Growing up, I was ensconced with Italo Disco or 1980s Euro dance music. On the weekends, I’d work the family business and my Vietnamese uncles would be playing music from the likes of C.C. Catch or Modern Talking. I’d get mixtapes from them. In an isolated Vietnamese community, it was pretty much Italo disco all the time. On occasion, there’d be some tried and true New Wavey acts from the likes of Duran Duran, Talk Talk, The Cure or Culture Club (exposed to me by the heyday of MTV), school friends, etc., but for the most part, Italo Disco was on all the time.
Italo Disco was also compounded by VHS editions of Paris by Night, a popular Vietnamese music and variety show that was ubiquitous in Vietnamese households. The performers would play only two kinds of music genres: Cai luong (traditional folk music) or you guessed it, Italo Disco. As a Vietnamese kid in the ’80s, if you liked it or not, Italo Disco was a part of your very everyday life. I wrote about this very phenomenon and the New Wave influence on Vietnamese American teens in the ’80s.
