Italo disco rebuilds American disco entirely out of synthesizers and drum machines. Over a four-on-the-floor kick, an analog sequencer loops a robotic bassline while a sweet, catchy melody rides on top. Vocals are usually sung by Italian singers in accented English, lending an artificial, almost naively futuristic feel. It is glitzy, cheap-sounding, and all the more lovable for it.

It grew out of the all-synth disco method Giorgio Moroder perfected in Munich around 1977, which then crossed into Italy. Because small labels in Milan and Bologna could mass-produce danceable tracks on a low budget without hiring a live band, the records poured out and became huge in clubs across Germany and Spain in the early 1980s.

Latch onto the relentless, looping synth bassline that never stops turning. Then notice the charm of the non-native English pronunciation, the gaudy synth-brass stabs and arpeggios, and the perfectly mechanical, unwavering beat sitting around 120 BPM.

Gazebo's 'I Like Chopin' (1983) is the sweet melodic archetype. For the prototype of programmed disco, hear Giorgio Moroder's 'From Here to Eternity' (1977).

In acts like Den Harrow, the person pictured on the sleeve and the person actually singing were sometimes different people, a fact revealed only later. Italo disco was, in many ways, manufactured as product.