Do you love vocoder enhanced Italians singing about robots and space? No then avoid like the plague.

Back in the day Space Disco’s subgenre Italo was generally comprised of simple catchy tracks with heavily vocoder enhanced Italian accents singing about love, robots and space. Strut now compile the best of these ‘classics,’ for your perusal.

‘Five letters,’ by ‘The Kee Tha Tha,’ is considered to be at the forefront of Italo releases yet consists of the lyrics ‘I want to love you love you lady before culminating in some kind of post coital grunt. While Flor de Coca’s offering sounds like the theme to The Loveboat. ‘Love (Is Gonna Be on Your Side)’ by Firefly sounds like Kool and The gang’s ‘Ladies Night.’ The Cosmic Disco of ‘Burning Love’ by D.D. Sound has some lovely dancing strings and electric swirls before the vocals get going then we’re in Right Said Fred territory. Revanche informs us that 1979 is dancing time, As if by now we hadn’t got the idea! There are some lovely slices of lush instrumentation on this album but for me that’s not enough.

The label are at pains to highlight footnotes in musical dance history but this is one I’ll pass on. Disco music by its nature is throwaway and cheesy but surely not forgettable, Chic’s ‘Freak Out’ or ‘Love to Love you’ by Donna Summer. I wouldn’t bother unless you are having a fancy dress party.

Mandy Williams