Ryan Paris

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Ryan Paris is the stage name of the Italian singer and actor Fabio Roscioli, born in Rome in 1953. He grew up with music: a great-uncle was an opera singer. After a short career as an actor, with a small part in the film Once Upon a Time in America, he played in rock bands and a new wave group in Rome. When his band broke up in 1982 because members had to do military service, he came into contact, through the keyboard player of the group Stadio, with the producer and composer Pierluigi Giombini.

Music and breakthrough

Giombini wrote and produced Dolce Vita for him. At first no record company wanted to release the song, but in the summer of 1983 it reached number 1 in the Netherlands, Flanders, France, Spain and the Scandinavian countries, and in England it made the top 5. After that Paris mostly had hits in southern Europe. In 1990 a remix by Ben Liebrand was released in the Netherlands.

Influence

Dolce Vita is a textbook example of Italo disco: an Italian studio production with synthesizers, a danceable rhythm and English-language vocals, made by a producer who went looking for a singer afterwards. The song continued to resonate. The Canadian indie musician Mac DeMarco cited Paris as an inspiration, and the two went on to record and perform together. In this way Ryan Paris is an example of an artist who became known mainly through a single song, which sums up an entire movement.

Listening

• 
  Dolce Vita · Ryan Paris, 1983
  Apple Music ↗

Discography

Studio albums

• 1984Ryan Paris
• 2015The Rock
• 2018Sensation Of Love
• 2020Ryan Sings the 80s… and More, Episode 1
• ?Dolce Vita

In School of Rock

The chapters, maps and magazine stories of School of Rock are currently available in Dutch only.

• Mixtape 7: The 1980s^NL Reader