Daily Jam - Somebody (Vocal Version)

Wake up!  It's time for some synthy Italodisco from Italian duo Video.  Check out the 12" extended "Somebody (Vocal Version)" below, our Daily Jam.

Vitalic

A lot of the time, i'll check out an album based solely on the album art.  And so we have "Voyager" from French artist Vitalic.  Just look at that thing above.  How could i not listen to this, a groovy blend of techno, Italodisco, darkwave, and electronica.  Dig on "Levitation" below and get the album here from Citizen Records.

Daily Jam - A Whiter Shade of Pale

When you woke up this morning, did you want to listen to a cheesy, Italo-disco cover of Procol Harum's "A Whiter Shade of Pale" featuring synth work from Georgio Moroder?  Of course you did.  Here's Moroder and Munich Machine with our Daily Jam.

Daily Jam - I Was Made for Lovin' You

Because i love you, here's an Italo-disco cover of Kiss's "I Was Made for Lovin' You" by some '80s Eurotrash band called The Nasty Boys.  It's our Daily Jam!  Enjoy below.

Daily Jam - Higher

A while back, when i used to write for now defunct online magazine, I began a confessional column, a safe space if you will for some of my fellow contributors and myself to open up and get some things off of our chests, namely the various detritus of pop culture that despite all odds and our own better judgement remain embarrassingly important and beloved to us. Things like Xanadu or Baltimora, projects or artists who are objectively lame or bad, but for some reason or another (almost always nostalgia) still hit that sweet, sweet spot. These are our totems of humility.

This is not a confession, though maybe it should be.

I will solidly but humbly agree with anyone who argues that Italo Disco is one of the worst and dumbest genres of music ever created. I will cede you that. Absolutely, the genre can be derivative and often achingly devoid of any substance whatsoever. It can be garish, a collection of fluffy extended 12” mixes justified by so much cocaine. And it can certainly be cringe-worthy, a sonic embarrassment, a style of music created by people who never got the memo that disco was dead.

But for some reason, I fucking love it.

I love the straightforwardness of it all, the complete lack of irony, the sincerity, and the dedication to just dancing and having fun. Maybe it’s art without subtext, but so what? Naturally I became obsessed with Italian singer Vivien Vee’s 1983 disco jam “Higher” when I heard it for the first time a few years ago. It has occupied headspace and playlist alike ever since.

There’s really not a whole lot to say about the song. It’s cheesy. It sounds like it was recorded years before it actually was. It was a modest hit in Italy. And it was produced by, and features keyboards from Goblin’s Claudio Simonetti.

And it’s awesome. Never forget that it’s awesome.

Listen below, our Daily Jam.

Daily Jam - Tarzan Boy

I spend so much time riffing on the pop culture of the old days, living in the proverbial nostalgia bubble of college, or high school, or middle school, that I’m constantly neglecting what came before all of that. Elementary school baby! I’m talking about the 80’s pop gems and pop turds that I rocked on my Walkman on family road trips before I turned 10. The stuff I loved because I didn’t know any better. The stuff I still love now even though I do know better. I’m talking about Baltimora’s 1985 Italo-disco, new wave hit “Tarzan Boy.”

I would have been six years old when that 7” single made its way into my house, most likely a purchase by my then eleven year old sister, as I don’t picture either of my parents getting down on an Italian synth pop group fronted by an Irishman, prominently featured Tarzan yell or not. The song was featured on the album, Living in the Background, though to be honest, I don’t believe I’ve ever heard another song by the guy. The single was enough. I thought it was amazing, and the opening drum machine beat and synth line still grab my attention greedily and make my heart swell. It is nostalgia incarnate. It makes me feel like a little kid again. And that can be nice sometimes.

The benefit of hindsight, and the fact that time can heal old wounds (generally by making us forget about them) puts a nice and shiny varnish on our childhood memories. It’s what makes us long for the good old days. It’s what makes us wistful for old places and old friends and old times. It makes us cling to the relics of our youth. And to me, the best of those relics are the ones that you kind of forget about for a little while, the ones that bring it all back in a hard flash by a chance occurrence of reintroduction. It’s just like hearing a song you haven’t thought about in years, and then reeling from the flood of feelings and emotions that come along with it, which, in our super information age is becoming a fleeting phenomenon. It had easily been two decades since “Tarzan Boy” and Baltimora had been anywhere near my radar when I happened upon that old 7” single while helping my parents move in 2008. It was like finding treasure.

Naturally, it came back home with me and will stay there henceforth.

Check it out below, our Daily Jam.

Daily Jam - Yeti

So we have the governor of Texas (among other people) attacking trans kids, bombs falling in Ukraine possibly ushering in a third world war, and the continuing slide into outright fascism happening unabated right in front of our eyes.  And all of this is compounded by a continuing pandemic, now entering its third year, climate change run amok, and probably a million other horrible things i can't think of this very second.  The whole world is coming unglued.  I think i'm on the verge of a panic attack.  We all are.  I don't know what to do.  So here's some Italo-disco about Bigfoot.  Listen to "Yeti" by Radiorama below, our Daily Jam.

Daily Jam - Andromeda

Let's start the week off with some weird Italodisco from the early '80s that features a quite distinct Bee Gees sample and a groovy middle eastern vibe.  Check out "Andromeda" by Andromeda below, our Daily Jam.