Italo-disco is a very broad term, encompassing much of the disco music output in Europe during the 1980s. It is one of the world's first forms of completely electronic dance music that evolved during the late 1970s / early 1980s in Italy, Spain, Germany, and other parts of Europe.
Italo-disco music has a distinct, futuristic and spacey sound, which was created using synthesizers, drum machines, and vocoders. The term "italo-disco" was marketed only in Europe in the early 1980s by a German record label ZYX Music. In North America, UK, and Australia, italo disco was mostly an underground phenomenon that could only be heard at night clubs or through homemade DJ mixes.