@reactor hmm well i think most of the items i mentioned go for between 40 - 100 euro, sans the superradio stuff that i suspect they repressed a few years ago.
they used to have a huge backcatalogue but there have been SO many people buying their stuff. And the records they are now selling are without the stamp. They say because those werent brought into distribution, but if that were the case every DIYer would be able to easily circumvent SIAE fees. However, even the most obscure selfreleases are stamped AFAIK. The only unstamped italian originals i know are the illegal first discomagic pressings. But i digress :wink:
some good stuff you will be able to find sub 20:
dj ft band - in america
joy michael - dancing
den harrow - overpower / broken radio (b-side is the smasher
baby’s gang - happy song
kiss mich - disco woopy / age (belgian production but considered italo like fake)
bizzy & co - take a chance (an absolute italo classic but dirt cheap)
T.H. - cry / don’t forget to buy this record (big tip, very obscure but mindblowing b-side)
diego - walk in the night
boomerang club band - deejay superstar
panorama - war in love
df & pam - on the beat
flexx - theme from deep (one of the most affordable gong releases, should appeal to all lovers of dark vocals and out of tune synths!)
phaeax - talk about
REM - computer communication (amazing italo electro with speak & spell)
esavu - sia - siou (breaking up)
marx & spencer - stay
body games - stop love
carrara - disco king (another italo essential)
cheaps - moliendo café
fake - brick
fake - donna rouge
jock hattle - crazy family (another essential, crazy italo!)
answering service - call me mr. telephone
taffy - i love my radio
albert one - heart on fire
miko mission - how old are you? (the ultimate pedo italo)
flexi cowboys - sexy movie
my mine - hypnotic tango (another essential)
valerie dore - get closer & the night (I love her)
bi & co - how do you love? (one of the most affordable novaga productions that isnt shit like digital game)
europe - unisexappeal
b blase - shame
sylvi foster - hookey (one of the first italo electro records, essential)
s.p. clan - get down
scotch - penguin’s invasion (if you’re lucky you find the one with the vocals really there)
model 11-29 - wot times
e.t.ms. - sounds of the humanoid kind
savage - don’t cry tonight
ego - them from ET
joe maran - give me a break
marzio dance d.j. - you can do it
jimmy mcfoy - i can’t stand without you
styloo - pretty face
hovoyds - I don’t wanna talk about it
brand image - movin’up
ago - computer (yet another cassic)
implantation - choose your lover
k barré - right by the moon
DF & PAM - flash into my life
Ryn’o - gigolo
pablo - experience
tommy bow - dance tonight
miko mission - the world is you
plastic mode - baja imperial
moonbase - waiting for a train
and of course hipnosis - pulstar / bladerunner endtitle with angelo bergamini on keyboards!
that should be a good start…
it’s very interesting for me to hear about the field of collecting, it seems pretty far removed from my dear old “minimal”;
- I think not even the diehards ever paid $3000 for an item, $1000 seems pretty much the upper limit to anything us minimal weirdos want
- Minimal wave is a relatively new field of collection, with loads of bargains regularly found in the usual places - Gemm, eBay, Musicstack and discogs to start with. Prices have appeared more stable to me in italo?
- Generally, one-to-one reissues are uncommon, with most official labels offering a mix of best-of tracks and unreleased material.
-And I suppose we have a lot more to collect, since we go all around the world from the late seventies till today, as opposed to three years’ worth of italian club hits
But yeah, these lists you have provided will form a basis for what I am going to look for, and I’m looking forward to dipping another toe in the world of italo
not sure if minimal is newer, i think both fields have collectors collecting from the mid-eighties till now.
Those two records mentioned are really not representative for the prices most of the top wanted records go for, especially those that would be of interest to the minimal synthies. Those ‘dead or alives’ go for max € 500, so quite comparable to some records on the top of most of our lists…
most of the wanted rare records go in the range of 30 - 150 , again quite comparable I’d say.
