The Twentieth Century: From a Renewed Tradition to the Global Market

Italian music in the twentieth century moves along two currents that run almost in opposite directions. On the one hand, the Avant-garde, determined to push music toward ever more abstract territories—twelve-tone technique, serialism, conceptualism. On the other, Song, which becomes the true language of the century: popular and, at the same time, cultivated. The distinction made by certain critics between “art music,” understood as the music of the avant-gardes, and song, dismissed in advance as “not cultured,” is unfounded.

A music that deliberately renounces communicating through shared protocols—reinventing rules and models each time in order to be deciphered—does not produce a transmissible tradition. Culture, to be culture, should be communicable, recognizable, capable of being handed down. From this point of view, a song has far more cultural substance than a serial waltz built on note successions that make sense only thanks to an instruction manual—like certain IKEA furniture. Italian song, instead, gathers the legacy of our ancient musical art and projects it onto a world stage, conquering an ever larger audience, exactly as once happened with operatic arias, salon romances, and chamber vocal pieces—which, in the end, are all songs.

From the Post-Verismo Crisis to the Singer-Songwriter

The first fracture of the new century coincides with the so-called Generazione dell’Ottanta (Respighi, Casella, Malipiero, Pizzetti), committed to reacting against the emotional exuberance of Verismo. While placing at the center instrumental renewal and the rediscovery of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century repertories, these composers—with their sense of measure and renewed attention to Italian cantability—offered a precious base for the future modern song, both technically and melodically.

Song, having almost entirely abandoned the intimate dimension of the salon, now became a truly popular phenomenon. Technological innovations opened its diffusion as never before. Fogli volanti, low-cost sheet music, brought melodies into homes; the record introduced an historical rupture through the reproducibility of the voice, made iconic by Caruso as early as 1902; and radio, with the EIAR active from 1924, accelerated the musical “literacy” of millions of people—a process destined to be fully completed in the television era.

Nel blu dipinto di blu, in 1958, was not only a planetary success: it inaugurated a new season in which author and performer fused into the modern figure of the singer-songwriter. The idea was not unprecedented—Paisiello had arrived there much earlier—but Modugno brought the formula into the heart of the economic boom, giving it the force of a national language. The singer-songwriter tradition thus made clear that attention to everyday life and a natural lyricism were not a rupture, but the return to a deep instinct of our tradition.

The real short circuit manifested itself, rather, in the Avant-garde, which in those same years remained closed within its theoretical certainties, struggling to speak to the public and generating increasingly self-referential schools. When a language proclaims itself unlimited, the next step is not freedom but imitation of the first gesture that declared it such. From that moment, more than a history, what remained was a landscape of ruins contemplated by conceptual Masters, guardians of a tradition that could no longer evolve.

Song vs. Avant-Garde: An Ideological Clash

The twentieth century was the stage of a sharp and ideological clash between two diametrically opposed ways of understanding music. On one side, Song, which renewed tradition without breaking it and continued to rest on a shared language; on the other, the so-called Avant-garde, by then lingering in the territories of twelve-tone technique, serialism, and the various declensions of the conceptual. Their aims could not be more distant: in songs one seeks dialogue with the public and the immediate transmission of emotions, while conceptual music focuses on theoretical speculation, adopting a language incomprehensible even to the narrow group of initiates—if it were not for the instruction booklet.

The mechanism that sustains traditional song is clear and time-tested: it calls melody, harmony, voice, and text to collaborate in order to create a direct communicative experience. The Avant-garde reverses the perspective, replacing the protocol of traditional form with anti-structures or hyper-structures built on series, calculations, and odd algorithms, aimed at the wonder of the concept, often at the expense of the sonic experience. On one side, one thus obtains popular favor: in packed concerts, music has a social role. With the conceptualists, one feels the insurmountable difficulty of listening—sometimes impossible without the theoretical prostheses needed to decipher music and text.

The Value of Clarity

Song, of every genre and inflection—singer-songwriter, popular, cinematic, rock, jazz (excluding conceptual hybridization)—still belongs today to a shared rhetorical and formal system. Its effectiveness lies in the clarity of its structure, despite the variety of types, in internal proportion, and in the capacity to bring out feeling without having to resort to excessive explanations. A piece like Salirò by Daniele Silvestri, for example, lives and communicates without theoretical apparatuses, because it speaks for itself. This is why song continues to be, for better or worse, a mirror of our society.

