Italo Disco Top 20

I stumbled across a site (http://www.italo-disco.net/) that has a "Top 20" of the genre on it, and I thought I'd do the same just for fun. The author of that site has more exposure to the genre than I do, but I still have enough to narrow down twenty of my favorites and still have lots left over.

These are simply in alphabetical order by artist:

1. Bad Boys Blue "Pretty Young Thing" — This one skirts the edges of the definition of italo-disco somewhat, but since that definition is pretty arbitrary, and this sounds exactly like an italo-disco song, I'm letting it it slide. Plus, it was part of one of the Gapul megamixes I picked up in Argentina, which was so very formative to my awareness of the genre in the first place. Sadly, I just learned that the lead vocalist died (at the age of 50) from a sudden heart attack earlier this year.
2. Baltimora "Tarzan Boy" — For a very long time, this was the only italo-disco song that I knew of, and I wouldn't have called it italo-disco if I hadn't seen it on some Gapul megamixes also and realized that it fit right in. This gets a few bonus points for cracking into the American and British markets; something no other italo-disco song ever did.
3. Brian Ice "Talking to the Night" — I'm leaning heavily on the old Gapul megamixes as source material, because that's where I first heard so many of these songs (and therefore, cemented them as favorites in my mind even after I started branching out beyond them.) This was literally the first song on the first mix I heard, and it's been a favorite ever since.
4. Den Harrow "Future Brain" — Great song, and apparently a real chart-topper on the continent years ago. Sadly, Den Harrow has recently undergone a Milli Vanilli style controversy; apparently the frontman was merely a model lip synching while other people sang the lyrics. Still; good song. Classic of the genre.
5. Fancy "Bolero" — Fancy has the dubious honor of being one of the weirdest looking italo-disco stars. He's also a German and supposedly is a good friend to Siegfried and Roy. Wow. Anyway, I like this song; it's very overblown and overly dramatic, but that's part of the fun. Nobody said these guys took themselves seriously; after all they were disco artists.
6. Fun Fun "Baila Bolero" — unlike the superficially similar synthpop genre, female vocalists were relatively common in italo-disco, and this is a great example of two Italian gals singing about a fling with a Spaniard. Ivana Spagna is also supposedly some of the musical talent behind the two front-girls; she was a notable italo-disco star in her own right (although not one that I'm particularly fond of, as it happens.)
7. Hivoh "To Be Together" — the sappy teen angst in the lyrics here makes it particular fun. He can't go back to class because they're broken up? Haha. The deadly serious and dark nature of the music accompanying these terribly cheesy lyrics is the icing on the cake. A feature of the genre in general is really bad lyrics, though—I mean, these artists obviously didn't really speak English very well, and not only are the lyrics really bad but so is the delivery of them.
8. Hot Cold "Love is Like a Game" — another really fun disco song with female vocals (and another one of my original Gapul favorites.)
9. Ken Laszlo "Tonight" — I've already posted the video here earlier; this is probably my single favorite italo-disco song. It's a close call, though.
10. Miko Mission "Two For Love" — Although "How Old Are You?" is probably (marginally) a bigger hit, this one wins because I heard it first, and asking a girl if she's old enough to date or not is really creepy.
11. Mirage "No More No War" — The sheer chutzpah of recording a song with these lyrics is part of its charm; they're dreadfully sappy and vapid, while giving the superficial appearance of being timely and politically deep. Oh, well. Mostly I just like the beat. Some nice synthlines on this one.
12. P. Lion "Happy Children" — P. Lion did a number of songs which are all pretty good, if a bit disposable, but this one actually stands out from that crowd as a bit more substantive and having a bit more artistic merit. Not too much, mind you, but enough to stand out.
13. R. Bais "Dial My Number" — Great song. Decent lyrics, which is a change.
14. Radiorama "Chance to Desire" — I struggled a bit with which Radiorama song to include, as they actually have a good half dozen or more than are all great songs. Radiorama is another one that wasn't content to be "just" disco music, and they had a number of surprisingly thoughtful and musically deft songs. This one is my favorite of the bunch, though.
15. Raff "Self Control" — Another song that I heard on a Gapul megamix, but it also is one of my favorites overall. It seemed really familiar to me, even though I doubt I could have heard it when it was current, but Laura Branigan remade it and it was a minor hit in the states by her.
16. Sandy Marton "People From Ibiza" — Sandy Marton had a small string of hits, including "Exotic and Erotic", and "Camel By Camel" and a few others. This one is my favorite. I wasn't aware of Ibiza's reputation as a party island until I looked into it after hearing this song, too.
17. Savage "Only You" — I was very tempted to put "Don't Cry Tonight", which is probably a bigger hit for Savage, but I think I like "Only You" a little bit more. They sound very similar anyway; "Don't Cry Tonight" is almost somnambulant it's so slow now. I have to remind myself, but my version is one that I ripped to mp3, opened up in an audio manipulation software, and speeded the tempo up a bit. It's still slowish (and it needs to be) but it's not too slow.
18. Silent Circle "Touch in the Night" — Silent Circle was another hit machine, cranking out several songs that are well remembered today. This is probably their most successful and—you probably guessed it—appeared prominantly in my favorite Gapul megamix.
19. Silver Pozzoli "Around My Dream" — Despite the clunky lyrics, this is a fun song. Relatively chipper, despite it's laid-back tempo, this is one of the great "feel good" songs of the genre.
20. Taffy "I Love My Radio" — A big hit in the UK; unusual for the genre, yet still unknown in the States for the most part. Very nice female vocalist.

If I could admit an even looser definition of "the genre" that included some other club-oriented music from the same time frame, many of it very similar in nature, I'd also add Bobby O's "She Has a Way", Vicious Pink's "Take Me Now", Man 2 Man's "Male Stripper", Paul Lekakkis' "Boom Boom (Let's Go Back to My Room)", Dead or Alive's "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)" and C.C.C.P.'s "American Soviets." But for now, I'm going to be more strict in genre definition and leave them out of the count.

I'll also point out that youtube has most of these songs on it, if you want to hear them, and the link I presented at the very beginning of the post has very low quality mp3 samples of most of them as well.