@ falck -
hey, first calling me out on zed, then on kazino
you’re right, of course, being totally rigid about region of origin can get a little bit silly, and i wouldn’t be too upset by someone referring to stereo as italo. but when you have people labeling things which bear relatively little stylistic OR regional relation to italo as such (such as patrick cowley, or stacey q or who knows what else) i think it’s important to draw some distinctions - the same way it’s hard not to laugh when someone labels a duran duran 12” as minimal synth on ebay! i think at large italo should refer to an italian production, preferably on an italian label, and of course, should SOUND like italo (verging on tricky subjective area here). of course, these are not hard and fast rules - just the more italian it is, the more italo it is, i suppose…uhh…
what about decadance? i think it bears more similarity to, i dunno, ceramic hello than to den harrow - does that make it minimal synth, or italo? there’s definitely plenty of overlap, grey area…or how would you describe stereo? “french italo”? that sounds almost as silly as “swedish french coldwave”!
i’m glad you started the thread, tho - surprised there hasn’t been any flat-out italo haters posting in it yet
@ spartak -
haha great! pretty comprehensive budget italo list
i’ll add some more to it tomorrow when i have some time to spare..
@ reactorlgtn -
as spartak said - oxo going for that price was something of an anomaly, normally it goes for 1000-1500 dollars, i believe. i would agree with spartak that most of the more collectible italos go for 40-100 dollars, give or take. italo prices, like minimal, fluctuate wildly with trends. i’ve seen prices of records triple over the course of just a couple months….and then drop back down a year or two later.
the biggest difference is that italo records were also (usually) pressed in much larger quantities and distributed much more widely. you can find great italo records in most major cities in the US, for instance, but are pretty darn unlikely to stumble upon some belgian wave classic….
Glad you took it so well. :wink: My real point of course was what you described so well afterwards, namely that it’s really really difficult to draw a line here.
Don’t know about your age, but this italo hating thingy really stems back from the 80s, a time when there was good music around everywhere and you didn’t have to dig for it. I think it is safe to say that some genres were better fronted than others, so it was a clear win for Kraftwerk and Depeche Mode vs. Sabrina, Fancy (here’s some German Italo for you 8) ) and Max-Him.
To me, back in the day a good italo record sounded like a contradiction in terms. And why look deeper when the stuff you like is thrown right into your face?
Regarding the lists, well personally I’m not sure that everything on there would still appeal to people here for sure, so be warned, you could end up venturing into the highly suspicious world of italo-italo. But then again, it has already happened to minimal synth collectors before you.
@Spartak
Penguin’s Invasion indeed is a cool 12”, when I found that one I couldn’t believe that the writing “Scotch” on the outside and the music on the inside were related in any way. But again, maybe it’s stretching it a bit on this forum. :wink:
I came across Paul Rein on discogs today, he being present on the one comp LP where Hohokam’s band name was spelt Ho Ho Kam, and in his artist profile on discogs the following pearl of info is given:
“Was a big italo disco star in Sweden during the 80’s.” Swedish-born artist, reciding in Sweden and selling records to a predominantly Swedish audience, and of course, a big italo disco star.
Don’t know about your age, but this italo hating thingy really stems back from the 80s, a time when there was good music around everywhere and you didn’t have to dig for it. (...)
To me, back in the day a good italo record sounded like a contradiction in terms. And why look deeper when the stuff you like is thrown right into your face?
Regarding the lists, well personally I’m not sure that everything on there would still appeal to people here for sure, so be warned, you could end up venturing into the highly suspicious world of italo-italo. But then again, it has already happened to minimal synth collectors before you.
I’ve had the same experience. Back in the days italo, hi-energy etc. were what “dance” is today. Disposable music that was produced in a short time and in very high quantities. A lot of it sounded very same-ish, a lot of acts being “one trick ponies” repeating their one trick over and over again resulting in some hits and loads of misses. Divine or Patrick Cowley anyone… Most of it is best forgotten. Disposable music really, not made for eternity unlike our dear beloved genre of course. :wink:
Digging for brilliant Italo, you’ll have to listen through a whole load of forgettable stuff. But every now and then you’ll strike gold.
Seriously though, you can’t be seriously implying that all the 80s synth acts that made one single then disappeared, the basis of a minimal collection, are all totally unique, let alone “important” in any way besides to the fan and collector of the genre?