On the side of the Avant-garde, instead, Dallapiccola, Maderna, Berio, Nono, and the long trail of epigones who followed their path embraced languages far from common sensibility, turning music into concept before it became sound. The idea—the concept, or the essence of the concept—took the place of perception. The signature of a recognized author is enough to transform into “work” an ensemble of noises, yelps, raspberries, silences, syllables in freedom, or even simple instructions. The craft of the composer, understood as knowledge of form and counterpoint, gave way to theoretical abstraction, contributing to the proliferation of incompatible styles and to a pluralism often devoid of points of contact.

Any singer-songwriter would certainly be able to create a score of silences, or invent other oddities; but the opposite is not necessarily true, namely that the conceptualists would be able to write a good song that grips the public. The music of the latter, which claims to be universal, paradoxically turned into an exclusive “private club,” more attentive to branding and institutional certification. The mechanism is similar to that of the contemporary art market, where perceived value is more often a bluff.

Song as Cultural Unity

At the end of the twentieth-century path, the contrast appears evident. While the Avant-garde progressively dematerialized song, moving toward a music that denies itself in order to become philosophy or applied concept, traditional song kept alive throughout the twentieth century what for centuries has defined our musical identity: cantability and a direct relationship with the listener. It is song, in all its forms, that gathers the legacy of Dante’s cantio (the fusion of text ordered metrically and music serving human expression and collective feeling). The crowds that fill singer-songwriter concerts—today as yesterday—testify to this better than any academic treatise.

Operatic Legacy and the Salon Romance

The positive evolution of Italian song continued in the first half of the twentieth century as well, despite the upheaval of the two world wars. While opera—having for decades conquered every social layer—continued to exert a decisive influence, its songs (that is, the arias) circulated among the people like genuine popular tunes, sung in homes, in the streets, and in cafés-concert.

The salon romance, the direct heir of operatic aesthetics and built for a single voice, remained among the most beloved forms. Composers such as Francesco Paolo Tosti, Leoncavallo, Gambardella, Denza, and Michele Costa marked the golden age of this song repertory, in which the boundary line between “high” music and popular music was far more permeable than it seems today. One could almost say it did not exist.

Technology, Emigration, and New Markets

We should not forget that melodrama itself is a long sequence of songs supported by a plot and that, in the same way, what seemed the supreme art was in fact steeped in popular stylistic features and melodic formulas absorbed from the songs of ordinary people. In parallel, technological progress—from wax cylinders to shellac discs—opened the way to a real record market. Enrico Caruso became its absolute symbol, becoming the first superstar in the history of recorded sound.

In those same years, millions of Italians left the country, carrying thousands of songs with them. Emigration inspired pieces such as Trenta giorni di nave a vapore or Mamma mia, dammi cento lire, where the desire to depart mixes with the pain of separation. Colonial wars then fueled a strand of celebratory and commemorative songs, such as Canto dei soldati italiani in Africa, La partenza per l’Africa, Ai caduti di Saati e Dogali. But it was the Libyan War that generated the greatest café-concert successes, with A Tripoli as the absolute showpiece.

The First Great War: Rhetoric and Reality

With the First World War, the usual fracture re-emerged: on one side patriotic songs such as La canzone del Piave, full of solemn rhetoric; on the other the genuine voices of soldiers, closer to real life than to slogans. ’O surdato ’nnammurato is the most famous example, as is Regazzine, vi prego ascoltare.

As the months passed, Italian imposed itself as the official language of military songs, while leaving room for dialect insertions in regional repertories. Alpine songs—from Quel mazzolin di fiori, beloved by soldiers despite having no direct link to the front, to La tradotta che parte da Torino (later from Novara)—accompanied the troops throughout the conflict. Alongside them, songs of open protest against the commands and against the war itself were also born, such as the bitter O Gorizia, tu sei maledetta.

From the First Postwar Years to the End of the 1920s

In the postwar period, as the country tried to return to normal, a new collective infatuation appeared: dancing. At first timid, then unstoppable. Tabarin and night venues began to fill up, despite the Church’s sermons, which saw in such entertainments a possible gateway to every kind of sin. But Italy at the time wanted to move—literally—and tango, charleston, foxtrot, rumba, and ragtime gave it the chance.

