Remember how I was supposed to schedule out a couple posts for both mine and your convenience? Yeah, well life has a funny way of turning things around on you, so some IRL things have gotten in the way. But I ain't here to mope, I've been keeping notes for a little while about the semi-annual Valentine's post and now is the time to deploy them. This year, I've chosen to fully embrace the kitsch - we have a cross section of throwback French Touch, some Italo Disco and of course, a little Eurobeat to finish.
Burhan Doğançay - Sweet Hearts (1972)
If you're in need of a little pep in your step, this here post will do it for you. Kicking off with a refreshed relic of a time long past, long time readers of the blog will maybe remember Power Glove Records, headed by former writer Boba (who is still active, now under the name LUIN). I've been meaning to do a sort of recap post on the releases of PGR for a while - they're not hard too hard to find as you might expect given their age and netlabel status, but embedding them can be a little tricky. Luckily I've found (what I presume is) a reconstruction using the same samples over on Bandcamp. Subtly different from the original, but a prime piece of that 'French Touch' revival era.
Speaking of retro relics, Italian label Goody Music Records and its eventual offshoots and sub-labels have been doing a fantastic job of making tons of their catalogue available over on Bandcamp. Originally from 1982, Capricorn's I Need Love got the re-release/re-master treatment in 2019 - actually Claudio Simonetti of Goblin fame indulging in his disco side. It's quite a bit different from other 'Italo' stuff I've posted before, there's definitely more of an Electro thing going on here, which actually does wonders to make it feel pretty fresh. Behind the skeletal electronics there's some real funky bassline work going on which is a joy to listen to.
And of course, we can't have a loved-up post without some Eurobeat. It's almost cheating really, you can pick pretty much any Eurobeat release and find a tune with the word in the title - I actually put this to the test with the Eurokudos series below, I think of all of them that I opened there were only 1 or 2 without a single track containing the word 'love', and that's not counting the lyrical content. Eurobeat really does wear its heart on its sleeve: it has but one purpose - to be supremely catchy and invite you to dance, as you might expect from a genre evolved from Disco. And it succeeds a lot of the time, good luck getting the main vocal hook from this one out of your head anytime soon. Granted it can sometimes be a little too bubblegum sweet, but I think this one hits a nice balance between the two.
And that'll be all for today, a little shorter than I originally intended but I'm pretty happy with the selections, and I'm trying to get this one down ASAP before something else unexpected comes my way again. Still, I'll be back when I get a minute, even if it's just to share one single track. Hope you all have a lovely love day, especially with these tunes to accompany you. Until next time, as always, stay safe and enjoy the music.
Started writing a big in-depth Retro Review post only to find the record in question isn't being re-released for a couple of months yet. Oops. With my plans thoroughly scuppered I decided to throw together a quick one to tide us over - not a dive into my final Bandcamp pickups this time, but more bits and pieces that I sort of skipped over at the time.
Ken Danby - Charter (1978)
A little more Italo to kick off - I've been trying to not overdo it when it comes to the genre, it can be easy to have too much too quick as I found out with its eventual evolution in Eurobeat. But that love is easily transferable between the two - I like to joke that Eurobeat is just Italo but faster but there is a lot of truth to it. But I digress, I think a lot of Italo is just plain fun to listen to, even when (and especially when) it gets a little dated like on this one here. Truth be told I still think Notte Divina that I posted before is the best of the first volume of obscure tracks, but I like this one a whole lot too.
Taking a bit of a turn in genre next, it's been a hot minute since I talked about Gerard Hanson and his work under the E.R.P. moniker - its fast become some of my favourite electronic in my collection. The spacey electro really captures my favourite elements of the stuff Warp was putting out in the early 90's for the Artificial Intelligence series, most specifically the work of B12. It's all lovely stuff, but I never really covered the more electro-leaning parts of the discography. Part one of the Evoked Potentials series is best at demonstrating this, both tracks err more on the electro front than the spacey tech I mentioned above - that feel is still there of course, most prominently on the intro of Sensory Process but this time it's much more the way of say Drexciya, or the one Elektroids album if you want to keep it in the Warp family - with perhaps a touch of Dopplereffekt for that slightly darker edge - all of which share a common link in the form of Gerald Donald!
