jamiej-80sdisco wrote:

Following on from a recent forum thread about the adding of styles to the database, I have a small debate with another submitter over a track which I suggested should have Hi-nrg as a style.

From what I see, many Hi-nrg tracks are not described as such in the database. This is mis-leading for those (of a certain age), who would be looking for Hi-nrg. Such tracks are often credited as being disco (disco died in 1979) or synth pop, pop, and sometimes R&B - true these tracks were played in discos, but the Hi-nrg style prevailed for much of the mid 80s. Hi-nrg is too early for 'House' (not really applicable until 1987/1988), an certainly not R&B ( post 1990).

Let me start the ball rolling to clarify what this term means. Hi-nrg is essentially gay disco music from the period 1982-1988, and crossed over into popular dance music (but it is not 80's Soul). To merit being called Hi-nrg, a track would have to have a bpm of 120-140 (but there are some classic Hi-nrg tracks which fall in the 110-120 bpm range), it has a pronounced/pounding bass line driving the song, often with percussion (especially cow bells/drum rolls and breaks) prominent in the mix, and overall an anthemic vocal.

A good synopsis of Hi-nrg can be found on wikipedia. Hi-nrg developed from 70's disco underground becoming 'Boystown' (typified by the productions of Bobby Orlando, Patrick Cowley etc) in the early 80's. It added to the 'Studio 54' sound by combining the emerging 'electro' (Shannon/Stephanie Mills etc) from the USA with whiplash Euro-disco from Italy, Germany & the Netherlands, Space Disco, and fused it with 80's synth pop from the UK. The productions of Ian Levine/Fiachra Trench, Ian Anthony Stephens, Vince Degiorgio, Jerry Cucuzzella, Eric Matthews, Sabby Rayas (the list is too long to mention) are at the forefront.

By the mid 80s, the style had crossed into the charts thanks to the success of Stock, Aitken & Waterman, The Pet Shop Boys, Erasure, Bronski Beat, The Communards (I could go on), and many 12" remixers of the period (Munzibai & Morales, The Latin Rascalls, Stephen Hague, Steve Thompson & Michael Barbiero, Shep Pettibone, Jellybean etc etc) mixed in the style. From 1987 onwards, Hi-nrg diverges into many other styles, early house, Italo-house, the Miami Sound (Ish Ledesma productions) & others amongst them. SAW continued (and eventually destroyed) Hi-Nrg disco through the late 80s -early 90s. There is still an up to date Hi-Nrg style as typified by the Almighty label releases.

It would be great to credit these (often niche) releases to the correct style, so that those looking on the database for them can find the tracks they remember, but I realise that not so many people will know the style, and with its 80's underground gay (and now naff) associations, want to equate Hi-nrg with their subs or updates. But I might take the liberty of changing the style on some subs.......

Sorry for the (dubious) history lesson......

MUSICLOVER04 wrote:

Very interesting.

Sometimes I think SAW production and many, many others post-1983 should be genre "Dance" (outside of genres Electronic and Funk/Soul).

Just thinking...

hysteric wrote:

I think your history is pretty much on point.

PS what is the track in question?

PPS HiNRG rules :-)

8m2stereo wrote:

nice post, thank you.

rassel wrote:

Yes, agree, it's a good description of Hi-NRG, thanks jamiej-80sdisco
I just disagree on one tiny detail, Disco didn't die in 1979, many Disco chart breaker apeared in 1980 or 1981 (Upside Down, Funkytown, Celebration, Get Down On It). And this is a rather U.S./U.K.-centric view of the decease of Disco. :D

Kaytron wrote:

I just found excellent and well explained how jamiej-80sdisco described the Hi-NRG style.

By the way, the late evolution of Italo-Disco (1988-early nineties) was also referred as Hi-NRG in Europe (while in Japan it was called Eurobeat) by similar reasons that the original Hi-NRG.

jape wrote:

You'll find the Hi-NRG style abused quite often for "Nu-NRG" hard house/uptempo trance trance music. Those styles tend to be called "NRG" in various countries/periods and people look for a style to label them as such.

PeterDeVilbis wrote:

Many of the early SAW productions are Hi-NRG (Divine, Dead Or Alive, Lana Pellay).
The 90's stuff (like Almighty, Motiv8) is often a mix of Eurodance and Hi-NRG -> Euro-NRG or 90's NRG.
Hottracks has released a series of "NRG For The 90's".

