Marc Fruttero Speech

“Some considerations on 80s Italodisco“.
By Marc Fruttero.

I heard a famous singer saying that he does not understand why such an easy and commercial genre like Italodisco is still so popular for so many people. This is due to the fact that the majority of Italodisco songs were only made for the money, and without any artistic purpose. Unfortunately it is true. It is obviously an easy genre, but I can also admit that some productions were really well done. Typical of Italodisco, were bright and coloured arrangements, (that is also common in the 80s sound generally), catchy refrains, very melodic. At least in a few productions there were some beautiful vocals too. Unfortunately, bad English and mediocre singers were the weakest point in too many Italodisco tracks. So often, instead of choosing professional vocalists, the producers took people that had never studied singing before. With some terrible results… Curiously, while in the field of Italian Pop it seemed that there was a strange competition to choose the worst voices as possible, and they had a lot of success too…In the field of Italodisco, it seemed that a good or decent voice counted something for the public (but not for the labels...). In fact, the Italo singers that were a bit more professional, or at least were able to sing better, were generally the most successful ones. Not always but often. At least when Italodisco was sung in English. There were even some DiscoDance tracks that were sung in Italian or Spanish. But that is another subject.
I have to confess it was very sad that so many artists were produced just because they had very influential friends or could pay quite a lot of money to become famous. There were many other players or singers, who were much more talented that were not in contact with any important people and could not get produced…Unfortunately Italy works like that…even now. Therefore, I suppose if there had been a bit more honesty in the field of Italian music industry, nowadays we would have much more interesting productions from the field of Italodisco either, as it was in England or America, where, at the time, much more producers and labels really cared about quality music. Not always, but much more than in Italy.
I think the idea of reviving 80s Italodisco and making new songs with the same style, as some small labels are doing nowadays, is a great idea. But I personally think it would be much better to choose the best things from that genre. I mean the wealth of melody, along with the coloured arrangements. But not the worst things…I mean bad vocals…I don’t know why some producers want to utilise new artists that try to imitate many of the worst tone-deaf singers of Italodisco…
I think it’s rather unprofessional and even a bit ridiculous….and spoils that good initiative.

Regarding me…
I think I’ve tried to care about my vocals…In fact I suppose many Italodisco music lovers can easily recognise my voice when they listen to any of my songs on the Internet. ‘Cause I have a personal vocal style, that sounds a bit different from any other. And this is the reason why a few people said I don’t sound Italodisco…
Thank you…
Bye!

Marc