Returning to commuting after so long and getting an upgrade in storage capacity on my daily driver phone has meant a resurgence in Returning to commuting after so long and getting an upgrade in storage capacity on my daily driver phone has meant a resurgence in all things musical on my side, and that's where Swayzak come in. Snowboarding In Argentina keeps the techy theme going, Bueno has been a recent hit for me, its driving tech house that really helps keep the momentum up when hoofing it around - helped further by the fact that the shortest track on this album is still 7:30. Between this and a recent pickup from the final Bandcamp Friday that I haven't talked about yet, I'm enjoying a bit of a Tech House renaissance so expect more like this to come soon.
And that'll be all for now, not too bad for something I whipped up last minute with no plan I don't think. Shame that the Retro Review has had to go on the back burner but it'll have its time to shine eventually. I'll come back around with more selections soon enough but until then, as always, stay safe and enjoy the music.
It's that time again - here's my BC Friday roundup for March. A slightly weird one this time (but they all are to an extent), no massive diversions like the past though. Slightly disheartened by the announcement they did re: the merger with Epic Games because I think they are a bit of a shitty corporation first and foremost, but also because I worry about corporate intrusion into what was one of the best independent music platforms out there, historically things have a nasty habit of turning sour when acquisition happens. But I'm not going to let that overshadow the post too much, I thought it deserved a mention though. Let's take a look inside my digital bag then shall we?
Hasui Kawase - Tsuchizaki, Akita (1928)
I actually remembered to check my email the day of the Friday this time around, though there weren't as many new release notifications as there have been in previous months, it still highlighted some interesting stuff. Enter LNS - I picked up her entire discography a couple months back and I've been keeping an eye out ever since for more. She dropped a solitary single in Misiats, the title track from the EP of the same name that should be coming out later this year on Counter 99 - though according to LNS herself it was recorded a couple of years ago. If you caught any LNS on my previous posts you sort of know what to expect going into this one, a culmination of her influences - the bandcamp page is tagged with Techno, IDM, Electro and Ambient, each of which you can hear show it's influence throughout parts of this single. It's based around a Ukrainian folk song "Oy, ty misyatsyu / Ой, ти місяцю", I recommend checking out the Bandcamp page as LNS goes into more detail and shares more of her personal experience. All proceeds for this release go to the World Central Kitchen charity.
Other than that, I picked up a ton of Italo Disco records, I've been following the Goody Music bandcamp for a while now - it's a publishing label that's doing great work in not only re-releasing a ton of vintage Italo records but also remastering them too. My favourites have been the ones under the Mr. Disc sublabel - home to stone cold classics such as Charlie's Spacer Woman. It's a real treasure trove of grooves, if you're looking to begin exploring the world yourself, Mr. Disc have helpfully put togetehr a couple of compilations of Obscure Tracks to help you along. They're a great starting point in all honesty, it took me a long time to really branch out into Italo just becuase there is so much of it (and some of it is of questionable quality to boot). Look no further than track 1 of this compilation to set you on the path, a slightly later addition than any previous Italo I've covered, Notte Divina was originally released in 1990, but it's still full of my favourite elements of Italo. Catchy melodies and Piano stabs aplenty in this one, this is an instrumental version of the track which really brings all of that to the forefront too.
I mentioned they do a lot of re-issuing and remastering as well, a lot of times on re-releases they'll also include some more modern mixes in addition to the originals. These mixes are usually pretty good in their own right, they don't re-tool the formula of the original too much or needlessly try to shoehorn it into another genre. A lot of the time it's pretty much the original track with a fresh coat of paint and some subtle switch ups to keep the variety going. Such is the case on the Heritage mix of Dharma's Plastic Doll - given a slightly more House-y feel and extended out a minute longer than the original. It's a nice take on it, I feel like it'd be very easy to go too 'Nu-disco' with these mixes, but each one I've heard so far has been fairly faithful. It's a great thing they're doing with the labels to make these old records more readily available again, the market for some of them on vinyl has been ridiculously inflated so it's nice to be able to get hold of them legitimately in some form, even if it is only digital.