One of the reasons why so many releases are listed with wrong styles is because sometimes it's the only way to describe the music.
Disco House (or Funky House) for example.
Too disco to be just "house", too housey to be just "disco".

Scouse house, Eurobeat, Euro-Disco: so many styles are missing!

jamiej-80sdisco wrote:

I posted this topic as I am having a debate about this release

http://www.discogs.com/history?release=1180497

Comments welcome.

I also wanted to continue the debate about styles in general. There was a forum post about adding more styles, but might it be a good idea to have an explanation of the styles that already exist in discogs, so that there might be some consensus as to which style would be appropriate to use. - I hear groans about who would create the explanations, and then years of debate about what was right for each style.........

Thanks to all for replying to this post. From the replies I understand why sumbitters may use a particular style to describe a track - but I was trying to point out that someone searching for Hi-Nrg (for example), might not get the full picture of all the tracks in the database, as many tracks are listed as disco, synth pop, house (etc etc)

And yes, over the years Hi-nrg has come to mean different things, and can mean different things in different countries - that's why I provoked the debate, to see if there was any common ground.

jamiej-80sdisco wrote:

I did not mean to offend anyone by missing out the great dance tracks of the early 80s! - personally I think 'Disco' as a style still covers these tracks.

I said disco died in 1979, meaning it went more underground and lost popular appeal after the 'Last Days Of Disco' record burning stunts in the USA.

I was trying to point out that in the early 80s disco developed into Boystown and later Hi-nrg as the main dance style from about 1983-1985/6, then evolved into house, pop dance (the later SAW productions) and a myriad of other things - in the UK we called the later Hi-Nrg style as typified by the Almighty releases 'Handbag' - I wonder if anyone want to use that as a style?

jamiej-80sdisco wrote:

While were on this subject, does any one know if this draft

http://www.discogs.com/Linda-Fire/release/674382

is really Linda Imperial - I think it is judging by the other artists from Megatone who are involved.

jamiej-80sdisco wrote:

Edit:

Sorry THIS draft!

http://www.discogs.com/Linda-Fire/release/1724274

mjb wrote:

This already exists, as a perpetual work in progress:

http://wiki.discogs.com/index.php/Style_Guide

jamiej-80sdisco wrote:

Thanks for highlighting http://wiki.discogs.com/index.php/Style_Guide

I have read through it all (!) - and as I previously stated
"an explanation of the styles that already exist in discogs, so that there might be some consensus as to which style would be appropriate to use" because
"over the years Hi-nrg [and most other styles] has come to mean different things, and can mean different things in different countries"

As your link shows, it is going to be difficult to get that consensus in every case, and there will always be disagreement.

IMHO most of the records in my collection (which is mostly Hi-NRG related 12" singles from the early - late 80s) have the incorrect style in the database. If they are European productions (Not UK), then Italo-disco covers them nicely. Many of the US, Canadian and UK releases are currently styled as Disco, Synth Pop, Soul, House, R&B,.....

I was trying to explain what Hi-NRG meant, and this sums it up well:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hi-nrg

I was trying to say that Hi-NRG is too late for disco and too early for house. It is not really synth pop (although generally played on sythesisers) - synth pop to me (being British) would be New Romantic/British electronic/Industrial music (early Spandau Ballet, early Eurythmics, ABC, Blancmange, OMD, Human League, Yazoo, New Order, Heaven 17, Depeche Mode.......)

There is no style 'Pop Dance' which would cover a lot of the more commercial releases of the period (Madonna, Laura Branigan, Pointer Sisters, Belinda Carlisle, Whitney Houston.....). The album/7" single versions of such tracks might have a different style from the 12" Version, which would generally be a Dance mix with additional production for playing in a nightclub, and in the period I'm talking about the 12" mixes were in Hi-NRG style (for want of a better style!).

rassel wrote:

Don't worry, you didn't offend anybody, it's true that Disco lost some momentum after 1979. :)


