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I
want to discuss a Japanese dance music genre called "Eurobeat".
I decided to conduct a bit more research into this genre, since I
had time to interview a DJ in Japan about this. Eimi:
While listening to Eurobeat music, I've realized
that the voices in a lot of the songs sound similar.
I think that the singers sing under many different names.
Sho:
You're exactly right.
There are even a couple of singers that were at two different
record labels at the same time. One
examples is Gino Caria. He
was at A-Beat-C Records from 1990 to 1995, but he was also at Time Records
from the late 80's to 1995. Unfortunately,
he died of lung cancer in 1997. Gianni
Corraini was at A-Beat-C Records from 1992 to 1996, but he was also at
Time Records from 1992 to 1995.
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Eimi:
Can you tell me what names they used?
Sho:
Gino Caria was using the names "Derreck
Simons"(until 1994),"Edo" (until 1995) and "Mike
Skanner" (until 1994) at A-Beat-C.
When he was at Time, he was using the names "Chester",
"Toby Ash", "Dr Money", "Lou Grant",
"Frank Torpedo", "Pleasure and pain", "Tommy
K", "Robert Patton" and "De Niro".
Gianni Corraini was using the names "DJ NRG" (pronounced
"energy") and "KL Jones" at A-Beat-C.
He was also using the names "Mike Freeman", "Ric
Fellini", "Ken Hunter" and "Danny Keith" at Time
records.
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Eimi:
Wow! That is a lot of names!
Sho:
I wonder where they got the names.
Anyway, let's talk about the creators of Eurobeat.
The producer, composer, writer and singer of A-Beat-C is a man
named Giancarlo Pasquini. He
goes by the name "Dave Rodgers" when he sings and produces
songs. He has been to a
couple more record labels in Italy in the 80's, singing in a group called
"Aleph". In 1990,he
established A-Beat-C Records. His
favorite music besides Eurobeat is rock, so some Eurobeat songs made are
influenced a little bit by rock. The
main creator of the songs in Time records is Sergio Dall'Ora.
He had been working on his own in the 80's and he has also been at
a couple other record labels in Italy.
He has even worked at a label that makes techno music, so probably
that's why some of his songs are techno-ish.
He has been at Time records since 1989, but his talent was kinda
"not admitted" by the other guys.
So even if he has been there since 1989, the first song he produced
was in 1994 and he became a producer officially in 1996.
His songs have a techno bent and his lyrics are very easy to
follow. I'll tell you about
the lyrics after this. He has
also been working with a young song writer named Luca Degani recently and
they teamed up to make a lot of songs.
The "main man" of Delta records is a guy named Andrea
Leonardi aka Bratt Sinclaire. Actually,
he has been at A-Beat-C Records until he established Delta records in
1995.He said he wanted to be a rock star and he loves rock music.
His songs are often aggressive. (Related:
Britney Christian)
Eimi:
What about the lyrics?
Sho:
Since this music is only released on CDs in Japan,
some songs have to do with Japan. Some
titles have the words "Tokyo" or "Japan" in them. I think that the songs that Sergio Dall'Ora makes have to a
lot do with Japan. Some songs
that he made that have to do with Japan are "Night in Tokyo",
"Rock in Japan", "Roppongi nights", "Maharaja
night" (named after a Japanese disco that existed until 1996),
"Christmas in Tokyo", "Big in Japan" and "Moving
in Tokyo". Also, you may
think that the lyrics are similar. The
Japanese fans call the words that often appear in lyrics
"keywords". The
keywords are like "boom boom", "fire",
"desire", "love", "Japan",
"music", "Para-para", "Tokyo" and so on.
Speaking of lyrics, I said that Sergio Dall'Ora's lyrics are easy
to tell. He is especially
fond of using the "keywords" such as "supersonic",
"love desire" and so on.
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