{
  "slug": "italo-disco",
  "name": "Italo Disco",
  "aliases": [
    "italo",
    "italo-disco",
    "spaghetti dance"
  ],
  "description": "Disco rebuilt in Italian studios once America had declared disco dead, using cheap synthesisers instead of orchestras and English written by people who did not speak it. Melodramatic, synthetic, and enormously consequential in Chicago.",
  "origin": {
    "place": "Italy",
    "year": 1980
  },
  "lineage": [
    {
      "genre": "disco",
      "url": "https://waxonia.com/genre/disco/",
      "inherited": "The form, kept alive somewhere the backlash never reached. Italo holds on to the four-on-the-floor kick, the extended twelve-inch and the sentimental melody, and simply replaces the string section with a Juno."
    }
  ],
  "bpm": {
    "min": 115,
    "max": 125
  },
  "updated": "2026-08-29",
  "url": "https://waxonia.com/genre/italo-disco/",
  "trackCount": 8,
  "curatedBy": [],
  "playlists": {},
  "tracks": [
    {
      "rank": 1,
      "trackKey": "klein-m-b-o--dirty-talk",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/klein-m-b-o--dirty-talk/",
      "title": "Dirty Talk",
      "artist": "Klein + M.B.O.",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/klein-m-b-o/",
      "year": 1982,
      "label": "Zanza",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "The record Chicago DJs played until the grooves went. Its stark synth bassline and vocoded chorus are more or less the specification house music was built to.",
      "alsoOn": [
        {
          "kind": "curator",
          "slug": "the-eighties",
          "name": "The Eighties",
          "url": "https://waxonia.com/theme/the-eighties/"
        },
        {
          "kind": "curator",
          "slug": "the-desk-the-hundred",
          "name": "The Waxonia Desk — The Hundred",
          "url": "https://waxonia.com/selection/the-desk-the-hundred/"
        }
      ],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Klein%20%2B%20M.B.O.%20Dirty%20Talk",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/search?q=Klein%20%2B%20M.B.O.%20Dirty%20Talk",
          "exact": false
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 2,
      "trackKey": "charlie--spacer-woman",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/charlie--spacer-woman/",
      "title": "Spacer Woman",
      "artist": "Charlie",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/charlie/",
      "year": 1983,
      "label": "Mr. Disc",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "Cold, cavernous and about forty years ahead of the taste that eventually caught up with it. The most reissued, most bootlegged record in the genre, and it deserves the attention.",
      "alsoOn": [],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Charlie%20Spacer%20Woman",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=nZDPCjEoIMI",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 3,
      "trackKey": "alexander-robotnick--problemes-damour",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/alexander-robotnick--problemes-damour/",
      "title": "Problèmes d'Amour",
      "artist": "Alexander Robotnick",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/alexander-robotnick/",
      "year": 1983,
      "label": "Fuzz Dance",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "A Florentine making a French-language record about romantic difficulty over a sequencer that will not sit still. Italo's wit and its melancholy in one four-minute package.",
      "alsoOn": [
        {
          "kind": "curator",
          "slug": "the-eighties",
          "name": "The Eighties",
          "url": "https://waxonia.com/theme/the-eighties/"
        }
      ],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Alexander%20Robotnick%20Probl%C3%A8mes%20d'Amour",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=oX1Vge8zAjw",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 4,
      "trackKey": "kano--im-ready",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/kano--im-ready/",
      "title": "I'm Ready",
      "artist": "Kano",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/kano/",
      "year": 1980,
      "label": "Full Time",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "Early, and startlingly close to what New York would call electro two years later. The bassline alone accounts for a decade of records made elsewhere.",
      "alsoOn": [],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Kano%20I'm%20Ready",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=gqc06bfkC2s",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 5,
      "trackKey": "ryan-paris--dolce-vita",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/ryan-paris--dolce-vita/",
      "title": "Dolce Vita",
      "artist": "Ryan Paris",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/ryan-paris/",
      "year": 1983,
      "label": "Discomagic",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "The genre's biggest hit and its purest expression: an Italian pretending to be a Frenchman singing in English about an Italian film. Sincerity is not the point and never was.",
      "alsoOn": [],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Ryan%20Paris%20Dolce%20Vita",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=AfR859j5k5w",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 6,
      "trackKey": "my-mine--hypnotic-tango",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/my-mine--hypnotic-tango/",
      "title": "Hypnotic Tango",
      "artist": "My Mine",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/my-mine/",
      "year": 1983,
      "label": null,
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "Absurd, imperious and completely committed. If you want to know why Italo is loved rather than merely respected, it is records that keep a straight face through something this daft.",
      "alsoOn": [],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/My%20Mine%20Hypnotic%20Tango",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=gHvA0QFDoVY",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 7,
      "trackKey": "righeira--vamos-a-la-playa",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/righeira--vamos-a-la-playa/",
      "title": "Vamos a la Playa",
      "artist": "Righeira",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/righeira/",
      "year": 1983,
      "label": "CBS",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "A summer holiday singalong whose lyric is about a beach after a nuclear explosion. The most Italo fact available: nobody dancing to it noticed for years.",
      "alsoOn": [
        {
          "kind": "curator",
          "slug": "dancing-to-bad-news",
          "name": "Dancing to Bad News",
          "url": "https://waxonia.com/theme/dancing-to-bad-news/"
        }
      ],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Righeira%20Vamos%20a%20la%20Playa",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=x0OMFm8FO90",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 8,
      "trackKey": "sueno-latino--sueno-latino",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/sueno-latino--sueno-latino/",
      "title": "Sueño Latino",
      "artist": "Sueño Latino",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/sueno-latino/",
      "year": 1989,
      "label": "DFC",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "An entire record built by looping Manuel Göttsching's E2-E4 and adding birdsong. The closing argument of Italo and the opening argument of Italian house, in the same nine minutes.",
      "alsoOn": [
        {
          "kind": "genre",
          "slug": "balearic",
          "name": "Balearic",
          "url": "https://waxonia.com/genre/balearic/"
        },
        {
          "kind": "curator",
          "slug": "the-desk-the-hundred",
          "name": "The Waxonia Desk — The Hundred",
          "url": "https://waxonia.com/selection/the-desk-the-hundred/"
        }
      ],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Sue%C3%B1o%20Latino%20Sue%C3%B1o%20Latino",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=EEXJuZ877OE",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    }
  ]
}