And finally, as promised on my last post - I did in fact get some Rei Harakami and Susumu Yokota. For Harakami I actually went backwards from the one I posted - I've had a partial copy of Opa*q for years that I can't even remember how I picked up but suffice to say it wasn't the best quality, so I figured it was high time to put that right. While my favourite is still [Lust], Opa*q is still a great place to start when it comes to Harakami's work - it's his second album so the sounds are already beginning to get more refined and you can in fact hear bits of what would become his later works on here too. There's plenty of good tracks to choose from, but to perfectly summarise his style, you can do no better than 300ml (Milk).
Dig out your headphones for the intro, it kicks off with a left-right pan of what would become that trademark electronic piano sound - and from there it only goes from strength to strength. A quality piece of that late 90's - early 00's 'downtempo' kind of sound, though a little bit more techy sounding than most examples I've posted of that in the past. Harakami's work is also a little bit more... quirky than that too, these tracks are full of fun, almost circuit bent melodies. If you're like me and really dig the style of tracks like this, and the more downtempo Poof, the immediately set sail for his later works, as that would become the staple of his works.
For Yokota's entry, I decided to go with one of the more Harakami-esque bits from Love Or Die - A Song Produced While Floating Alone On Christmas Day is of that similar school, with a very IDM style melodic streak to it. The intro is absolutely lovely, but in true Yokota fashion, it's not long before some surprisingly heavy kicks come into the mix, evoking his House & Techno roots. Don't let that dissuade you though, when the main melody comes back into the mix around the minute mark it fast made it's way onto my favourites list. A very cozy addition to the slightly eclectic tracklist.
As I mentioned before the Discogs page for this one is very misleading, Yokota explores a ton of genres across the runtime of Love Or Die, from the House of the track in question, to Trip Hop on the final track The Destiny For The Little Bird Trapped Inside A Small Cage For Life, to a whole Drum & Bass styled piece in The Scream Of A Sage Who Lost Freedom And Love Taken For Granted Before. And yet the whole thing still feels very cohesive, on paper it might sound a bit all over the place but in practice that's not the case. Another interesting addition to the man's very expansive release catalogue, one that you'll no doubt hear more about as I continue to work my way through it.
And that'll be all for today, a slightly extended one this time, but it's been a while since I wrote so it was nice to get all stretched out again. I even managed to line up a couple more for next month's Friday as well, with it being a longer month as well it shouldn't be as much of a scramble this time. I've got my eye on a couple of other things that I might cover in the meantime as well so I should be back before long - hope you've found some things to pique your interest here today and as always - stay safe and enjoy the music.
Maria Primachenko - Father Frost Carries the New-Year Tree (1960)
Another year, another calendar to file away in a drawer. We made it! And I thought I'd celebrate the traditional ilictronix way: a random smattering of tracks from a variety of genres. Not going to be as long as previous years I don't think just because I'm writing this the morning of, but the spirit is there nonetheless.
Let's start with something a little older (shocking, I know) - I dug out the first Commix album a little while ago when a co-worker was asking me from some Drum & Bass recommendations, they liked some liquid funk stuff but found a lot of it to be quite same-y which I can totally understand. I went a little deep with some of the cuts but also put some general must haves in there too, and Commix's first LP is certainly one of the latter. Coming from Goldie's Metalheadz label, it's among good company in the world of D&B, but it can be a little tricky to get into anything from the 'headz as there is an absolute ton of material to get through given how long they've been around - not the worst problem to have but it is a factor. As for Commix, I've chosen the opening track Be True this time around, but there are plenty of massive tunes on it to get stuck into - it's not quite my favourite from the album, that would be Emily's Smile, but it's misspelled on the Bandcamp page and it irks me a bit. Still, what a bloody fantastic way to open an album eh?