Yes, that's true, about what I remember the last real Disco tracks, using typical Disco sweetener (Strings, Horns, Choir) appeared around 1984. There was a general move to new styles as you mentioned, Hi-NRG (Boystown), early House (e.g. J.M. Silk or Frankie Knuckles), New Jack Swing, Synth-Pop.
The only thing I'm quite unsure on how to handle are tracks like Can't Wait Another Minute (Remix) . They're not Disco anymore, that's for sure, but it's not House yet, it's not bumpy enough. And don't think that they're Hi-NRG, too sweet for being Hi-NRG, but it's not Synth-Pop either. So it's probably New Jack Swing, but I dislike this style as it seems to be some kind of litter bin for things we are not sure what it is. Plus we never used "New Jack Swing" as a definition of a certain style here.
We just called it Disco, as it was played at the Discos in this time, but it isn't.

jamiej-80sdisco wrote:

They're not Disco anymore, that's for sure, but it's not House yet, it's not bumpy enough. And don't think that they're Hi-NRG, too sweet for being Hi-NRG, but it's not Synth-Pop either.

is this where Pop Dance might have some merit?

jamiej-80sdisco wrote:

Edit






[quote=rassel][/quote]

rassel wrote:

Mmm, good idea, but why not Dance-Pop?
There's already a nice description on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dance-pop
Or we call it simply Post-Disco: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-disco

jamiej-80sdisco wrote:

Sounds just as good to me - this would cover the more 'poppy' SAW productions of the later 80s (eg: Kylie Minogue, Sonia, etc etc) rather than their earlier stuff for Dead Or Alive, Divine, Hazell Dean (which is true Hi-NRG).

It would also cover the Pop/Rock dance style of the artists I mentioned earlier, and much of the commercial (I mean POPULAR) 12" mixes of the 80s, and stuff that is watered down house (Taylor Dayne for example)

jamiej-80sdisco wrote:

[quote=rassel][/quote]
Or we call it simply Post-Disco: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-disco

Post Disco sounds a little ambiguous to me (IMHO)

rassel wrote:

Ok, if we would add Dance-Pop, things like Kylie, Sinitta, Five Star, the later Pointer Sisters would be covered.
How would you describe the style of e.g. D-Train, or the later Chic releases?

SeRKeT wrote:

Dtrain and Chic come under Disco/Funk/Jazz Funk, to me personally though it's just 80's disco :))

jamiej-80sdisco wrote:

It think we are onto an answer




One style for the whole lot - no more arguments

Except we don't have 80's Disco as a style.....

MUSICLOVER04 wrote:

Some "reflections" about New Romantic.

Clearly, it was a visual style (Make-up and clothes), started with the post-glam of David Bowie (called in some 1978-1979 magazines as "Gay Power") and Bryan Ferry/Roxy Music. But in their music: too many differences with all the rest of the era, like implementation of saxophone, oboe and clarinet solos; a rich bass and rhythm guitar, both seemingly of Disco music and, of course, a good percussion. Followed by Modern Romance, ABC, Spandau Ballet, Duran Duran, Soft Cell, Haircut 100, Fiction Factory, Japan (EVEN Wham! -1st album- Culture Club, Bronski Beat??? and Tears For Fears). Much of those groups and their music were called "New English Wave" in the continent of America. Other bands like The Jam/Style Council, Curiosity Killed The Cat and Level 42, between others, continued in a "Jazz taste".

Then, why not "New Romantic" as a style?

Definitively, the style "end" (I can't precise exactly the year) with the birth of the "Manchester movement" (Hacienda), where started "House" (do not confuse with house music from NY and Chicago), "Acid", "New Beat" (Joy Division/New Order, PSB -much in the Hi-NRG style and Italo Disco- Orlando's production) and "Brit Pop". Although Simply Red (another Manchester raised) continued.

Won't go too far with a style post punk and new wave. "Dance" (Simple Minds, Echo & The Bunnymen, Lloyd Cole & Co., Midnight, Radio Heart (Gary Numan), Wolfsheim, A Flock Of Seagulls and, perhaps, I'm sorry with the fans: The Cure.
They are revivalists of New Romantic?

Maybe my perception is wrong. In those "obscure" days of the '80s without internet, when the "new" music styles were hard to categorize even for music specialists. Fashion or music styles?

