Eurodisco
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Eurodisco | |
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Eurodisco (also spelled as Euro disco) is the variety of European forms of electronic dance music that evolved from disco in the middle 1970s, incorporating elements of pop and rock into a disco-like continuous dance atmosphere. Many Eurodisco compositions feature lyrics sung in English, although the singers often share a different mother tongue.
Eurodisco derivatives generally include
History
Eurodisco is largely an offshoot of contemporary American music trends going far back to the early times of disco, pop and rock. During the 1960s, Europop hits spread around France, Italy and Germany, because of the French Scopitone (jukebox) and the Italian Cinebox/Coilorama Video-jukebox machines. Another root is the Eurovision Song Contest, especially in the 1970s.
The song "
The American music journalist Robert Christgau used the term "Eurodisco" in his late 1970s articles for The Village Voice newspaper.
The term "disco" in Europe existed long before the Eurodisco and U.S.
An example of the term "disco" with no relation to a specific music style (and dance music in general), is the Disco series that aired in Germany on the ZDF network from 1971 to 1982. This show proved that the term "disco" was widespread enough at the time, and that the second national TV network of Germany used it for a general music TV show in 1971. Another later example is the show Discoring on Italy's RAI channel (first aired in February 1977).
1970s
The term "Euro-disco" was first used during the mid-1970s to describe the non-UK based disco productions and artists such as D.D. Sound, West Germany groups
".1970s Eurodisco soon had spinoffs and variations. The most notable spinoff is
1980s
One of the early representatives of the 1980s genre was the British group Imagination and with their series of hits throughout 1981 and 1982. In the United States, Donna Summer was the only 1980s Eurodisco singer, and the term hi-NRG was used there instead.
1980s Eurodisco variations soon appeared later in France, Germany, Spain and Greece. The French and German Eurodisco productions were the most popular. German pop duo Modern Talking was an icon of Eurodisco between 1985–1987 and became the most successful Eurodisco project ever. Bad Boys Blue was another very successful project.
That style became very popular in Eastern Europe and remained popular until the early 1990s. In Poland, disco polo, a local music genre relying heavily on Eurodisco was developed at the verge of the '80s and '90s. Some Canadian disco productions by groups like Lime became hits.
1990s
During the late 1980s, Eurodisco hits were produced in Spain and Greece and much later in Poland and Russia. Meanwhile, a sped-up version of Eurodisco with dance-pop elements became successful in the US, under the term "hi-NRG". Even today, for many Americans, "hi-NRG" means Paul Lekakis and the London Boys. Those hits (and a few others, like Londonbeat's "I've Been Thinking About You" from 1990) were the last hits called "Eurodisco" in Europe.
By the early 1990s, Eurodisco was influenced by the emergence of genres such as
Technically speaking, the last form of Eurodisco is
2000s
By the mid to late 2000s, Eurodisco saw renewed interest. Artists such as Irene Cara, Berlin and the late Laura Branigan saw a surge in popularity, especially in places where it was not commercially successful after 1984, such as North America and South America.
Influence in the United States
The influence of Eurodisco had infiltrated dance and pop in the U.S. by 1983, as European producers and songwriters inspired a new generation of American performers. While disco had been declared "dead" due to a backlash there in 1979, subsequent Euro-flavored successes crossing the boundaries of rock, pop and dance, such as "
Branigan (produced by German producer
and rock music.A Eurodisco revival was also contributed by northern European record labels such as Iventi D'azzurro (The Netherlands) and Flashback Records (Finland), with rearranged releases of the old hits and unreleased demos resung by the original Italo singers, also including new songs. Recording artists like Joey Mauro, Karl Otto, Diva have been releasing new albums. Joey Mauro was able to recreate the sound of 1980s Italo disco with his synthesizers and keyboard collections, and a special place within the scene is occupied by Peter Aresti, formerly known as Peter Arcade, who officially started his career in the '90s.
See also
References
- ^ "ABBA's Waterloo named best song in Eurovision Top 50". Brussels Times. Retrieved 10 September 2021.
- ^ "Arabesque - Biography, Albums, Streaming Links". AllMusic. Retrieved 1 February 2018.
- ^ "Whatever happened to Boney M?". BBC. 29 January 2002. Retrieved 11 September 2021.
- ISBN 978-1-4724-7962-4.
- ^ "Gino Soccio | Biography, Albums, Streaming Links". AllMusic. Retrieved 7 January 2021.
External links
- Eurodisco in Brazil at energy-brazil.com.
- Eurodisco at euro-flash.net.
- Worldwide Euro-disco chart positions at scheul.de.