Gina X Performance were singer Gina X and producer Zeus B. Held. The band was active between 1979 and 1984 or 5, releasing around four LPs and a few singles.The producer had been active in rock bands before starting this project, and after meeting Gina X, his solo performances eventually evolved into what became Gina X Performance. He also did a lot of production and remix work in the 80s, for Nina Hagen, Alphaville, Dead or Alive, Simple Minds, Tranvision Vamp and Gary Numan.

I love Gina X's voice. She's a vixen, and the secret daughter of Nancy Nova and Nico. I really like the likable weirdness and the softly cold delivery of words. Ech, I hope you know what I mean.

And -- their first ever concert was with Boney M.

This song is from their first album 'Nice Mover', which came out in 1979. That album also contained two other amazing songs, 'No G.D.M.' and 'Plastic Surprise Box', but this one is my favorite.

Gina X Performance - Nice Mover
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This one is from their last album, 'Yinglish', released in 1984. It's so large and grand and dramatic and so f'in cool.

Listen closely to the lyrics.

Gina X Performance - Waiting
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I've been busy seeing fantasticly amazing concerts, meeting wonderful people, and swallowing some sun rays (and some food). Just saw múm play two shows, and FM Belfast go totally berserk at the afterparty. I discovered that jumping and shouting is hard. I seriously thought I would expire on the middle of the floor.

Lio, born in Portugal, raised in Belgium, a star in France. This song is from her 1980 album 'Lio', and is a cover of an excellent Billie Holiday song. As most of her albums, this one is produced by geniuses Dan Lacksman and Marc Moulin from Telex, with one song produced by Jacno (and containing lyrics by Elli).

I recommend you try and get your hands on her albums, as they are excellent.

I just listened to this song four times in a row, and as I'm writing this short sentence the silence is killing my poor lil' ears.

Lio - You Go To My Head
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I need to make a 15 minute edit of this song.

A whole lot of artists have covered this song, but apart from the one I'm posting, my favorites are Judy Garland (loung-y latino feel) and Bryan Ferry.

Nancy Nova is the goddess of likable weirdness. I wrote about her before, please read it, that way I don't have to write it again, har har.

This song puts her and a bunch of music styles into a juicy sausage, and sprinkles it with elements from her other songs. She does her wobblyvoice, sings like a dude, belches out some chorusbits, goes high, the bass, the brass, then discoish, a bit diva like, and all the time it's oh so good, but then you get the chorus and Hi-NRG and everything gets goooooood.

I want to play this LOUD.

Nancy Nova - Masquerade
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This is from her 2004 compilation/album/CD, which contained some previously unreleased material (at least I think so, I've never seen the song above on vinyl), plus her hits-y hits.

Why why why have I not posted this before? I was so sure that I had...

This track is so smooth and lovely. It's like these guys stole all the 150bpm electric smoothness from Mike & The Mechanics, the jollyness and jump and sing like melting cream from Joe Jackson, broke into Brucy Hornsby's studio and took his piano, and then rushed off to someplace warm to record this song with New Musik's microphones.

But NO! Not "stole", because that doesn't apply.

Of course this love Cube of pleasure is made by geniuses who don't need the above stuff to create songs as good as this. They worked with Peter Jacques Band and B.B.Q. Band (and other Jacques Fred Petrus bands), My Mine, and other goodness.

Fast and friendly.

Cube - Concert Boy
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These songs are the type of Italo Disco and Synthpop that too many people don't want to listen to, because "it's too cheesy" or something. I don't get it.

Roxanne is a babe who released three songs, all produced by the couple behind Bad Boys Blue, Venus, and...well, a bunch more stuff by Bad Boys Blue, and a 1990 cover of Prince's 'Nothing Compares 2 U', which I haven't heard but expect to be fascinating.

This song has so much goodness going on. The lyrics, the guy in the chorus, the drop-like synth. I'd love to receive a letter from Roxanne, she sounds so passionate.