Going even older this time around with some Mijk Van Dijk. I fell in love with his brand of techno a few years ago now and I find his stuff a little underrated in my personal opinion, not every track is golden but those of them that are have quickly become mainstays in my rotations. Which brings me back around to that opening point, I keep tabs on Mijk's bandcamp as it has slowly grown over time, it's very far from a full discography but I imagine it's a minefield of defunct labels and super old releases the man himself might not even have access to anymore - not to mention the issue he'd probably have with putting up his tracks from Ridge Racer and Armored Core. Still, he's managed to get some of the big ones on there, including 1996's The Wildlife, released as Mijk's Magic Marble Box. It ain't my favourite from the man but still a jam, I've gone with his own remix of the title track this time - it's not too dissimilar from the original mix, a little slower though. Partially the bias I have from it being included on a great mix compilation of his works called Multi-Mijk but also because the little touches he brings to the remix highlight what I really love about Mijk's works
You know what? Let's go even older still and get some proper full on Italo Disco in there. I wouldn't say I've gained a new appreciation for the genre this year, but I have certainly got my hands on more of it than ever before - that was a deliberate choice on my part as my love for Eurobeat is very well documented at this point - and to oversimply it, modern Eurobeat is pretty much Italo with a much faster BPM, and the early Eurobeat releases are pretty indistinguishable from Italo anyway. We're getting off topic there though, I'll echo what I've said about this one in the past, Spacer Woman stands out in its field because it sounds surprisingly modern given the original is from 1983. Perhaps not like 'released last week' modern as it's betrayed by the vocals a little bit, but certainly wouldn't sound out of place on an early 00's International Deejay Gigolos or similar compilation. I adore tracks like these as well because of that futuristic edge to them, which sounds a bit silly to say now but imagine hearing this in '83, I was fascinated with the wild sounds of electronic music from an early age, and tracks like this are a perfect demo of the kind of sound that set me on this path.
Yet more from ThorHighHeels this time, I keep wanting to post some things from their soundtrack to Umurangi Generation but the main OST is not on Bandcamp I don't think. Still, some tracks from it appear on Positive Yellow, which itself is a fantastic release - I'm linking to the version on bandcamp with a couple of bonus tracks and not the original this time, there's no real difference between the two otherwise. As I've said before, Positive Yellow is a love letter to the early days of 3D, that wild west kind of time where electronic music and low polygon counts collided on the fifth generation consoles. I am obviously mad for this one, as a young'un a lot of my exposure to electronic music beyond my parent's collections was through my PS1 - I think THH has done a great job of capturing that style without it feeling too pandering, they very clearly have a lot of love for this era too and have done a great job of exploring the different styles of the era. All the while still giving it that slightly tongue in cheek feel that they bring to their video work - if track titles like PIRATE_RIP_GHETTOBASS or ':)' didn't tip you off.
Some more from LNS now, this time going back to the first I'd heard from her in Recons One from the EP of the same name. It's a fantastic introduction to her works, one that gets surprisingly ambient at multiple points too. The opening and title track is pretty far from that though, starting out like a regular electro record from the get go - but when that big stab hit at about 14 seconds in, I knew I was in love, and less than a week later I'd scooped her entire digital discography. I just love the hi-tech vibe here, it was just so different to all the other old school style electro I was listening to at the time - and the way it adds additional layers on every 'loop' is just great too and keeps things feeling fresh throughout. I haven't managed to talk about LNS as much as I would have liked this year but I have listened to these EPs plenty - I'll be sure to take a deep dive into what's been released since and report back with my findings to make up for that though!
A little bit of a repeat of last year this time with another from Yuzo Koshiro's soundtracks to Wangan Midnight Maximum Tune. The series of albums is a properly massive treasure trove of trance that I've had a consistent fling with for a couple of years now, I just haven't talked about it much as only 5 & 6 were available on streaming, along with a re-issue of 4. The later entries of the series are still fine, they do start to stray from pure trance though, dabbling a little in Drum & Bass and even Hardstyle in parts. I played the hell out of one of those hardstyle-style ones last summer with Don't Stop - so when I saw the expansion to 6's OST released, it should surprise no one that my favourite was instantly Happy Moment. Leaving all pretences of being hardstlye-like behind, this one is absolutely 100% cut from that cloth - it's just so unabashed I can't help but like it. Not a genre I'd say I was too into in regular times but man I've been really jamming out to this one over the past month or so.
And finally, right on time same as every year, we have The Knife. I do my best to include this on every new year's roundup, as not only is it apt but I will take any and all chances to shine a light on their soundtrack for Hannah Med H that this is taken from. This is them in all their Deep Cuts era glory, down to the steel pan as heard on Pass This On, it was never included on any other album so you'll have to pick up the full Hannah Med H Soundtrack if you want it, some tracks from it were included on re-issues of their first album but this one is an exclusive. That's not a bad thing at all as it's full of great songs, and it's now really easy to come by now they're on Bandcamp.
