Don Van Vliet was an American singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and visual artist best known by the stage name Captain Beefheart. Conducting a rotating ensemble known as the Magic Band, he recorded 13 studio albums between 1967 and 1982. His music blended elements of blues, free jazz, rock, and avant-garde composition with idiosyncratic rhythms, absurdist wordplay, a gravelly voice, and a wide vocal range. Known for his enigmatic persona, Beefheart frequently constructed myths about his life and was known to exercise an almost dictatorial control over his supporting musicians. Although he achieved little commercial success, he sustained a cult following as an influence on an array of experimental rock and punk-era artists.
Baltimora was an Italian music project from Milan, active from 1984 to 1987. They are best known for their 1985 single "Tarzan Boy" and are often considered a one-hit wonder in the United Kingdom and the United States. In other European countries, including their native Italy, Baltimora scored a follow-up hit "Woody Boogie" the same year.
Luigino Celestino di Agostino, known professionally as Gigi D'Agostino, is an Italian DJ and music producer. In 1986, he started his career as a DJ spinning Italo disco. His biggest chart successes include "Bla Bla Bla", "Another Way", a cover of Nik Kershaw's "The Riddle", "La Passion", "Super" and "L'Amour Toujours", all in the years 1999 and 2000. The hookline of "L'Amour Toujours" was also used for the 2018 hit game remix/mashup "In My Mind".
Arjen Anthony Lucassen is a Dutch singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist musician and record producer best known for his long-running progressive metal/rock opera project Ayreon. Lucassen started his career in 1980 as the guitarist and backing vocalist of Dutch band Bodine as Iron Anthony, before joining Vengeance in 1984. After eight years he left the band, wanting to go into a more progressive direction, and released two years later an unsuccessful solo album entitled Pools of Sorrow, Waves of Joy under the nickname Anthony.
Italo disco is a music genre which originated in Italy in the late 1970s and was mainly produced in the 1980s. Italo disco evolved from the then-current underground dance, pop, and electronic music, both domestic and foreign and developed into a diverse genre. The genre employs electronic drums, drum machines, synthesizers, and occasionally vocoders. It is usually sung in English, and to a lesser extent in Italian and Spanish.
Koto was an Italo disco group that originally consisted of Anfrando Maiola and Stefano Cundari, later with the Dutch composer Michiel van der Kuy.
Ton Scherpenzeel is a Dutch keyboardist, composer, lyricist, and founding member of Dutch progressive rock band Kayak. Subsequent to Kayak, Scherpenzeel joined British progressive rock band Camel. He also played for several years with Dutch band Earth and Fire and released several solo albums. After his participation in rock bands, he was associated with Dutch vocal project Opus and was the accompanying keyboardist to Dutch comedian Youp van 't Hek.
Bad Boys Blue are a German pop group formed in Cologne in 1984. The group performed many international hits including "You're a Woman", "Pretty Young Girl", "I Wanna Hear Your Heartbeat", and "Come Back and Stay".
Anthony Lawrence Carey is an American-born, European-based musician, composer, producer, and singer/songwriter. In his early career he was a keyboardist for Rainbow. After his departure in 1977, he began a solo career, releasing albums under his own name as well under the pseudonym Planet P Project, and producing for and performing with other artists.
Peter Slaghuis was a Dutch DJ, record producer and remixer, whose work was mostly released under the name Hithouse.
L.A. Style was a Dutch electronic dance music group, consisting of founder, producer and radio DJ Wessel van Diepen, composer Denzil Slemming and FX aka Frans Merkx, as well as Foco and Ray Decadance of the Belgian project Rofo. L.A. Style was most notable for their 1991 single "James Brown Is Dead", which appeared on Billboard's Hot 100 Airplay chart, becoming the first EDM group to venture near the top 50 of the main Billboard singles chart.
Michiel van den Bos, is a Dutch musician and electronic composer. He has composed soundtracks for over 20 games including Unreal, Deus Ex, Sonic, and the Age of Wonders series. He's also known as M.C.A. in the demoscene and tracker community. As indie/alternative DJ he uses the alias Mike Boss.
VideoKids were a 1980s Euro disco duo from the Netherlands, formed in 1984 and consisting of Peter Slaghuis (1961-1991) and Bianca Bonelli (1964-1995). The band's members also had solo careers on their own, such as Peter being a famous DJ and remixer, and Bianca having a solo single called "Je Veux L'amour ". They released two albums, The Invasion of the Spacepeckers in 1984 and On Satellite in 1985. All of their songs were produced and written by Catapult musicians Aart Mol, Cees Bergman, Elmer Veerhoff, Erwin van Prehn and Geertjan Hessing, and recorded at Cat Music.
Carla Bissi, known professionally as Alice or Alice Visconti, is an Italian singer-songwriter and pianist who began her career in the early 1970s. After releasing three albums by the end of the decade, her breakthrough came in 1981 when she won the Sanremo Music Festival with the song "Per Elisa". This was followed by European hit singles like "Una notte speciale", "Messaggio", "Chan-son Egocentrique", "Prospettiva Nevski" and "Nomadi" and albums like Gioielli rubati, Park Hotel, Elisir, and Il sole nella pioggia which charted in Continental Europe, Scandinavia, and Japan.
Digital Emotion is a 1980s Euro disco group from the Netherlands, formed in 1983. Performers were Steven Koswal, Chickie de Beer and Myrna Balrak; Jean François Columbo, De Beer and Balrak; and Steve de Goede, De Beer and Marlinda van der Hoff. Their first singles from 1983, "Get Up, Action" and "Go Go Yellow Screen", sold successfully worldwide. They released two albums, Digital Emotion in 1984 and Outside In The Dark in 1985. All of their songs were produced and written by Catapult musicians Aart Mol, Cees Bergman, Elmer Veerhoff, Erwin van Prehn and Geertjan Hessing, and recorded at Cat Music.
Kingfisher Sky is a Dutch progressive metal band from Netherlands, created and led by drummer Ivar de Graaf.
Chinese Revenge is a song performed by Italian synth-pop group Koto. Released in 1982, it was their debut single. Composed by Anfrando Maiola, and produced by Stefano Cundari and Alessandro Zanni, it proved a big hit in Italy, selling over 10,000 copies. Unlike Koto's next batch of singles, "Chinese Revenge" is more of a downtempo track, rather than a high-energy italo-disco song. In 1985, the song was remixed by Marc Hartman, and again in 1989 by Michiel van der Kuy, with a more house flavour.
Future Generation is the first studio album by Dutch project Laserdance. Originally released as LP record by Hotsound Records in 1987, the album was composed by Michiel Van Der Kuy and produced by Erik van Vliet. It was released as CD album by Galaxis in 1987 and later ZYX Music in 2001. Future Generation contains rearrangements of Laserdance's previously released singles Power Run, Humanoid Invasion and Goody's Return, while the album also features new tracks.
Peter Wilson is an Australian singer, songwriter and producer. His work is heavily influenced by the 1980s Italo disco and the PWL pop sound.
Harout Arthur Der-Hovagimian is a Canadian composer, songwriter and record producer.
