Gigi D'Agostino
Gigi D'Agostino (born December 17, 1967 in Turin ; actually Luigino Celestino Di Agostino ) is an Italian DJ , remixer and music producer . He is considered an icon and inventor of the Lento Violento style and an important interpreter of the Italo dance scene . He became internationally known through songs such as Bla Bla Bla , The Riddle , La passion and L'Amour Toujours .
biography
Life
D'Agostino was born on December 17, 1967 in Turin ( Italy ) to parents from Salerno and spent his childhood between Turin and Brescia . As a child, he expressed the desire to become active in the field of disco music. He later worked as a stonemason , cutting machine operator and fitter . At the same time he started to organize parties in different clubs as a DJ.
Until the mid-1990s: First experience as a DJ and Voyager
He made his debut at the Woodstock club near Turin. Between 1987 and 1992 he was resident DJ at the Palladio clubs in Cascinette d'Ivrea and Le Palace in Turin. From 1993 to 1998 Gigi D'Agostino worked as a resident DJ at the major discotheque L'Ultimo Impero in Turin . It was his peculiarity to play songs more slowly than usual, which made him known but not necessarily popular with the audience and colleagues. Later he began to move away from this stylistic device.
In 1993 he founded the Voyager project with Italian producers Sergio Datta and Maurizio De Stefani. Together they released the singles Hypnotribe , Baseball Furies and City of Night . In the following year his debut single Noise Maker Theme was released on the record label "Noise Maker" as a double A-side with a track by Daniele Gas. With this and the production team around Mauro Picotto , he released a number of other EPs in the same year. D'Agostino himself also released some remix versions of the releases. A selection of the tracks also appeared on his first album, A Journey into Space . That was released as a compilation album in his home country in 1994. On the album the song Panic Mouse was included in the stress mix. This track is considered to be a co-founder of the Lento Violento genre .
1996 to 1998: Gigi D'Agostino
In 1996 he released the self-titled studio album Gigi D'Agostino , which reached number 11 on the album charts in Italy. For the production of the long player he separated from his previous production team and joined forces with the team around Bortolotti, the manager of "Media Records". The resulting singles Gigi's Violin , New Year's Day and Angel's Symphony developed into commercial successes and all reached the top 10 of the Italian charts. With the song Sweetly he landed his first international success. The song Fly decisively shaped the musical style of the Mediterranean Progressive. This also resulted in the establishment of the record label "BXR Noise Maker" as an imprint of "Media Records".
In 1997 he moved away from Mediterranean Progressive and made his tracks more melodic and processed not only progressive sounds but also characteristics of house music. This later resulted in the Italodance music style . In the course of this he released the EP Gin Lemon , which contained, among other things, the singles Gin Tonic , Gin Lemon and Music in a remix version. In 1998 he released the more aggressively designed song Cuba Libre under the pseudonym GG D'AG.
1999 to 2003: L'Amour Toujours
On May 17, 1999 he released the song Bla Bla Bla , which is based on a vocal sample from Why Did You Do It by Stretch , as the first official single release of his upcoming studio album. This developed into a success in many Western European countries. Sometimes it reached the top 10 in Germany and Austria and 15th place in France. In the United Kingdom, the song entered the singles charts the following year. The musician described the single as a piece that he wrote when he "thought of all the people who talk and talk without actually saying anything!"
Parallel to Bla Bla Bla , the second single The Riddle was released . This is a cover version of the song of the same name by British musician Nik Kershaw from 1985. Musician Andrew Sarkeesian supported him as a singer. The Riddle was able to top the success of both predecessors and developed into a top 10 hit in Germany, France, the Netherlands and Belgium, among others. He also made it onto the charts in Italy. To date, the song has over 30 million views on YouTube and Spotify. In the same year he released the album Eurodance Compilation , which contained five unreleased tracks. For this compilation he received a platinum record and was named best producer at the Italian Dance Awards.
In July 1999 D'Agostino released the song Another Way as a third single release. This was especially successful in the German-speaking countries of Europe. On August 21, 1999, his second studio album L'Amour Toujours was released exclusively in Italy . This consisted of two CDs and, in addition to the singles previously released, contained a number of other new productions as well as a selection of songs from his last EP releases. It was published across Europe on January 10, 2000 and worldwide in the following year. The long player reached number one in the Austrian album charts and the top 10 in the German and Dutch album charts. It has sold over 850,000 times worldwide.
On October 8, 2000, the song La passion followed as the fourth single by L'amour toujours . Andrew Sarkeesian stood by his side once again as a guest singer. The melody of the song is based on the song Rectangle by the French musician Jacno, which is why the original title was also given in the single version. In Austria, Belgium and Hungary, La Passion reached number one in the singles charts, while it was number two in Germany, Ireland and Romania. In addition, D'Agostino reached number 71 in Germany's decade charts with the song. The English-language text, which consists of incoherent half-sentences, also attracted attention. A few months later he published the song Super (1, 2, 3) together with the Italian radio DJ Albertino, which became a success especially in Austria, Spain and Italy.