And that'll do it for this year, it's been pretty wild but I've managed to keep to my word about being a little more reliable posting here. That should continue into '22, I've had a few tech gremlins on the backend I might have to look into as it seems my strategy of 'it all works just leave it alone and it'll be fine' is starting to fall apart a bit. I also have been neglecting the republishing side quite a bit because I've gotten to the point where the posts I'm fixing are all unformatted and it's a real pain to untangle the mess of code and text so it's readable. But otherwise things should carry on as normal, and you don't come here to hear me vent so I'll wrap it up here!
Thank you all for reading - and as always, stay safe and enjoy the music.
Making good on my promise from a few weeks back to expand more into the Italo Disco world - but a little different this time. I've made a big show of the inherent cheese that is present in all Italo Disco and its eventual evolution in Eurobeat, and it's an element I do love in a completley un-ironic way, however I am also aware it's very much not for everyone. So today I bring you some Italo that I think is quite far removed from that.
The vocal version might suffer a little from that classic Italo/Eurobeat pitfall of the lyrics being written by non-native speakers, but otherwise I find Spacer Woman to be much more modern sounding than the Italo I've posted before - slightly ironic as I think it'll be the oldest example I've pulled up, originally released in 1983, but I figure that might also be a factor in how different it is - it avoids a lot of Italo clichés because those they hadn't had chance to become cliché yet. I absolutely adore the spacey feel of this one, it's almost in that same 'space-synth' category as bands like... well, Space of Magic Fly fame, the way the pitch bends on the repeating melody is to die for.
I actually found this one years ago on a Vitalic mix on a complation called Colette N°7 and recently unearthed it again as I sail those Italo waters once again. At the risk of repeating myself, it does sound quite modern considering - and it's perfectly at home on Vitalic's mix of his various influences, if you're a fan of his you'll probably be able to hear some similarities here and there. I saw some folk complain about the vocal but I personally like it, while lovely, the instrumental can get a little stale over the 7 minutes. Thankfully both the instrumental and vocal are included on the single so you can have both!
And that'll be all for this time, another time where these small posts have paid off becuase it gives me a chance to talk about tracks I've been in love with recently without worrying abiut sound cohesion with 2-3 other tunes. That and who knows if I could find other Italo tracks on Bandcamp. Spacer Woman is actually a pretty popular tune and even had a new EP of reworks put out this year that you can find on that Bandcamp as well, they're pretty faithful to the original from what I've heard - no super wild genre flips that don't really fit or anything like that. It's also pretty heartwarming to see a label so old embrace Bandcamp as well, a lot of these older Italo and Eurobeat releases can be tricky to get your hands on legitimately otherwise. And finally, as always, stay safe and enjoy the music.
Another quick one this time that's been brewing for a while, going to have to be Youtube players just because we're going a little deep this time but I can deal with it every now and then. Today we're taking a trip back to a genre I've given plenty of shout-outs to over the years as it is the precursor to one of my favourites in Eurobeat - Today we're talking some Italo Disco.
Giorgio Moroder (minus trademark moustache) illustrating the vibe. Though Moroder made straight up Disco and not Italo!
But even if you're not into Eurobeat, Italo has a lot of relevance to electronic music on the whole, it along with plain old Disco were both partially responsible for House too. Don't be discouraged either if all you've heard of Eurobeat is the sugary sweet 160bpm side of it that I've brought up in the past, the truth is that it runs the full spectrum of tempos, and the early examples that people point to as the initial Eurobeat releases are incredibly similar to Italo as it was.
To start off, here's an early example from Vanessa, one of many aliases of a one Clara Moroni who would go on to co-found one of the big labels of Eurobeat in Delta and more than earn her reputation as the Queen of Eurobeat - she's featured her vocals on literally hundreds of tracks over the years. Moroni's voice is one of those cases where a vocalist and genre are just perfect for each other, her delivery and overall style perfectly suit both these more Disco style tracks, to the full fledged Eurobeat of tracks like Tell Me Baby (though admittedly some Eurobeat tracks are just Italo with the BPM increased, so that makes sense!). Back to the song in question though, Just A Game is from 1989 originally and has all the hallmarks of Italo Disco as well as parts of the contemporary dance music sphere of the late 80's to early 90's.