If they didn’t sound at all like each other, how would they even be a genre?
I have a lot of stuff that I like, or even love passionately, that my friends will dismiss with a short “nah, sounds too much like Depeche”, or “weak Kraftwerk-copy”, “Joy Division with bad vocals” or such like. Hey, even Spartak and T2Die say something similar about IKO, an LP I love, and one that has regularly fetched good prices and is widely considered a collectable LP. Clearly, I’m more into 80s electronics than the average listener, but there’s no point deriding other styles of music on a general basis.
You said
>And why look deeper when the stuff you like is thrown right into your face?
I have to agree with this; I apply it to jazz, funk, reggae, polka, country, hip hop, metal and r’n'b…
>Most of it is best forgotten.
Possibly, yes, and the lists in this thread may be a good starting point to find the exceptions to that rule.
I guess it would have been good if you had used the “@xxx format” here :wink:
Just like me, aircrashbureau just couldn’t help to use some irony here.
I must say it is really a bit of a feat to have a completely objective view on Italo, even these days.
When you’re into minimal, coldwave and the lot, you are typically looking for a sound that is something special, for something that sounds “important”. And many of “our” artists recorded tapes in their basements not giving a shit if anything ever came of that.
As Aircrash pointed out, the italo genre often worked the other way round, the intention was to produce mellow sounds and throw 12"s on the market as quickly as possible with max cash in mind.
So in the 80s it was the genre we loved to hate. And what a low-hanging fruit it was.
Generally, I’m quite sure it is a lot easier for people who didn’t grow up in the 80s to have an objective view here, because they can listen to the music without ever having to fight the attitude 8)
But, the times are a changing and certain factors put italo on the radar these days:
- “underground” italo has become visible (or rather audible) now featuring stuff not completely unlike minimal synth bands
- I guess I’m not the only one here who holds the view that in 1984/85, musicwise the milk started turning sour. If you try to rate italo not against your favourite records from that time, but against what followed in the 23 years afterwards, it also might gain some credit with you
In a nutshell, a true music lover should not go by the label :wink:
I guess it would have been good if you had used the “@xxx format” here :wink:
Oi.
It’s a forum, mon - the data-age’s equivalent of the soap boxes on Hyde Park Corner. I publish here for the world to read! If I only want one reader, I am sure the PM function will take care of that.
Just like me, aircrashbureau just couldn’t help to use some irony here.
And of course, after I had been waiting soo long for someone to use the opportunity to make a mockery of italo, I had no time to search for subtleties. Oh, darn.
I must say it is really a bit of a feat to have a completely objective view on Italo, even these days.
When you’re into minimal, coldwave and the lot, you are typically looking for a sound that is something special, for something that sounds “important”. And many of “our” artists recorded tapes in their basements not giving a shit if anything ever came of that.
But I maintain that by far more artists will have wanted if not world-wide fame, then at least some acknowledgement from the chosen few. The Residents once tried making an album just for their own ears, ie one that was supposed to not be released. They had a hard time doing it, and released it some years after. I think most of the music in my collection was made by people who wanted me to hear it.
In a nutshell, a true music lover should not go by the label :wink:
“>Most of it is best forgotten.
Possibly, yes, and the lists in this thread may be a good starting point to find the exceptions to that rule.”
Agreed. With so many “Italo” releases around, it is very difficult to decide where to start unless you like listening through lots of records untill you have a head ache and still no record worth buying. Any tip is usefull.
I guess it would have been good if you had used the “@xxx format” here :wink:
Oi.
It’s a forum, mon - the data-age’s equivalent of the soap boxes on Hyde Park Corner. I publish here for the world to read! If I only want one reader, I am sure the PM function will take care of that.
What I meant here of course is the use of this format here on the forum. You were replying to Aircrash and me and it looked like it had been a single person who had made the post.
I’ll put that down to tracklist-related over-excitement. Mum says hello. :wink:
I agree of course that most artists are in it for some sort of success, but there’s still a line between well produced commercial music and casting bands etc. But let’s not start Milli Vanilli talk here, you know what I mean….
