Dear listeners,
I’m back! Thank you to my editor, Caryn Ganz, for filling in for me for the past two weeks while I was on vacation visiting a friend in Italy. I was mostly in and around Florence, but I also made some excursions to Siena, Bologna and Rome. As relaxing as that sounds, know that my ears weren’t completely on vacation. As always, I was constantly discovering new music, and I’m going to share some of those finds with you in today’s playlist.
I confess that, going into this trip, I didn’t know much about Italian pop music — minus Giorgio Moroder or the odd Italo disco track I’d downloaded over the years — and even after digging in a bit more deeply, I’m still far from an expert. But those circumstances sometimes make for the most honest and exciting discoveries. I don’t know which of the artists whose music I connected with are particularly “cool,” and I can’t quite trace all the cultural references that put them into a larger context. All I know is that something about each of these songs resonated with me when I heard them — and sometimes it really is that simple.
What follows is a collection of nine songs that I encountered while browsing record stores, watching one of several music video channels that still exist on Italian TV, or sitting in a cafe and hearing something that piqued my curiosity enough to open up Shazam. It includes new artists like Italy’s most recent Eurovision representative Angelina Mango, national legends like Patty Pravo, and a three-song detour into the country’s ’80s new-wave underground. It also includes one recent American pop song that — I was surprised to learn — is unexpectedly big in Italy. Divertiti!
Ciao,
Lindsay
Listen along while you read.
1. Patty Pravo: “La Bambola”
Patty Pravo was an unfamiliar name I kept seeing in used record store bins, and I’m glad I looked her up after I got home. Now 76, the Venice-born Pravo is a smoky-voiced chanteuse who has had a long and eclectic career. Her breakout hit “La Bambola” (“The Doll”) topped the Italian pop charts for nine weeks in 1968 and is still one of her signature songs.
2. Fred Bongusto: “Una Rotonda Sul Mare”
Here’s a string-kissed pop ballad from 1964 that I Shazamed at a cozy bar in Florence. Its cinematic atmosphere made me feel as if I were in an old Italian movie — which makes sense now, since I’ve learned that Fred Bongusto composed music for a lot of films from the 1960s and ’70s.
3. Neon: “My Blues Is You”
While crate-digging at a record store called Disco D’Oro in Bologna, I stumbled upon an intriguing compilation called “Italia New Wave: Minimal Synth, No Wave & Post Punk Sounds from the ’80s Italian Underground.” That led me to a bunch of very cool bands I hadn’t heard of before, beginning with the Florentine group Neon, which sounds like a darkwave photonegative of New Order. Highly recommended!
4. Illogico: “Abilità Motoria”
Here’s another gem off that compilation, from the Roman no-wave band Illogico. The combination of angular guitars, a spiky rhythm section and bursts of brass remind me a bit of the British post-punk band Essential Logic, but “Abilità Motoria” has a uniquely brooding atmosphere about it, too.
5. N.O.I.A.: “Forbidden Planet”
One last stop in the Italian ’80s underground, courtesy of the influential early electronic group N.O.I.A. I like the funky bass line and campy lyrics about space travel on this 1982 single, but I’ve also been enjoying some of the other recordings they’ve rereleased in recent years, like the kinetic “Do You Wanna Dance?” and the sleek, “Tron”-like “The Rule to Survive (Looking for Love).”
6. Conan Gray: “Lonely Dancers”
Here’s a song I thought was from the ’80s when I first heard it, but it turns out it’s just a 2024 single from a 25-year-old American pop singer doing his best “Safety Dance.” Go figure! Conan Gray isn’t exactly a household name yet stateside — though he is headlining Madison Square Garden on Sept. 30 — but everywhere I went in Italy, this song was on the radio. As I have already established on this playlist, Italians appreciate synthesizers.
7. Angelina Mango: “Melodrama”
The daughter of the Italian pop singer Mango, who died in 2014, Angelina Mango is a rising star in her own right. The 23-year-old’s buoyant, cumbia-inspired hit “La Noia” won the Sanremo Music Festival this year and was also Italy’s entry in the Eurovision song contest. In May, she released her debut album, “Poké Melodrama,” which features this shape-shifting single; the fun, sassy music video is all over Italian TV right now.
8. Donatella Rettore: “Kobra”
Here’s another Shazam discovery, this time heard while recharging my batteries at an Irish-themed pub near the university in Bologna. Judging solely from my first impression of this song, Donatella Rettore (sometimes known just by her last name) struck me as the Italian Kate Bush, though this video of her performing the song on an Italian TV show in 1981 suggests she’s got a particular flavor of weird that is entirely her own!
9. Patty Pravo: “Se Perdo Te”
And finally, I’ll leave you with one more from Patty Pravo — a soaring, stirring ballad first released in 1967. Those wrenching notes she hits in the chorus make me want to shout from the top of the Florence Cathedral, “Viva l’Italia!”
The Amplifier Playlist
“Italian Pop Discoveries From My Vacation” track list
Track 1: Patty Pravo, “La Bambola”
Track 2: Fred Bongusto, “Una Rotonda Sul Mare”
Track 3: Neon, “My Blues Is You”
Track 4: Illogico, “Abilità Motoria”
Track 5: N.O.I.A., “Forbidden Planet”
Track 6: Conan Gray, “Lonely Dancers”
Track 7: Angelina Mango, “Melodrama”
Track 8: Donatella Rettore, “Kobra”
Track 9: Patty Pravo, “Se Perdo Te”
Bonus Tracks
Speaking of my man Giorgio Moroder: It’s never a bad day to crank up “Son of My Father.”
Also, while I was on vacation, a Critic’s Notebook that I wrote was published. It’s about something I’ve been mulling over for quite some time: a shift in the way the current generation of female pop stars is singing about their struggles with body image. It’s a sensitive, complicated topic, but I hope you’ll give it a read.
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