Jazz invaded every city center, favored by the presence of American troops, while in the countryside a more homegrown identity took shape: Romagna’s liscio, with figures like Carlo Brighi and, shortly after, Secondo Casadei.

In the tabarin, the first true interpreters of modern song began to appear, from the melancholy Armando Gill with Come pioveva, to the elegant Gino Franzi in tailcoat and top hat. In parallel, Italian song followed a curious path, almost the opposite of melodrama’s. From the detached piece, the sceneggiata returned to the stage, building an entire theatrical show starting from a single song. The public continued to love this repertory, which recovered the shine of nineteenth-century musical Italy with pieces such as Reginella, ’O paese d’o sole, Core furastiero, ’E dduje paravise. It was a happy period, but it lasted only until the dawn of the Second World War, with successes such as L’eco der core or Barcarolo romano.

Radio, Fascism, and Popular Culture

The rise of fascism coincided almost perfectly with the birth of Italian radio. From 6 October 1924, with the first official broadcast of the URI (later EIAR), this new instrument became one of the main channels of musical diffusion. The regime immediately grasped its power and left its imprint on programming: forcibly translating foreign names, removing unwanted pieces from the airwaves, and paying obsessive attention to anything that might touch civil, political, and—after the Lateran Pacts—religious authorities.

A large part of musical broadcasts was occupied by songs drawn from operatic or quasi-operatic repertories, a tradition that fascism exploited skillfully in order to speak to the masses. Alongside the inevitable anthems and official regime songs (Giovinezza, Inno degli studenti, Canto delle donne fasciste), there was room for pieces that intercepted popular taste—still famous today—such as Mille lire al mese, I milioni della lotteria, or those that relaunched, in a light key, the regime’s demographic policy, like Signorine, sposatevi or C’è una casetta piccola. Musically they were entirely similar to entertainment songs, but in practice they were propaganda flowing under the veil of escapism.

The 1930s and 1940s: Cinema Sings

In 1930, sound cinema arrived in Italy with La canzone dell’amore by Gennaro Righelli, and the impact was notable, because from there opera slowly began to lose ground. After all, cinema, opera, and then television share the same framework: stage, orchestra, songs, audience, and a story. But the new medium is more agile and reaches more people.

The song Solo per te Lucia, the heart of Righelli’s film, inaugurated the practice of inserting musical numbers within Italian feature films. From this two strands were born, destined to prosper throughout the next twenty years. The first, more traditional, saw opera singers become actors and bring on screen the melodic repertory the public already knew. The second, more modern, mixed cinema and song, letting screen stars themselves sing the pieces.

The most emblematic case arrived in 1932 with Vittorio De Sica in Gli uomini, che mascalzoni.... His performance of Parlami d’amore Mariù conquered viewers and definitively consecrated him as director, actor, and singer.

Orchestras, Swing, and the Regime

In the 1930s Italian song found itself surrounded by big orchestras—especially that of the EIAR, founded in 1933—which helped define a new national sound standard. Modernity was knocking at the door, and swing, arriving from radio and dance halls, staged the first real confrontation between nineteenth-century melodramatic tradition and the new syncopated music.

Carlo Buti embodied the side more tied to the relaxed tones of rural life (Reginella campagnola, Se vuoi goder la vita), while swing found its champions in Natalino Otto (Mamma... voglio anch’io la fidanzata, Ho un sassolino nella scarpa), Alberto Rabagliati (Mattinata fiorentina, Ba ba baciami piccina), Luciana Dolliver (Bambina innamorata, Un’ora sola ti vorrei), and the Trio Lescano, a true vocal revolution, with pieces such as Maramao perché sei morto?, Ma le gambe, Pippo non lo sa.

Alongside them worked lyricists and authors of enormous skill such as Alfredo Bracchi, Giovanni D’Anzi, and Vittorio Mascheroni, who shaped the taste of the era. The contrast did not concern only performers: even among orchestras a real duel broke out, with the frantic, ultra-modern brass of Pippo Barzizza on one side competing against the more romantic, unhurried melodies of Cinico Angelini on the other.

Song Between Propaganda and Mischief

The songs of the 1930s were anything but naïve. Although fascism tried to steer tastes and language, sentimental music continued to dominate, and fascist hierarchs ended up chasing public preferences more than determining them. In some cases, those same apparently innocent songs became vehicles for mischievous allusions.