The use of really plain pseudonyms in Italo and Eurobeat has always been amusing to me, you have artists like Chiara De Pieri choosing things like 'Norma Sheffield' as their stage names, which would sound more at home in a bingo hall than on a Disco record. Which brings us to Katy Gray - who you'll find nothing about on the internet save for the picture that was included on the sole EP released under that name. And even then, that could not even be a picture of the actual vocalist, as Eurobeat and Italo have the slightly concerning practice of using different models for the visuals than the vocals. But I digress, out of the small pool of Italo I have in my collection, Hold Me Tight might be one of my all time favourites - it's a bit of a cult hit that you might recognise from elsewhere: it was given a Vaporwave treatment by Oneohtrix Point Never & Joel Ford on the first volume of their 'Heaven Can Wait' mixtapes, and the vocoded vocal and break at 2:40 among other elements were sampled by Teenage Bad Girl on 'Hold Me Tight' from their second album Backwash. The original track is great on it's own for me, but I really like showing off those samples of it as I think it makes the connection between Disco and other branches of Electronic music all that more clear.
That trend is going to continue with my final two picks, both from Gary Low. You might know of Low's work from the oft-sampled I Want You, most famously getting a chillwave rework from Washed Out on Feel It All Around, but also a more contemporary House update in the early 00's from Miss Kittin & The Hacker with The Beach. But I've told that story a bunch already, so I've gone ahead and picked out some other Gary Low tunes for this time - starting with Play The Game (I'll Do The Same). I'm going to echo what I said earlier and say that coming back to this one after consuming a ton of Eurobeat over the last year and a half or so makes the genealogy all that more clear. Likewise for a multitude of other genres as well, listen to the basslines on this one and compare them to the House of the late 80's and you can draw a line between the two. I find the whole thing quite charming, especially the warm vinyl crackle on the opening. I can't deny there is a bit of humour in it though, get a load of Gary's pensive steely eyed look (naturally making sure to flash the watch as well) on the cover of this one!
To round us out, the opening track from Low's debut album Go On in 1983. I feel like the House connections are even easier to spot on this one, especially on the opening. It does meander a bit with it's 7 minute runtime, especially as the verses disappear in favour of repeated bits of the chorus, I feel like even repeating the first two a couple more times would have done wonders to spice it up a bit. But I suppose that's just a casualty of hearing it out of its intended context, I'm sure it went down a treat on the dancefloors of 1983. Even so, the final quarter where the instrumentals get a moment to shine makes up for it a bit - the showcase of retro sounds is an absolute treat to listen to, and is actually the part that inspired me to finally sit down and write this post up in full. I definitely need more Italo in my collection, I've yet to come across any that I don't really care for - but it's one of those genres that is incredibly vast, I've got Ishkur's (of Electronic Music Guide fame) mixes lined up to listen to sometime soon which I'm hoping will give me some leads to follow up on and maybe do a sequel to this post as well.
I actually came up with the original idea for this post back in the days of the podcast, it was originally going to lead into that oft-promised Eurobeat episode of mine. I still might make a solo podcast of it sometime soon where I run through some Eurobeat in chronological order so you can see/hear the evolution - Claude's Eurobeat Essentials it was going to be called! Still, I'm more than happy for this quick history to be in text format instead, I just wish I had other streaming options to include. Regardless, I hope this little time travelling trip has been interesting for you and maybe you've even gained a little love of Italo Disco along the way. Until next time, as always, stay safe and enjoy the music.
Thought I'd be a little late on this one but I think I'm going to pull it out of the bag. It's been a... strange week so far, between going back to work proper (on a limited basis) and the 3-4 days of intense heat back to back it's all been slightly surreal. It doesn't help I am one who intensely dislikes heat because I find it incredibly uncomfortable, but that's where the comfort songs come in. It's times like this I turn back to Eurobeat; It is pretty hard to be super mad or ornery when you've got the 160bpm lovechild of disco courtesy of Japan and Italy in your ears. And over the past few months I've been carefully slipping my toe back into the world of it because I decided I needed more, and yet I'm still constantly surprised with how shall we say unique the album art looks. Tracks after:
This is probably the best one of the bunch, I quite like it actually
Like so many other genres and songs I like it has become a bit of a meme in recent times but like I always say in these cases, I don't mind how people discover electronic music, if they like what they hear (ironically or no) then that's all good. And really I can understand that when it comes to Eurobeat, it's absolutely full to bursting with cliché lyrics (that often don't make sense as they're written by non-native speakers), some incredibly forced rhymes and sickly sweet synths. And yet despite it all, I can't help but like it, it does what it sets out to do well and doesn't pretend to be any deeper than that. We're not going to dive into the deep end yet, I thought I'd start off with a much more conventional one; I reckon you could turn Turn The Beat Around into a house track with a couple of small tweaks, or at least make a solid cover using the base elements. I will say get ready to hear extremely similar synths throughout the next few selections, it's a recurring staple of the genre.