All the material posted by users here, in this topic, is very-very-very interesting. Is good to read 'em. Many thanks people.

mjb wrote:

I don't like that one. For one, that Wikipedia article (now pruned by me) and to a lesser extent, the one on dance-pop, owes its existence to a high school student in Czeckoslovakia and is pretty much based entirely on one source, AllMusic, which (on Wikipedia) is widely regarded as unreliable when it comes to genre definitions. AllMusic's now-anonymous contributor uses "post-disco" to lump together Italo-Disco with "boogie", a name which has suddenly gained traction in the last 5 years or so (recent discussion here). Boogie covers a fairly sizable chunk of somewhat disco-ish, often electro-ish material from 1979 into early 1984, and a small but not insubstantial portion of it could also be said to be dance pop, but most of it is way more on the R&B side, not pop. I think some DJs fancy it to be the missing link between disco and house, but it doesn't quite fulfill that role. Plus, it seems to completely shed its disco connection as well as any sort of cohesive, identifiable sound by mid-1984, which leaves tracks like "Can't Wait Another Minute" in a pop-rock-ish, R&B-ish, but-not-at-all-disco-ish no-man's land. For those, maybe dance-pop really is the best term!




You might ask about it in the forum at http://www.discogs.com/group/813 before applying this personal standard. I think many Italo collectors would cringe upon reading this. For them, Italo begins & ends with Italian producers, about 1982 to 1987 and fading away as Hi-NRG & house began to dominate, plus maybe a smattering of obvious nostalgic tributes; otherwise, it's going to fall into the broader Eurodisco category ... which is not a style in Discogs, so it's approximated with combinations of Disco, Electro, Synth-Pop, or some such.

On Discogs you can see with the older submissions at least there was once a concerted effort to keep the Italo-Disco tag away from Italo-ish productions if they were actually UK, Dutch, German, etc. For example, all but 2 copies of Laura Branigan's "Self Control" (German production) are Synth-Pop, sometimes with Disco, whereas the original Italian production by RAF (5) is always Italo-Disco. The versions aren't very different. However perhaps as a counterexample, "Happy Song" originally by Baby's Gang (Italian) and covered by Boney M (German) are all tagged Italo-Disco.

rassel wrote:

Great idea, mjb!!
Using Booige as the missing link between Disco and House is a brilliant idea. It covers many of the "strictly dancefloor" tracks between 1981 and ~1986 wich are not pop-ish at all. They were produced for the clubs/discos at this time, not for the charts, they dind't try to attract a broader audience in using pop patterns.
Dance-pop did this, searched it's audience out of the dancehalls, reducing the funky/r&b parts to nearly zero. They tried to attract people with clean, attractive artists, where teenies could identify with.

Here's a small example why I really agree with mjb, using Boogie for the dance tracks in this time. Melba Moore is a good example, as she covers more than three decades and waved through many styles.

Melba, from Soul to House
Soul (Northern Soul): The Magic Touch 1966 {brilliant one btw.}
Disco: Standing Right Here 1977
Disco: You Stepped Into My Life 1978
Boogie: Love's Comin' At Ya 1982
Boogie: Love Me Right 1983
House: Do You Reall Want My Love (sorry, no youtube video found) 1990
House: My Heart Belongs To You House Mix # 1 2005

mjb wrote:

rassel, I repeat: "I think some DJs fancy it to be the missing link between disco and house, but it doesn't quite fulfill that role." Such a simple explanation at this point is, at best, speculation and wishful thinking; at worst, revisionism.

rassel wrote:

Hmm, so how shall we proceed then?
As today, calling them Disco-Funk-Synth-Pop-HiNRG-New Jack Swing?
Even if it's not 100% complete, the idea to group them and attaching a tag like Boogie is better than the chaos we have today.
And by the way, I don't think, Shadows, The called their style Classic Rock in the time.
Branding something as a style many years later does not mean to comit revisionism.

swattan wrote:

I agree to all, also wikipedia is not the definitive source where we should point... maybe something is right (see Eurodance/italodance), but i think here there are users that surely known more than everywhere else.

jamiej-80sdisco wrote:

Thanks to everyone for being interested in this,with so many new ideas having been put forward, and on one is wrong!
I am going to try to put my own personal view (not to be taken as gospel truth) on some of the points raised:



A great idea - this was such an important part of British Pop history, and probably should be put forward as a style for the EARLY work of Japan, Human League, Spandau Ballet, Duran Duran, ABC (etc) - but all of these bands style had changed by 1984-5 into Pop/Rock. Some of them even have 12" mixes which might be considered Hi-NRG
http://www.discogs.com/Giorgio...reams/release/447443