It was whispered that Bombolo alluded to Guido Buffarini Guidi, that the refrain of Maramao perché sei morto? was used to mock a monument to Costanzo Ciano, and that Pippo non lo sa was read as a jab at Achille Starace. Cultural control never truly managed to bridle the creativity of authors, who continued to move with surprising stylistic freedom. Song, as an art form—born in the fourteenth century also with the purpose of speaking ill of the powerful and spreading subversive and anti-religious ideas—lent itself well to playing the role of a free voice in dictatorial regimes. Even in times of foreign occupation, nineteenth-century patriots had found precisely in song the privileged and most effective vehicle for transmitting their ideas.

Toward the end of the decade came the last glimmers of a prewar era: Signorinella, Napule ca se ne va, Quanto sei bella Roma, Chitarra romana, La Balilla, Porta Romana. In parallel, songs dedicated to the Ethiopian War and colonial policy multiplied, among which the most debated was Faccetta nera, repeatedly revised by the Ministry of Popular Culture because it was judged too soft toward Ethiopians.

To measure the popularity of songs in those years, the two National Contests for Song Artists, organized in 1938 and 1939, are enough. More than 2,500 participants joined the first edition, almost 3,000 the second. The fourteen annual winners performed both times with Pippo Barzizza’s Cetra Orchestra in a national radio program. A true consecration.

War, Bans, and Unexpected Hits

Italy’s entry into the Second World War brought new restrictions, including the ban on jazz and American music, the censorship of Jewish authors, and limitations on shows, especially in dance halls. And yet musical production did not stop. Paradoxically, in the first war years two of the period’s most overwhelming hits were born: Mamma, performed by Beniamino Gigli in the film of the same title (1941), and Voglio vivere così, made famous by Ferruccio Tagliavini in Mario Mattoli’s 1942 film.

In 1940 the Quartetto Cetra also appeared, destined to become one of the most beloved groups of the postwar era. Their definitive formation arrived only in 1947, and from then on their popularity only grew.

With the fall of the regime and the beginning of the Resistance, a repertory began circulating again that mixed popular tradition, historical memory, and new militancy. Partisans sang what the country had known for generations, drawing from local and regional songs such as Bella ciao, La daré d’ cola montagna, Il fiore di Teresina, alongside Risorgimento pieces and memories of the Great War such as Sul ponte di Perati. Other melodies came from the worker and revolutionary world, Italian and foreign—Fischia il vento above all—and, naturally, there were satirical parodies of fascist songs flipped upside down, such as Badoglieide, which circulated quickly inside and outside partisan formations.

The Postwar Years: Jazz, Scarcity, and Rebirth

When the conflict ended, Italy was swept up by the new sounds of jazz and boogie-woogie, brought by the Allies, as well as rumba and samba. At the same time, French atmospheres spread through Yves Montand, Édith Piaf, and Juliette Gréco. The problem was that everything was missing—even the lacquer needed to press records—so for a time musical production slowed drastically.

Despite everything, hits were not long in coming. Songs such as Dove sta Zazà?, Tammurriata nera, Munasterio ’e Santa Chiara, and Vecchia Roma marked the restart. The last of these, in particular, helped bring forward the voice of Claudio Villa, destined to dominate the 1950s scene.

1951: The Sanremo Festival Is Born

As early as 1947 the first contests to discover new voices had been launched—attempts to restart a record market that was just awakening. But the date that changed everything is 29 January 1951, the day of the first Festival of the Italian Song.

The radio broadcast from the Ballroom of the Sanremo Casino, hosted by Nunzio Filogamo, presented—according to an essential formula—only three performers: Nilla Pizzi, Achille Togliani, and the Duo Fasano, who alternated in performing twenty unpublished songs.

The Festival consecrated Nilla Pizzi, who won with Grazie dei fiori, and the following year literally dominated the rankings with Vola colomba (which alluded to the Trieste question) and with two other hits, Papaveri e papere and Una donna prega. Sanremo thus became the model for musical competitions, even inspiring the birth of the Eurovision Song Contest, whose first edition would be held in Lugano in 1956.

