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Sign upSabrina, Lian Ross, Tracy Spencer, Fun Fun - Italo Disco in a female voice.
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February 1983: Bonnie Tyler with Jim Steinman. The track had first been offered to Streisand, Donna Summer, Tina Turner - all declined. Tyler's husky post-1976 surgery voice over Steinman's Wagnerian production, 17 hours of vocal across 8 days. #1 Billboard 4 weeks, UK #1 2 weeks, #1 in 14 countries, 6M copies.
November 1984: the 26-year-old Madonna with producer Nile Rodgers; songwriters Steinberg+Kelly. Six weeks at Billboard #1 - her longest. Album 21M copies - the best-selling female album to date. The track had been offered to 20 artists (Tina Turner, Sting) before her - all passed. Venice video with a live lion.
August 1985: UK #3, Billboard #30 on release. The track then sleeps 37 years. June 2022: Stranger Things 4 puts it in a pivotal scene - five weeks later it hits UK #1. Records set: oldest female UK #1 (63) and the longest gap from release to #1 ever. 2.8B Spotify streams to date.
January 1978: the 19-year-old Kate Bush - the first UK single with a female author at national chart #1. 4 weeks UK #1, 3M copies. Written in one night after a BBC adaptation of Brontë's novel. EMI wanted a different song as her debut; Bush insisted. Steinway, Fender Rhodes, ARP Odyssey. Opened doors for Björk, Tori Amos, PJ Harvey.
September 1981: 10 consecutive weeks at Billboard #1 - an 80s record only broken by Whitney Houston in 1992. 8M copies, Billboard #1 single of 1981. Banned on 11 Bible Belt stations and in South Africa. LinnDrum, Yamaha CS-80, producer John Farrar. Became the soundtrack to Jane Fonda's aerobics.
Summer 1987: 19-year-old Sabrina Salerno from Genoa with producer Cecchetto. #1 Italy, France, Germany, #3 UK, 5M copies. The Grand Hotel Alassio pool video with a “slipped” strap was BBC-banned by day - only fuelling demand.
March 1983: a song about balloons mistaken for a missile strike. #2 Billboard in German, #1 UK in English. The first German-language song in the US top 10 since 1961; 5 million copies by 1984.
October 1986: an unknown model from Lorraine cuts a single in six weeks for 180,000 francs at CBE Studio. A year later - #1 in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Austria, Norway, Sweden and Israel. 5M copies by 1989, 480M streams by 2024. Built on a JX-8P, DX7 and Fairlight CMI.
December 1984: Virgin Germany releases a single by an unknown Sandra Lauer. By April 1985 - #1 in five European countries, seven weeks at the top of the German chart, 2.5M copies. Michael Cretu rebuilt a rejected Arabesque recording, made Sandra do 23 takes and set the chorus in C Mixolydian.
The story of one of the few female stars of mid-'80s Italo Disco and her path from Sanremo to international popularity.
75% male artists versus 20% female, session vocalists in the shadow, Sabrina's provocative videos - gender roles in Italo Disco from a modern perspective.
Ivana Spagna and Angela Parisi - a rare successful female duo in a genre dominated by male voices. Hits Happy Station and Baila Bolero, solo career, retro return.
The story of one of the '80s' brightest Italian singers - the Italian whose "Boys Boys Boys" video became a cultural event discussed for years in the European press.
Josephine Hiebel under the Lian Ross name recorded 1985's "Fantasy" - one of the main female hits of German-Italian Italo Disco. A cult in Eastern Europe through the 2020s.
One of the few female stars of Italo Disco and her mysterious career - from the hit "The Night" to her unexpected 2010s return.
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