Something I do like about Eurobeat is that unlike say your Euphoric Trance or similar, there are actually plenty of male vocalists in the genre too, my favourite of which being Christian Codenotti's work under the Ace alias, where you can definitely hear the Italo influence. This compilation doesn't show that off too well unfortunately and has a 70/30 split of vocals, but that Italo influence is definitely still there; Time After Time is an impassioned song about someone who seemingly can't make their mind up about someone, the choruses ending with "I don't need you in my life" while the verses are all loved-up which strikes me as very Disco-like in concept. Additionally, like Disco, the pop structure is also very evident here. Which is fine, but I would very much like a bit more of those post-chorus instrumentals. There are some pretty cool breaks in the last quarter though which do scratch that itch a bit though.
And finally one track from the sequel compilation. Vol. 4 in comparison to 3 is much more guilty of the sin of cheese but I have been absolutely relishing in it. I've been rotating through 4-5 tracks from Volume 4 that are intensely catchy, what's doing it right now is the machine gun rhythm of the chorus on Too Smart To Get My Heart. It's just an absolute blast to listen to, catch me in the shower vogue-ing and singing along to the few lyrics I can concretely make out. It's a fantastic injection of energy if you're having a pretty slow morning. I'm very aware by this point this is a very selfish post and that these eurobeat jaunts are potentially more alienating than when I go on about Ambient for pages at a time, but I hope this has brought a little levity to you wherever you are, even if it's just to have a giggle at the Eurobeat in all it's kitschy glory.
And with that, I'll be back soon with something a little more palatable. But as I mentioned above I hope that if you are reading this that you are well. And as always, stay safe and enjoy the music.
It's high time I make good on a promise I made on the podcasts all that time ago. It's not been intentionally delayed or anything, but now feels like the right time to do it, so join me as we take a trip into the world of Eurobeat. Okay, so part of the delay was me waiting for a decent amount to become available to stream legally, a weird thing about Eurobeat is that the copyright folk are VERY active and regularly take down videos and the like. With that out of the way, a little background:
The logo of one of the big players in the Eurobeat world, Super Eurobeat. Should give you an idea of what you're in for!
For those of you not aware, Eurobeat is the final evolution of some very specific genres. As I mentioned on the podcast, it's actually really interesting to hear the roots of the original genres in Eurobeat. It starts as many good electronic genres do in Disco, which split off into many different directions including House, Synthpop and most crucial to our tale today; Italo Disco.
Italo Disco, as the name implies is Disco, but with an Italian twist. Now truth be told I don't have much Italo in my collection (that's a rabbit hole to go down another day), but the ones I do know off the top of my head are pretty solid; tunes like Gary Low's I Want You for example. There's definitely an element of cliché to the proceedings, but ironically that cliché vibe is what helped it spawn one of my other favourite genres in Electroclash. But I digress, Italo Disco started to wane in popularity by the early 90's: enter its successor, the titular Eurobeat.
Taking it's cues from the above, mixed with a little Hi-NRG and so mixed in for good measure (and some questionable graphic design, see below). I'm going to quote a line from Ishkur's original Guide To Electronic Music here which echoes my opinions on Eurobeat pretty nicely: "Unlike other genres, Eurobeat knows what its limitations are. It's not trying to save the world or convert anyone over to its (...) sped-up cheese". Which when I read made a bunch of things suddenly click, especially when twinned with my new outlook of there being no guilty pleasures, you like what you like. (Saying that, once again I am adding to the list of genres/songs I like that have been memed to death!)
An example of a typical Super Eurobeat compilation cover, they all follow a similar format!.