In those years, the Festival reproposed the classic dualism between tradition and modernity: on one side, strongly melodic songs (Vecchio scarpone, Sorrentinella, Berta filava, Il passerotto); on the other, livelier and more youth-oriented pieces such as Canzone da due soldi, performed by Katyna Ranieri, which sold over 120,000 copies in just a few months. And then Papaveri e papere, which still survives today as an elegant mockery aimed at the notables of the Christian Democracy, in the form of a happy zoological allegory.

The Golden Decade of Neapolitan Song

In 1952 the Festival of Neapolitan Song was born, and at its first edition it crowned Franco Ricci and Nilla Pizzi. It was a strong signal: song was not at all a memory of the past, but a living tradition, capable of renewing itself in very different directions. Different “souls” coexisted: the confidential and refined one of Roberto Murolo, with pieces such as Anema e core, Luna caprese, and ’Na voce, ’na chitarra e ’o ppoco ’e luna, alongside Sergio Bruni, an intense and melancholic voice with songs like Vieneme ’n zuonno or Marechiaro marechiaro.

On the opposite side there was the cyclone Renato Carosone, who overturned tradition with irony, rhythm, and a dazzling band. His collaboration with lyricist Nisa struck the spark in 1956 with Tu vuò fà l’americano, followed by Torero, ’O sarracino, Caravan petrol, and many “Carosone-style” reinterpretations, including the famous Chella llà launched by Aurelio Fierro, which inaugurated the “braggart” song line: light, and deliciously insolent.

The “Reuccio”: Claudio Villa

Meanwhile the figure of Claudio Villa exploded, his career taking off precisely in the early 1950s. Endowed with a powerful voice and a temperament that never went unnoticed, Villa was crowned the “Reuccio” (little king) of Italian song. He won everything: four Sanremo Festivals, one Naples Festival, three gold records. Touring the world, he filled theaters everywhere and became a symbol of Italianness. His fiery character often placed him at the center of controversies in the national press. To defend him, with surprising passion, even Pier Paolo Pasolini moved.

Musical Comedy and the Nightclub Season

The 1950s also saw the affirmation of musical comedy, heir to the revue theater but brought to a different level above all thanks to its texts. The absolute protagonists were Garinei and Giovannini, true fathers of the genre, supported by composers such as Gorni Kramer—refined Italian innovator already active since the 1930s—and Armando Trovajoli, author of memorable scores. From their productions a whole generation of beloved performers was born: Delia Scala, Isa Barzizza, Gianni Agus, Tina De Mola, Elena Giusti, Carlo Dapporto, and above all Renato Rascel, who would write and perform a classic of Italian song such as Arrivederci Roma.

In parallel, Italy rediscovered night venues, the nightclubs, where artists performed who openly looked to American music. Among them Peppino di Capri stands out, capable of blending rock, twist, and national tradition in songs such as St. Tropez Twist and Nun è peccato. Then came the irresistible meteor Fred Buscaglione, who with his “tough guy with a tender heart” character ironized the American gangster myth and Italian machismo, relaunching swing with titles like Che bambola!, Teresa non sparare, Eri piccola così.

Alongside them, performers emerged who combined jazz, elegance, and intimacy: Nicola Arigliano, Bruno Martino, Fred Bongusto became the protagonists of a nocturnal season that would deeply mark the taste of Italian song.

Television and the Revolution of Popular Music (Second Half of the 1950s)

The arrival of television in 1954 profoundly changed the way Italians listened to music. Together with the new vinyl records—the 45 and 33 rpm—and the jukeboxes that began colonizing bars and dance halls, the new medium opened an era of very rapid modernization.

From 1955 the Sanremo Festival was also broadcast on television, turning into a national event of unprecedented power. In 1957 came Il Musichiere, the first true Italian music show, which offered rhythm, games, songs, and a theme song, Domenica è sempre domenica, written by Garinei and Giovannini with music by Gorni Kramer. The success was such that it inaugurated a season of iconic music programs, from Studio Uno to Canzonissima.

The Reign of Melody and the “Musical State”

In the 1950s, as in previous centuries, melody remained the dominant trait of Italian music. In a country emerging from war with a desire for stability, song responded with reassurance, clear feelings, and predictable forms.

Directing traffic there was essentially a “musical state.” Public radio and its record label, Cetra, largely determined the fate of the market. Very few realities managed to move outside this perimeter. Fonit, which continued to release Natalino Otto, was absorbed by Cetra in 1958, while Teddy Reno’s Compagnia Generale del Disco attempted a more autonomous path with particular artists such as Lelio Luttazzi.