The bands you quote are often seen with the other New Romantic bands on compilations, but in my opinion their early stuff is New Wave (ie: Post Punk). I have also seen them described as being 'Industrial' along with New Order, PSB, Dead Or Alive - but this is not my understanding of 'Industrial'

The problem lies in that the record companies have marketed a lot of this stuff together for compilations in recent years. The identities the marketing guys have come up with is great for the record companies, but confusing when trying to get a database like this right.

jamiej-80sdisco wrote:

I agree these wikipedia definitions of PopDance and Post Disco are not great. In fact they repeat much of the same information (and a lot of that is on the Hi-Nrg post too), and those definitions are not that helpful in getting across the difference between post-disco (Dance music 1980-1983) and PopDance (the productions of SAW is only one example)

From what has been said so far, Post Disco might include this kind of thing:
Stephanie Mills "Never Knew Love Like This Before'/'Pilot Error'
Diana Ross 'Upside Down'/'I'm Coming Out'
Donna Summer 'Love Is In Control'
Grace Jones 'Slave To The Rhyhtm'
Jennifer Holliday 'Hard Times For Lovers'
Pointer Sisters 'Slowhand'/'Automatic'
Shalamar 'A Night To Remeber'/'I Can Make You Feel Good'

However, most people seem to think it needs to be called something else rather than Post Disco, and perhaps it is Boogie (eventhough to me that has something of the 70's about it!)

jamiej-80sdisco wrote:

What I meant was that the discogs style 'Italo-disco' is the only style we have at present to cover that sound of music, even if it is German, Dutch, Belgian, French (rather than strictly Italian) dance music of the early to mid-80s.

I agree that Italo-disco probably should only mean Italian productions, but I think the term is in such general usage now that it covers Fancy, Modern Talking, C C Catch, Sandra, Attack (2), Mike Mareen, Peter Schilling etc

A new style is probably needed, but users might confuse Eurodisco with the 70's work of Cerrone, Gino Soccio, Giorgio Moroder etc

When I do subs for this stuff I give it synth pop, Italo-disco as the stlye, this is not really very accurate, but that's only because there is nothing else to use at the moment.

rassel wrote:

So ok, as long as we don't have anything to cover this Post Disco / Boogie releases, I'll go on and credit them as Disco.
Studio 54 for ever...
:D

jamiej-80sdisco wrote:

Thank you to all for contributing to this thread.

It has identified a desire by users for some more styles, and certainly some explanation of the existing styles, which to not seem to fit every bill:-

NEW ROMANTIC
NEW WAVE SYNTH (Simple Minds/Ultravox/Big Country/Lloyd Cole/Altered Images/The Associates: they could all be called 'Scottish New Wave/Scottish Rock/Pop!!!! - I might be serious!)
SYNTH POP (to be more clearly defined -ie: does it narrowly mean Depeche Mode/Erasure/Yazoo/early Eurythmics/PSB/Flock of Seagulls/Tears For Fears - OR does it mean general pop music played mostly on synthesisers?)
HI-NRG/BOYSTOWN
POST DISCO/BOOGIE/80'S DISCO - this has been explored on this thread http://www.discogs.com/help/forums/topic/176156
but no-one seems to have taken it further
DANCE POP/80's DANCE (someone think of another name - PLEASE!)
EUROBEAT - for none Italian releases (eg: Modern Talking/Sandra etc)

That covers the main ground, but how about too

SPACE DISCO (Cerrone, Gino Soccio, Koto, Rofo, Laserdance, some Giorgio Moroder)
HANDBAG (as explained above the releases of Almighty Records, Klone Records & others)

Does anyone want to put these forward in this thread
http://www.discogs.com/help/forums/topic/176225

Or shall I shut up & crawl back in my cage?

Jayfive wrote:

That thread is not about suggesting new styles. No styles are going to be added until the whole system of how they are included has been sorted out, and its that that the thread is about. As you can see from nik's original post here:
http://www.discogs.com/help/fo...topic/176225#2243716

Please dont tell more people to added styles to that thread. The fact no-one paid attention and the thread got derailed almost straight away into a series of people suggesting 'neo-post-progressive smurfcore' or such is bad enough as it is.

jamiej-80sdisco wrote:

sorry I got it VERY WRONG - I will shut up & crawl back in my cage - IGNORE ME