founder of the label Media Records. Bortolotti, who until 1995 had produced a lot of dance-projects, is known as the god-farther of italodance. He produced artists like Cappella, Clubhouse and a lot of other artists including Gigi D’Agostino and Mauro Picotto.

In 1995 Gigi D’Agostino released the single “Fly”, which became a huge hit in Italy, and at the same time as Robert Miles released his world-wide hit “Children”. From there Italodance began to gain much success around Europa again; Everybody loved the new melodic sound from Italy.
Gigi D’Agostino slowly began to become popular in Germany, Nederland and Spain, with huge hits such as “Angels Simphony”, “Gigi’s Violin” and “Elisir”. DJ Molella began producing radio on radio Deejay in 1993 and in 1995 he played the Italian mediterreanean progressive big in Italy by massive airplay. The Germans, who have always been the country who liked italodance the most, apart from Italy, began to copy the sound from the Italians. It was the big German label ZYX who was(and still is) leading in releasing the Italian releases in Germany.

In the end of the 90’s big things started to happen. Prezioso got huge success in Europe with the track “Tell Me Why”. Same for Eiffel65 and their smash hit “Blue” and Mauro Picotto with his commercial productions -and of course Gigi D’Agostino. In Italy other artists like Molella and Paps ‘n’ Skar gained success.

From year 2000, more new artists have arrived on the Italian dance-scene. Artists like Brothers, Gabry Ponte (who went solo from Eiffel65), Hotel Saint George, Floorfilla and DJRoss. Together these artists make out the big elite of italodance in Italy. But the whole time there are coming new artists with new tracks, so these names can probably be switched in a couple of years. But the inspiration of the sound is still the same as in 1995.

The sound:

Many call Italodance for “Childish Techno” – music which are too hard to be ordinary dance and too soft to be Techno. It is a bit hard to specify the italodance-genre 100%, as it sounds today. But is something in between hard dance. Pop and sometimes a little bit of trance.
What makes this genre so special are the sounds and the building of the tracks. A must for a italodance track is first of all a good “Tuba-bass” bassline, after that a theme to get your hands in the air. Atmosphere is also an important key-word. The music should make you think of the warm climate of the south and sun shined-beaches. Some very good examples on how an italodance track should sound are: Gigi D’Agostino – L’amour Toujours, Prezioso – Tell Me Why, Eiffel65 – Blue and Gabry Ponte – Geordie.