The Sanremo Festival reflected this atmosphere. Melodic, highly sentimental song became almost a formal obligation, and anything that left the rails risked exclusion—or editing—to guarantee respect for morality. Meanwhile Voce del Padrone released Romagna mia (1954), Secondo Casadei’s anthem that would become an international classic among Italian emigrants.

The Generational Earthquake: Rock and Roll and the “Urlatori”

At the end of the decade a generational earthquake hit. The late 1950s marked an epochal turning point. On 18 May 1957, in Milan, the first Italian rock and roll Festival took place. On stage appeared for the first time a very young Adriano Celentano, later nicknamed the “king of the ignorants.” Alongside him paraded Tony Renis, Little Tony, Betty Curtis, Tony Dallara, Clem Sacco, Ghigo Agosti. The Italian urlatori and rockers, interpreters of the new generation, thus shattered the sweet composure of the melodic song.

1958–1959: The Modugno Bomb and the Discovery of Mina

In 1958 the definitive bomb arrived. Domenico Modugno won at Sanremo, together with Johnny Dorelli, singing Nel blu dipinto di blu. The song exploded worldwide, was sold in 22 million copies, and once again overturned the way Italian song was understood. In the same year Tony Dallara launched Come prima, the sonic symbol of the new “shouted” vocal style.

Also in 1958 Dischi Ricordi was founded, debuting with Ciao ti dirò by an then-unknown Giorgio Gaber. Ricordi, together with RCA Italiana, would become in the following decades one of Italy’s most important record labels.

Finally, in 1959, Italian television discovered Mina, a force of nature. She appeared for the first time on Lascia o raddoppia? and overwhelmed the public with an aggressive, ultra-modern style and extraordinary vocal power. From that moment she strung together a series of hits—Nessuno, Tintarella di luna, Una zebra a pois—that turned her into the most disruptive, widely recognized face of the new Italian song.

The Sixties: A Decade Suspended Between Continuity and Revolution

The arrival of the urlatori and the rebels overturned, in an instant, the balance of Italian song. The first to spread their manifesto were the musicarelli, films built around a hit single. If in the 1950s they had been the cinematic appendix of the melodic song—think of the films starring Claudio Villa, Luciano Tajoli, or Carosello napoletano—in the 1960s they turned into a declaration of the new youth restlessness.

Musicarelli and Musicals: The Visual Soundtrack

The triptych I ragazzi del juke-box, Urlatori alla sbarra, and I teddy boys della canzone is emblematic. No more serenades or broken hearts, but a celebration of the musical revolution underway. And between a twist and a rock and roll, there are jabs at RAI, the Christian Democracy, the record industry, and the inevitable theme of sexual freedom—more explicit and less embarrassed.

Musical theater experienced a second youth. Garinei and Giovannini dominated the stage in those years with Rugantino, enriched by Trovajoli’s music and a memorable cast (Aldo Fabrizi, Nino Manfredi, Bice Valori, Lea Massari, and later Ornella Vanoni). Modugno brought his magnetism to Rinaldo in campo, while Johnny Dorelli led Aggiungi un posto a tavola. The public kept packing theaters, drawn by stories, songs, and performers already turning into cult figures.

On the cinematic front, the musicarelli reached their peak. Ettore Maria Fizzarotti, with tiny budgets and lightning-fast production schedules, churned out films destined to gross staggering sums. Everything worked: simple plots, youth settings, and the presence of the new stars of light music. Gianni Morandi, Bobby Solo, Caterina Caselli, Gigliola Cinquetti, Al Bano and Romina Power—each brought their own song, which almost always also became the film’s title.

Young “Classics” vs. the Beat Generation

In the middle of the 1960s, a split emerged—just as heated—pitting the “very young classics,” the sunny energy of Gianni Morandi, the contagious vitality of Rita Pavone, the elegant melodiousness of Gigliola Cinquetti, Al Bano, Orietta Berti, Massimo Ranieri, against the invasion of English beat, which was shaking public taste and look.

Thanks to the “bands” that animated Rome’s Piper Club, the “Piper girls” (Caterina Caselli and Patty Pravo), Equipe 84, Nomadi, The Rokes, I Camaleonti, I Corvi, I Giganti, Dik Dik, Alunni del Sole, would mark an entire generation. It is a decade where different worlds coexist: traditional and modern genres, reassuring melodies and electric guitars imported from London.

