I grew up in the Soviet Union in the 1980s. Italian music was extremely popular and beloved: Al Bano and Romina Power, Andriano Celentano, Pupo, Riccardo Fogli, Toto Cutugno, Ricchi E Poveri and many, many others. So many great songs that I still love listening to.
I tried listening to Italian songs from the 90s and especially 2000s and 2010s and they just don’t seem as good.
Does it only seem to me that this was a special period in Italian music that produced so many great songs, or is this opinion shared by others in Italy and other countries?
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Interesting question – I think I speak for many Italians in that we find it quite amusing how popular Italian 80s pop is in Eastern Europe/former Soviet bloc.
In terms of the quality, I think, like with a lot of music, you always prefer the music you grew up with. Nostalgia is a powerful influence. Personally I do like a lot of Italian 80s pop – I guess it’s more like “schlager”, the acts you mention. But then I sort of grew up with them too.
I think the music you mention in particular is very stereotypically Italian which helps it become very palatable to foreign audiences. I guess no one outside of Italy wants to listen to Italian rap 😉
I love 80’s italo disco songs. Like Pino D’Angiò – Ma Quale Idea
Those songs have a very special sound to them.
If you ask me, yes, it seems like Italy was at the centre of European pop music in the 80s. I wasn’t alive then then, but a lot of young people who are into music know about Italodisco and its influence on modern house music and techno. Basically when disco went out of style in the US, there was still huge demand for it in Europe and Italian producers stepped in to fill the gap. As they kept making ‘disco’ well into the 80s it became more electronic and influenced other genres of pop music being made at the time. The quality of pop music as a whole in Italy was definitely higher in the 80s and I think most people would agree that this didn’t carry over much into the 90s.
Yes and no. 80s was the decade of “classical” Italian pop, that was really popular as you said in the Soviet Union.
During the 90s and the early 2000s, “classical” Italian pop rotted (with very few exceptions, as Elisa, Lunapop, Jovanotti, or 883 who were a thing per se) and it was the golden age of Italo dance, that was a continuation of 80s disco whose most popular representative was *Giovanni Giorgio* Moroder: in this period Corona (The Rhythm of the Night), Robert Miles (Children), Gigi D’Agostino and Eiffel 65 became internationally recognised in the west. Italian pop decayed, and indeed this is the period of least success for Sanremo, that is the festival of Italian song but it is mostly pop.
2010s are a period of alignment of Italian pop on the international wave, proved by the fact that at Eurovision Song Contest, Italy (sending the winner song of Sanremo) is so far the most consistent country.
So no, it was not a special period of Italian music per se, but it was a golden age of Italian pop. 90s/200s on the other hand was the golden age of Italo dance. 2010s are the “renaissance” of Italian pop, although it is not as popular as in the 80s (Maneskin and Mahmood got a decent international recognition on the other hand).
My favourite music is Italian rock, and Italian prog rock from 70-80s is incredible, but I also find the 90-2000s alt rock scene of exceptional quality.
As with the kind of pop you mention unfortunately rock isn’t in fashion like it used to be. Italy still make some really good rock but it’s harder to find. I think the same applies to the old style of Italian pop.
In fact Gianni Morandi participated in this years Sanremo and placed third with a song very much in the style so this kind of music is still alive and kicking.
I very much liked Righeira. Italian dudes that sing in spanish. Vamos ala playa and No tengo dinero are unforgotten Hits of the 80s
I don’t agree, i like more italian music of today (trap aside) especially of the 2000s
As a kid of the 80s, I remember the Italopop wave very well. Germany had always had a soft spot for Italy, but that was something else. The popular music shows (Hitparade) back then had 2-3 Italian acts on every week. There’s dozens of songs that were looping on the radio and that have been burned into my generations memory forever. Of course the whole thing reached a fever pitch in 1990 with Gianna Nannini’s “un estate italiana” and the World Cup.
The whole craze cooled down quickly after that. in the 90s, there was a bit of a Spanish wave, as Italy was surpassed by Spain as Germany’s main tourist destination for the first time. Suddenly everybody was going to Mallorca. Since then, there nevery really has been anything like an Italian wave.
It was a special period for everything, the 80s were peak Italy/Western World.
Honestly speaking the artists you mention were not really appreciated by italian musicophiles and for good reasons imho. Too easy listening.
The real giants of italian 80’s pop were Battiato (a true genius), Matia Bazar (quality band with an incredible singer), someway Vasco Rossi and Litfiba (for the part of their production that was not rock). Those are coming in mind now, maybe I am missing someone. There were also some other artists who were mid-tier like 883, Articolo 31 etc.
Battisti pop era was the 70’s, in the 80’s he was still great but it was pure musical avantgarde.
I see someone mentioned “cantautori” but they are another league, at least from an italian perspective. If we also count cantautori we can add a lot of great artists still active in the 80’s ( even though golden age was 70’s): De André, De Gregori, Dalla, Guccini, Baglioni, Finardi, Venditti, Vecchioni, Conte, Fossati, Ruggeri, Bennato, Branduardi etc. There’s plenty.
I agree though with what someone else wrote, everyone tends to love the music you grew up with, no matter its objective quality.
All those singers, except for Celentano, are constantly mocked and have become subjects for satire, in particular Al Bano, Pupo and Toto Cutugno in Italy. People who like them are immediately labelled as boomers.
from what I heard, the selection of Italian music and of singers like Al Bano had little to do with the quality (low IMO) of their music and more about what was allowed in the USSR.
Those singers you mentioned were singing cheerful and cheesy songs in a foreign language and without any sort of political undertone, so they were pretty safe choice that could pass the test of soviet censorship. We had many singer writers from that era who produced socially critic albums that didn’t make it there and it’s not a coincidence, even if many, if not most of them were left leaning.
Also remember that Italy, while being part of the NATO bloc, still had a few more diplomatic and cultural relations with the Soviet bloc and a more ambiguous position. A private company like FIAT managed to open factories in the USSR, in a city that was renamed after the first leader of the Italian Communist party (Togliattigrad). So what wasn’t officially permitted from the US, like Michael Jackson, was somehow permitted from Italy.
I haven’t seen anyone mention italo house yet. While this may have peaked in the early 90s (I don’t count Eiffel 65 etc as italo house), there were some absolute bangers in the late 80s. Songs like Ride On Time by Black Box and Venus by Don Pablo’s Animals, and the incredibly influential Sueno Latino by Sueno Latino. Consider the sound a blend of 80s Chicago House and Italo Disco.
A semi-subgenre has been named ‘italo dream house,’ instrumental dance tracks of this era (usually B-sides of bigger italo house songs). Sueno Latino falls into this category, as does the famous Alone by Don Carlos. The DJ Young Marco has released a trilogy of italo dream house compilations under the title Welcome to Paradise. I highly recommend for any deep house lover.
As an immigrant to Italy, I like the old stuff from the 1960s and earlier. I like Mina a lot. That old stuff sounds all cool, like something off of a Tarantino soundtrack. You can almost see Sophia Loren dancing around while surrounded by dudes in tuxedos.
My 1980s childhood took place in Southern California, so it is there that my nostalgia lies. We didn’t really get any of the Italodisco and other stuff at all. (I mean, *maybe* they would have blasted a major Italodisco song in a Manhattan dance club, but it would have been an obscurity that the DJ threw out for the sake of novelty.) It’s all completely new to me, and I’m old enough to remember the 80s.
80’s Italodisco is one of my favourite genres in music, for sure. I mean, Miko Mission, Ryan Paris, Baltimora, Silver Pozzoli, Gazebo etc., they’re geniuses!