But that is pretty much how I feel about Eurobeat. Is it cheesy at times? yeah totally, but it does what it means to do and does it well. I can enjoy it and still have the occasional chuckle at the lyrics and the absolute audaciousness of some of those synths from time to time (bonus points if you play a bit of Eurobeat Bingo too!) With that, here is a cross section of some of my favourite Eurobeat (that I can find on spotify).
I distinctly remember listening to this one for the first time, mainly because it took my interest in the genre from a passing thing I might right about to something that I could really see myself enjoying. Looking back at it analytically now, it hits the same buttons for me as late 90's trance euphoria does, no doubt helped by that pop structure to the songs themselves. Funnily enough it sounds very much more 90's than I remember back then but if you remember Myself and Adam's musings on the subject, that's not a bad thing at all!
Further to that, Burning Up For You hits all those same notes in fantastic fashion (also for some reason all the titles on Spotify are in all caps). It's energy is also part of the reason that my commuting music has consisted a potentially unhealthy dose of Eurobeat, it most definitely wakes you up and it's pretty hard to be too mad at delays or what have you with this in your ears.
We're going forward chronologically here, so while the sounds are getting less dated (to an extent) the formula remains the same. Note that this one has the subtitle (Eurobeat Version), as I discovered on Spotify there is also a 'Eurock' version. Which I thought was neat, I always like to see ways styles of music can cross over, and Eurobeat does love it's unnecessary guitar solos so it only makes sense. But upon listening it's nowhere near as good as the Eurobeat one. Maybe it's that sped-up cheese sensibility that I quoted Ishkur on above, maybe I'm just a sucker for synth power notes.
Finishing up with the latest one I have on repeat with Rain; I live for those power synths and chrouses. Funnily enough I feel like the guitar-y solos aren't as out of place here as on other Eurobeat tracks but it's also not as obnoxious as other examples either. Bear in mind that this is just a cross section of what I could find on Spotify, and even more specifically tunes that fill that same niche for me as Trance and the like. I joke about a lot of Eurobeat sounding the same but if you feel like exploring further be aware there is a slight more variety than what I'm presenting here.
Moving on to other Genres of the era, a little more spread out this time however. The 1980's also saw New Wave burst onto the scene and stick it's synthesized self firmly on the charts, often accompanied by people looking moody at keyboards. You should all know by know that I adore Electroclash in all it's trashy glory, and New Wave contains much of the similar formula so it should come as no surprise I have a soft spot for it too. Let's have a look.
Patrick Nagel - 1310
A lot of this stuff is what kicked off my interest in all things electronic (not the first though, that honour goes to Autobahn). Among the earliest I can cite is The Human League. The eventual influence on Electroclash is most clearly seen here on the lyrics, I could easily see Miss Kittin & The Hacker giving this one a crack at some point. You've probably already heard this one a fair few times, and it's not aged well in parts for sure, but I do remember being mesmerised by the opening bars and the equally weird music video.
On the flipside, I think Blue Monday still holds up today very well. It's more than earned it's place in electronic music history but every time it comes up I am always surprised just how modern it sounds. Every single time I fall in love with it, from the instrumentation down to the stoic, disconnected lyrics. Granted, this isn't the original release from '83 (but it's the one I have to hand) so there are minor differences there, but it's largely the same.
Moving away from New Wave / Synthpop slightly to cover some Italo-Disco. Italo is very much a product of it's era, and there are more than a few tracks that are straight up bad by today's standards, but it's still a very important milestone in electronic music history that has influences to this day. For example, eagle eared listeners may recognise this as the sample on both Washed Out's Feel It All Around and Miss Kittin & The Hacker's The Beach.
There's plenty more I wanted to cover here but I think I've gone on enough here, and I would like to save some ammo for whenever I decide to resurrect this idea once again in future!
Not that kind, actually. Scotch is a band from the heyday of Italo Disco, notorious for have a few really bizarre songs. I really dig their stuff for the most part, because they really knew the way to do awesome 80s synths. It would be prime sampling material, but I myself just feel wrong trying to use their work myself, so the closest I've come is a cover of their track Penguins Invasion with my buddy. We're still working on that.
With this one, the vocal version is a little more rare because the instrumental version was more popular. When I first found it, it wasn't even on youtube, but now it's a little more common. It's silly and fun.
I don't even get this one, but it's interesting.
Also, as a bonus, the freaky, stupid music video for Disco Band. I'm not sure what inspired this. But it's funny.