Roxanne - Charlene (Extended Version)
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Hot Cold is Ivana Spagna, one of the most prolific singers in Italo Disco, who was more famous as just Spagna. She also made some kind of cover of Disney's Lion King, but I haven't heard it so I don't know if it's club friendly. One of the guys behind this song also produced 'Dancing All The Night' by Paul Sharada, 'Fairy Tale' by Rose, and 'Touch Me' by 49ers, which I danced to a billion times.

And because you asked, most of Spagna's other releases as Hot Cold, as well as the majority of her records were produced by two other guys, who also worked with countless other Italo Disco artists (the list is pretty impressive): Angie St. Philip, Fun Fun, Mike Cannon ('Voices In The Dark'), Salvy And Giuly (I want their 12" so, so bad), Baby's Gang, and...

...our favorite lip-syncing act, Whigfield, who released 'Saturday Night'!

The universe is all cross linked.

Anyways, I like this track because it's so happy, and isn't shy about all the jollyness or the growling guitar licks. I also love the synth chords.

Hot Cold - I Can Hear Your Voice
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Florence is also known as Florence Magic Group. I have no idea why this song isn't one of the classic synthpop hits of the magical 80s, as it has all the ingredients and is just so f'ing good.

It's sung by Marco Faragli, who also sang my Max Him favorite, 'Japanese Girl', and produced by Romano Trevisani (who also produced 'Japanese Girl'), one of my favorite producers, who has done so, so, so much good stuff. I've talked about him before here and here.

Again, I can't stress enough just how much I love this song. I don't know why I never heard this song in a John Cusack movie, but then again I'm glad that it was never ruined for me.

This is so romantic, so heart-on-their-sleeve, so GOOD! Play it on repeat, and play it loud.

Florence - Trading Love
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Two spacious tracks that I've listened to again and again and again:

Timerider's track is the more jolly one, really upbeat and positive, and the track you listen to when you're out picking space-nuts, or whatever you do in a unitard on a super-super happy day.

The songwriter had some success with a bunch of remixes of Italo Disco and synthpop, for example Scotch, Koto's 'Visitors', some Pet Shop Boys singles, and also did a megamix for ZYX back in the day. He also released records as Fancy and was a member of The Hurricanes, both of who did really, really well done and well sounding stuff, but rather, er, basic. (Sorry!)

This, however, is exactly what we like.

Timerider - Cocoon
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(Don't expect to find it with that fancy cover above, because it's homemade. It expresses my feelings.)

Donna Laser Orchestra created the much more serious and worldly big brother. Almost complicating your ears by being so melancholic, but slowly it builds up and becomes nothin' but royal. If the other track is prince Harry, this is prince William. Respect.

Donna Laser Orchestra - Vega Synthauri
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The producers behind this one did a lot of weird stuff: pop, chanson, Engelbert Humperdinck, some Italo-Disco, a Star Wars cover record, and...Ivana Spagna's 'Lion King' album. Yes my friend, that Ivana Spagna, and the Lion King. It's a musical buffet!

p.s. it's a little hard to find, but you can find copies on Discogs...

OFF was one of King-of-Trance Sven Väth's early bands. When I say "trance", I mean the real good stuff, not the shit.

The other two guys in this band were Michael Münzing and Luca Anzilotti, who later produced the German-Soldier-rapping-extravaganza known as Snap!

I've been listening a lot to this track lately. It's so theatrical and dramatic, almost silly, but never quite goes there, probably because these guys knew what they were doing. Granted, it's 1986, so big hair is getting more and more popular. Kinda reminds me of Murray Head's 'One Night In Bangkok', but a bit more, eh, underground, which does not apply to this song at all, but I think you know what I mean when you hear it.

OFF - Time Operator
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These three fellas actually did a WHOLE LOT more dramatic and horse-galloping stuff, for example with their band 16 Bit. Semi-weird, if you think about it. Why would anyone chose this theme? Some dude bellowing like The Terminator over jumpey duggudu-duggudu beats, and yet somehow, in a very odd way, it works. I especially love the chorus in this track.

16 Bit - Changing Minds (Extended)
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The 16 Bit project ended up releasing "pure" trance in the 90s. A whole other world of drama.

