![]() “He was a keen listener, and almost everyday he came home with a new record,” ranging from Deep Purple to David Bowie to Quincy Jones. Rodgers credits his father for sparking a love of music in him while growing up in the Italian city of Mantua. Pre-order buy pre-order buy you own this wishlist in wishlist go to album go to track go to album go to track Here are five releases from Dave Rodgers and his assorted projects and collaborations showing both the influence of his sound and the evolution of Eurobeat. In recent years, he’s launched his own label, Dave Rodgers Music, which includes a project to re-record his biggest hits “to give new and fresh life to these historical songs,” he says. “Memes can connect many young kids, they use my music because they also found the energy, positivity, and happiness they need to have a better life.”Įven as Eurobeat receded from mainstream taste in the early 21st century, Rodgers never stopped exploring the style. “I think the younger generations use my songs to dream and use their imagination via the lyrics I like to use,” Rodgers says. Outside of the country, Eurobeat’s anime connection helped give it new life as a meme in the 2010s, when videos of various vehicular mishaps were soundtracked by Rodger’s contributions to Initial D (“ Eurobeat Intensifies” goes a phrase online). ![]() Once a signifier of times gone by, Eurobeat is now enjoying a boost in attention in Japan as pop acts turn to the style as a way to stand out and younger artists, who grew up with the sound, get a chance to play with it themselves, especially those dabbling in the blown-out world of hyperpop. Yet his work and Eurobeat at large have proven to be as relevant as ever in the social media age. J-pop during that decade didn’t need to sell itself abroad the domestic market was booming, so Rodgers’ work at the time mostly stayed in Japan. “He applied that as a producer in the ‘90s, and mastered it with his songs.” He adds that Rodgers pinpointed how to use melody as a way to get Japanese listeners to feel, whether making them cry or sharing a sense of elation. “I think Dave Rodgers learned and acquired all the elements needed to make hits back in the ‘80s,” says Akira Yokota, better known as Eurobeat performer DJ BOSS who has worked on Avex’s Super Eurobeat series since the early 2000s. Others landed with then-emerging J-pop stars such as Namie Amuro or the male group V6 or became part of the soundtrack to the drift-centric anime series Initial D, where scenes of cars pulling off pinpoint turns were soundtrack by Rodger’s thumping Eurobeat. Many of those songs ended up on Super Eurobeat releases, either performed by Dave Rodgers or one of the dozens of artists he produced and wrote for. I was very focused and busy,” Rodgers says. “My company was producing about 18 to 24 songs a month. By the end of the decade, it had even inspired its own type of dancing, referred to as para para, revolving around hand movements. Compilations like major label Avex’s still-ongoing Super Eurobeat series delivered fresh tunes monthly, while Japanese stars rode the sound to the top of the charts. First coming to popularity in Japan in the 1980s thanks to club-driven interest in dance genres such as Hi-NRG and Italo Disco, Eurobeat became a phenomenon. “The excitement was very high, and I don’t think I understood exactly what was happening in that period.”Įurobeat was the backbone of J-pop in the 1990s. “From 1985 to 2002, my music was everywhere -on the streets, in music stores, at Tokyo Disneyland,” says the 60-year-old Rodgers. Italian artist and producer Dave Rodgers, born Giancarlo Pasquini, shaped many of those dance hits, becoming omnipresent in the country. While the previous decade’s economic bubble had popped, people could still find revelry in songs with high energy beats and delirious synth melodies, whether they be on CD singles or blaring out of a Tokyo megaclub’s soundsystem. Japan’s pop music industry hit a peak in the 1990s, recording huge sales figures and attracting attention from neighboring Asian nations.
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