The Explosion of Genres: From Author Schools to the “Accursed Poets”

This mixture—apparently incoherent—burst into a constellation of musical currents profoundly different from one another. Alongside the urlatori were born projects seeking a language more adherent to reality: Cantacronache, and then Il Nuovo Canzoniere Italiano, committed to telling the country beyond official rhetoric.

A strand also developed that we might call “intellectual song,” with experiments involving Pier Paolo Pasolini, Giorgio Strehler, Paolo Poli, Laura Betti, Mario Soldati, Ennio Flaiano, Alberto Moravia, Alberto Arbasino—names that brought into song a more literary, theatrical, and conceptual taste.

Meanwhile, the Genoese School—nonconformist, existentialist, urban—asserted itself with authors such as Umberto Bindi, Gino Paoli, Bruno Lauzi, Luigi Tenco, Fabrizio De André, and the Istrian Sergio Endrigo. In parallel, in Milan, a more ironic, surreal, and melancholic line took shape with Dario Fo, Giorgio Gaber, Enzo Jannacci, I Gufi, Nanni Svampa, Cochi and Renato: that style laboratory that would become the city’s trademark.

And then there were the “accursed poets” in the manner of Piero Ciampi; the great female voices of Ornella Vanoni, Milva, Iva Zanicchi; and the beach singers like Edoardo Vianello, Gianni Meccia, Nico Fidenco, who rode the boom of tourism and Italian summers. In 1966 the Pooh also reached success with their first hit Piccola Katy, while in 1968 the Cantagiro baptized another formation destined for long fortune: the Ricchi e Poveri with L’ultimo amore.

New Competitions and the Revolution of Formats

The musical landscape also changed through radio-TV shows and traveling contests. In 1962 the Cantagiro was born, a kind of Giro d’Italia of song, with mobile stages, squares full of people, and popular juries. Around the same time the Castrocaro Festival came to life, destined to discover talents for decades.

In 1964 Un disco per l’estate arrived, launching performers devoted to immediate, radio-friendly songs such as Mino Reitano, Los Marcellos Ferial, Jimmy Fontana, and the Festivalbar, the first music contest based directly on public approval. Between 1965 and 1966 Renzo Arbore and Gianni Boncompagni introduced Bandiera gialla and Per voi giovani, programs that brought the fresh air of beat into Italian homes.

Sanremo: The Temple of Tradition

Despite the revolution of languages, the Sanremo Festival continued its golden period: international guests, records sold by the millions, and edition compilations became real commercial phenomena. On stage, however, what won was almost always traditional melody. Gigliola Cinquetti triumphed in 1964 with Non ho l’età (which also won Eurovision) and in 1966 with Dio, come ti amo, paired with Modugno. In 1965 Bobby Solo won with Se piangi, se ridi. Offstage, though, the public also appreciated other titles: Adriano Celentano’s Il ragazzo della via Gluck and Caterina Caselli’s Nessuno mi può giudicare.

1967: The Turning-Point Year

1967 was a crucial year, full of contradictions. That year saw the birth of the partnership between Lucio Battisti and Mogol, destined to reinvent the language of Italian song. Their first success was 29 settembre, entrusted to Equipe 84.

On the Sanremo stage, the youth revolution filtered in a much sweetened form. Gianni Pettenati sang La rivoluzione, while I Giganti proposed Proposta, made famous by the refrain “Mettete dei fiori nei vostri cannoni.” But the lightness was only on the surface. The Festival was shaken by the suicide of Luigi Tenco, after Ciao amore, ciao, sung with Dalida and deeply critical of the dark side of the economic miracle, failed even to qualify for the final.

That same year, the Nomadi and Francesco Guccini were also booed during a protest concert against the Vietnam War. They performed Dio è morto, a song destined to become a classic of authorial song, but at the time accused of being too institutional for a public that had already become radicalized.

The End of Innocence and the Entry into the Seventies

The beat revolution was running out of steam, and the euphoria of the economic boom dissolved like sea foam. With the Piazza Fontana bombing and the death of Giuseppe Pinelli—remembered in the Ballate dedicated to him—the race toward adolescent carefree lightness that had dominated the 1960s gave way to a darker season. Rock became murky and nocturnal, a language that absorbed the anxieties of a generation that would not stop asking questions.