Gene Ramone is one funky brutha. He disguises himself as some type of unlucky-in-love nerd, but in fact he's a smooth operator, melting my heart with an eeeexcellent track.

The beauty of it is all in the details, like the extra bass-hits in the instrumental part in the beginning. So so good.

I was so glad when I got my mint-looking copy a few days ago, shiny and probably unplayed. Mmm.

Gene Ramone - Romantic Face
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Noodweer were a Dutch pop/rock band most famous for this hit from 1983, which is almost a joke-release, their take on dancemusic and disco and whatnot. I have no idea what they're saying; all I understand is what they repeat in the chorus: "In De Disco", which, using my extensive understanding of different cultures co-existing in the habitable world today, probably translates as "In The Disco".

The track is very good, but probably rocks even more when played loud in the middle of a mix. If I sit down and listen reeaally carefully I don't like it as much (maybe 97%, I don't understand the lyrics, see), but as a kinda jolly thing to nod your head to and shake your sexy body, it's gooood.

And it's begging for an edit, to maybe cut out those scat-parts and make it all a bit more compact, maybe, but that being said, it's good stuff and it's different from a lot of the good stuff, and I'm glad they released it.

Noodweer - In De Disco
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It's also a very likely inspiration for all that dance-rock that the world fell in love with a few years ago -- although I'm not sure just how many people have ever heard it.

On one of the Italo Disco forums on Discogs, a user posted his thoughts on a track by The Hasbeens, a new group featuring Alden Tyrell.

Another user replied, saying that the forum should be used for discussing "real" Italo Disco, instead of new releases. In his words: "Yeah, it's a great record but this board was meant to expand our knowledge about original Italo-Disco from back in the days, no nu-skool-italo-disco or call it what you want..."

Yet another user replied, saying that it was interesting to name a new track, because in this case, it contains a lot of Italo-clichés (which is a good thing, in case you're wondering), and could therefore be discussed with other new, similar sounding stuff.

I agreed to some degree, but also felt that user #2 had a valid point, so I asked the question: if we start discussing nu-italo, how do we know where to draw the line?

That also leads to having to define what 'Italo Disco' is, exactly, and when a song is, or is not Italo Disco. Does the term describe a mindset? A concept? A musical approach? The technology that was available?

Regardless of what the new song sounds like, none of the above exists today in the same form.

To me, 'Keep Fooling Yourself' by The Hasbeens sounds much more "authentic" (as Italo Disco) than 'Make The World Go Away' (the song the original poster mentioned) or some of their other songs (you can listen to both on their Myspace profile). To keep the forum-discussion flowing properly (and "correctly", if that's ever a possibility) we'd therefore have to hand-pick songs by each artist.

I also added that Sally Shapiro is definitely not nu-italo...unless "nu-italo" is as vague of a term as "nu-rave"...

Furthermore, Italo Disco, when used to describe the "old" releases, contains countless different songs and approaches and techniques -- i.e. there isn't really any one way of "copying" the style and make something sound Italo-ish.

However, the tricky part is this: when you take a genre, any genre, Italo Disco in this case, and decide to extract some ideas or concepts, you are instantly stopping the growth and the internal transformation that the artists at that time were a part of.

In other words: The Hasbeens decide to make a "new" Italo song, but I think that ultimately they cannot do anything but create nu-italo (which is perfectly fine). See, they listen to a few particular songs, get their ideas together, and make a track. But if they want to create "real" Italo Disco, they'll have to figure out when Italo Disco ended. Let's say in 1987? Then The Hasbeens would have to pick one of the last "real" released Italo songs and CONTINUE on from that point -- not copy or use that style as reference. Otherwise they are making nu-italo...makes sense?

Music is about transformation, and I bet that the majority of artists--regardless of what you think about their release--were trying to create a NEW hit, not repeating what had been done before.

We are copying this style because we love it, and it's nostalgic, and honest, and beautiful...but they had a different goal altogether. We want to recreate the past; they were trying to create the future.

Here is a glimpse of the future, anno 1986:

Panorama - The Key Of Your Life
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