On October 8, 2001, the song L'amour toujours was released, the last single from the studio album of the same name. This was released in the USA under the title I'll Fly with You on " Arista Records ". The song became a worldwide success. While the top 10 singles charts were reached in nine European countries, D'Agostino was able to reach the US Billboard charts for the first time . A commercial version of the song was released for radio that same year. The track has over 100 million streams on Spotify. New editions of the songs Noise Maker Theme , Put On Your Red Shoes and Bla Bla Bla followed .
2004 to 2009: L'Amour Toujours II
On December 10, 2004 D'Agostino released his third studio album L'Amour Toujours II with a number of new songs as well as various remixes he had produced. Furthermore, a new version of the song L'Amour Toujours was included. The first single was the song Silence , which made it into the top 20 of the German single charts. In Austria it moved up to the top 10. The songs Gigi's Goodnight , I Wonder Why and Wellfare followed as further singles from the album. These developed to minor successes in Austria and Italy, while in Germany they landed in the lower half of the chart. Official music videos were only made for Silence and Wellfare .
In collaboration with the Italian DJ and producer Molella , he founded the Gigi & Molly project in 2004, from which the two instrumental pieces Con il nastro rosa and Soleado emerged . The latter is based on the melody of the piece Soleado by Ciro Dammicco. Both songs managed to get into the German and Italian single charts. A number of compilation albums were released between 2004 and 2005. In addition, he concentrated more on his DJ activities. His radio show Il Cammino di Gigi D'Agostino ran from 2005 to mid-2009 on the Italian radio station m2o . From October 2009 D'Agostino designed another program ( Quello che mi piace ) on m2o, which was discontinued in December of the same year.
Between 2009 and 2012 he released a remake of Bla Bla Bla , which was made with Bootmasters, and two remakes of L'Amour Toujours . One was created together with the British producer Re-Con and the second in collaboration with the Italian Robbie Miraux. The solo single Stay with Me was also released
2018: In My Mind
On January 26, 2018, the Lithuanian music producer Dynoro released the song In My Mind , which is based on the song of the same name by Ivan Gough , Feenixpawl and Georgi Kay . In addition, the melody of the song L'Amour Toujours can be heard in the drop , which is why there were copyright disputes. In the summer of 2018 the song was released as a re-release, in which Gigi D'Agostino is specified as a feature. The song became a worldwide success. It reached the top of the singles charts in over 15 countries and sold over 2.5 million copies.
2020: Hollywood
On May 29, 2020 the single "Hollywood" was released in collaboration with the Italian producer and songwriter LA Vision. The song reached number 2 in the single charts in Austria and was also able to place in the charts in Italy and Germany.
Projects
Gigi D'Agostino has meanwhile divided his musical style, the “ Lento-Violento-Style ”, into various projects, each of which has characteristic features. These projects include:
- Dottor Dag
- Il Folklorista (similar cover project to Officina Emotiva)
- La Tana Del Suono (also slow style, partly text quotes from other songs)
- Lento Violento Man
- Love transistor
- Officina Emotiva (cover project that implements well-known songs in LV style)
- Onironauti
- Orchestra Maldestra (hard bass, melody comes from "spoken chant")
- Uomo Suono (hard bass, characteristic rhythms)
Production and registration
D'Agostino takes his inspiration from many different musical genres, including funk , industrial , reggae , soul , jazz and house . He sometimes also produces songs for his fans; on his compilation Lento violento… e altre storie you can find songs by Magic Melodien, Ludo Dream or The Love Family, among others.
The Chinese and Japanese characters (舞), which he always carries with him and can be found on almost every CD cover and many fan t-shirts, is pronounced wǔ (Japanese mai ) and means in German "the dance" or "dance". However, it is commonly referred to as "MON" by fans.
Discography
Studio albums
| year | title |
Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes) |
Remarks | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 DE
|
 AT
|
 CH
|
 IT
|
|||
| 1996 | Gigi D'Agostino | - | - | - |
IT11 (6 weeks) IT |
First published: May 31, 1996
|
| 1999 | L'amour toujours |
DE10  (54 weeks)DE |
AT1 × 3
(69 weeks)AT |
CH53 (21 weeks) CH |
IT10 (16 weeks) IT |
First published: August 21, 1999
|
| 2004 | L'amour toujours II |
DE65 (4 weeks) DE |
AT6 (10 weeks) AT |
- |
IT52 (2 weeks) IT |
First published: December 13, 2004
|
Web links
- Official website
- Gigi D'Agostino at Discogs (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ 2
- ↑ Gigi D'Agostino: Il fenomeno musicale transgenerazionale senza tempo. In: Metropolitan Magazine. December 17, 2018, accessed March 31, 2019 (it-IT).
- ↑ http://www.casadag.com/casadag/topic.asp?whichpage=-1&TOPIC_ID=63402&REPLY_ID=2351211#2351211
- ↑ Matthias Schwarzer: Illegal chart hit: What's behind the number 1 song "In My Mind"? In: www.nw.de. August 6, 2018, accessed March 29, 2019 .
- ↑ [1]
- ↑ Chart sources: DE AT CH ; Guido Racca: Top 100 FIMI album. Lulu , 2013, p. 94.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | D'Agostino, Gigi |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Di Agostino, Luigino Celestino (real name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Italian DJ and music producer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 17th December 1967 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Turin , Italy |