In this book we consider dance music made in Italy as the "genuine stuff". But many other musicians in different countries developed a music style similar to the music coming from Italy. Many people share this music under the same genre or name. In the 80s we see a lot of productions coming from all over the world that are considered to be High Energy, Euro disco or Italo style music. We want to put the spotlight on some artists and countries:

Holland

The Dutch musician and producer Michiel van der Kuy created a completely new dance style which still exists today and is called Spacesound or Spacesynth. Good example is the group called Laserdance. He also made tracks under the name Koto, ZYX Records bought the name Koto when Memory Records stopped in 1989 and asked Michiel to make new instrumental "Koto-like" tracks. In the early 90s Michiel was involved in the project of LA Style - "James Brown is dead" which brought him big success. In the 90s and 2000s he made a few albums with the Spacesound style and nowadays still makes music for fun. The Spacesound style is even now very popular, New York based American-Polish guy Marek Kolidinsky still produces a lot of this kind of music. Check www.spacesoundrecords.com

Another famous Dutch DJ and producer is Ben Liebrand. He was one of the first DJ's that started mixing and got his own radioshow "In the Mix" in which he played at lot of Eurosound in the beginning. He is also responsible for the scratch remix of Fun Fun - "Happy station" which led to a worldwide scratching wave. After a break in the 90s Ben Liebrand returned to the music scene in the 2000s and you can still hear his mix programs at the Dutch radiostation Radio Veronica.

We must also not forget Peter Slaghuis, the Dutch producer/remixer who played a lot of Italo records and was partly responsible for the Italo wave in the The Hague and Rotterdam area. Under the name Hithouse he created some early house tunes.

Germany

In the 80s there was a large Italo disco scene in Germany and also German musicians created italo like music. Examples are Mike Mareen, CC Catch, Bad Boys Blue, Michael Bedford and KB Caps. Even Modern Talking is sometimes considered : "Italo like". Big names in Germany were Axel Breitung who did projects like Fancy, Michael Bedford, Joy Peters and in the 90s DJ Bobo and Uwe-Michael Wischhof (real name of Mike Mareen). Most important label was ZYX Records which not only released many Italo Disco songs but also many German Disco projects. ZYX is still releasing Italo Disco and Italo Dance CD Compilations, they own their 80s/90s catalogue and they bought the main Discomagicand Media Records catalogue.

Spain

In the mid 80s a group of producers and DJ's created their own style of disco music which was called the Sabadell sound (named after the village Sabadell close to Barcelona). Italo Disco was also very popular in Spain and Spanish artists like David Lyme, Alan Cook, Squash Gang and Charley Danone made some great songs. But the sound was more appreciated abroad, in Spain it was not considered very popular. Labels like Max Music and Blanco y Negro released many Italo, Euro and Sabadell sound records. In the 2000s Blanco y Negro started with the I love Disco Diamonds series which is a good overview of popular disco songs from the 80s. The company still releases Italo Disco compilations, check it out at www.blancoynegro.com.   In the 80s and early 90s Max Music released the very popular Max Mixes full of Italo Disco songs, these compilations sold very well in Spain and abroad and the chance for many people to get introduced with the Italo sound.

Canada

Besides the USA a lot of Canadian musicians and groups entered the disco stage in the 80s. Often the Canadian style was copied by the Italians because it was full of energy and melody. Artists like Lime, Trans-X and Tapps are goodexamples of this style. On the Prisma and Unidisc record labels you can find plenty of Hi NRG disco stuff.

Belgium

Most famous are the people behind the group Rofo, Fonny de Wulff and Raymond Muyle. Their songs did well in the European charts in the 80s. Zanza Records in Italy licensed a lot of track from these guys. Most important label in the 80s is Infinity Records.