Robyx

Roberto Zanetti (born 28 November 1956) is an Italian singer, music producer and businessman from Massa, Tuscany. As a singer, he is known under the stage name Savage and as a music producer he uses the alias Robyx.

Career

At the age of fourteen, he began studying piano, quickly developing a passion for music that would shape his future career. During his high school years, he played in a band.

While in college, Zanetti's formed a band called Taxi, which included Zucchero Fornaciari on guitar. During this period, he started composing songs, initially in a melodic and commercial style before transitioning to a dance music style. In 1983, Taxi released their first single, "To Miami", which became a local hit in central Italy. This success was followed by another track, "Angelica", released under the pseudonym Joey Moon.

Breakthrough

In 1983, Zanetti collaborated with Giorgio Dolce to produce G.A.N.G.'s "Incantation", a cover of a Mike Oldfield song, which performed well in Italy. This marked the beginning of his partnership with Discomagic Records, a key distributor for his future work. Between October and November 1983, he produced several tracks, including "Buenas Noches" by Kamillo, "Starman" by Claudio Mingardi, "Magic Carillon" by Rose, and his breakthrough hit "Don't Cry Tonight" under the stage name Savage. This song marked his rise to prominence and led him to adopt the professional pseudonym Robyx, inspired by a cartoon character he created with a friend during school.

Savage

From 1984 to 1986, Zanetti focused on his ''Savage'' project, releasing the successful album Tonight and singles such as "Only You", "Celebrate", "Radio", "A Love Again", "Love Is Death", "Loosing You", and "Goodbye". During this time, he also produced " Life Is Life" by Stargo, a dance cover of Opus's hit, which topped the French charts and earned a gold record for 250,000 copies sold. As the lead singer of Savage, Zanetti began performing live shows and tours across Europe, gaining popularity in Eastern European countries like Poland and Russia.

Establishment of Robyx

In 1986, Zanetti founded his own recording studio, Casablanca Recordings, which also served as the headquarters for his production company, Robyx.

In 1989, he recorded " I Just Died in Your Arms" (a hi-NRG remake of the Cutting Crew song), as well as a greatest hits album. In 1994, he released another album, ''Strangelove'', containing a number of remixes of his older songs and four mixes of the song " Strangelove" (by Depeche Mode). The last single which was released by Savage was "Don't You Want Me", which appeared on his own label, Dance World Attack Records (DWA) in 1994. This track does not appear on the ''Strangelove'' album.

As Robyx, he mainly worked as a songwriter and producer for other artists in the eurodance and euro house genres, working with Ice MC, Double You and Alexia.

At the beginning of 2019, Zanetti started recording ''Love and Rain'', his first studio album following ''Tonight'' (1984). He worked with multiple European labels to release the album, including Polish MagicRecords and Russian RDS Records, as he was living in Poland at that time. The album was released at the beginning of 2020 and includes 14 new songs.

Discography

Studio / remix / compilation albums

Singles

Films

* Italo Disco – Il suono scintillante degli Anni ’80 (2021)

References

General sources
*https://www.discogs.com/artist/15529-Savage?type=Releases&filter_anv=0
The Eurodance Encyclopaedia

External links

*
DWA Records
– Robyx's official record label's website
'Think About The Way' Credits

{{DEFAULTSORT:Zanetti, Roberto
1956 births
Living people
People from Massa
Italian male songwriters
Italian songwriters
Italian male singers
Italian Italo disco musicians