The 1970s were a laboratory in constant ferment. Traditional forms—the single, the stage performance—began to feel tight. New formats were sought, more visceral and collective experiences. In the background were student protests, the Hot Autumn, the ’68 leaving traces everywhere, and the dark spiral of the Years of Lead.

Singers closer to student and worker movements—Ivan Della Mea, Michele Straniero, Gualtiero Bertelli, Pino Masi, Giovanna Marini, Paolo Pietrangeli, Sergio Liberovici—many linked to the Nuovo Canzoniere Italiano, became the soundtrack of protest against the Italy-system. On the other side, in the Campi Hobbit, an alternative right-wing music took shape, also ready to recode symbols and narratives, amid Nordic mythologies, historical revisitations, and singer-songwriters such as Leo Valeriano, Massimo Morsello (nicknamed the “black De Gregori”), Amici del Vento, and Compagnia dell’Anello.

The Singer-Songwriter in the Crosshairs: Protests and “People’s Trials”

The climate overheated to the point that concerts became an undertaking for the stout-hearted. Genoese-school singer-songwriters, hailed only a few years earlier as revolutionaries, were accused of having become bourgeois figures, too folded into their own feelings to truly represent the social demands of the moment. In general, going on stage became increasingly risky. It even happened that extra-parliamentary groups imposed timings, tones, and even ticket prices.

The peak came between 1975 and 1976. In 1975 Lou Reed’s Milan and Rome concerts were interrupted by the chorus “La musica si prende e non si paga.” On 2 April 1976, at the PalaLido in Milan, Francesco De Gregori was surrounded by protesters accusing him of earning too much and—worse—of not donating that money to the workers’ cause. A public psychodrama thus marked the history of Italian song.

In the midst of all this chaos, very few managed to escape the boos. Fabrizio De André and Lucio Battisti were the two most striking cases, almost two opposite archetypes. De André moved from an initially essential writing to increasingly complex and experimental forms, and began performing live only in 1975. Battisti took the opposite path, starting with rich arrangements—almost “Enlightenment-like” in his golden years—then progressively thinning them out, until choosing to abandon concerts in 1970.

Separately, Francesco Guccini deserves a couple of lines too: he has always refused to label himself a political singer-songwriter. His writing remained direct, warm, blooded, but not militant. And yet the influence of political song was very much there, as shown by La locomotiva or Primavera di Praga, a sung chronicle of the 1968 events in Czechoslovakia.

The Crisis of “Engagement” and the Authors’ Reaction

It was in the mid-1970s that singer-songwriters began to detach themselves from the politicization that had wrapped around them like a spiderweb. And they often did so with fierce lucidity, even arriving at direct criticism of experiences of real socialism.

Giorgio Gaber was the most emblematic case. After abandoning the role of light singer and inaugurating with Sandro Luporini the theater-song of Signor G, he took aim at the movement without half measures. Libertà obbligatoria and Polli d’allevamento earned him boos, protests, and a few shoves, especially when he sang Quando è moda è moda.

In 1976 Roberto Vecchioni, with Vaudeville (ultimo mondo cannibale), instead ridiculed the dogmatic, roughened language of the ’68 generation, explicitly citing the lynching De Gregori suffered at the PalaLido. Guccini himself—never truly political in the strict sense—showed no mercy in rethinking certain youthful naïvetés. Already in 1974 he admitted that of ancient angers only a gesture remained (in Canzone delle osterie di fuori porta), and in 1978 he laughed bitterly at his twenty-year-old self in Eskimo (“quante balle si ha in testa a quell’età”). Artists in good faith who had flirted with political utopia suddenly found themselves crushed by the movements’ expectations. For many, it was waking up from a dream that had turned into a nightmare.

A New Singer-Songwriting: Music at the Center

There was then another singer-songwriting—non-political, more varied, freer—where politics was not the main compass. Here blossomed figures destined to change Italian music forever. Lucio Dalla, after years of failed attempts, hit the mark with 4/3/1943 and Piazza Grande, and toward the end of the decade launched into an epochal tour with De Gregori. Paolo Conte, an eccentric jazz-flavored pianist, sang a slow province that was never banal. Ivano Fossati, a multi-instrumentalist, moved from the hippy mysticism of Delirium to a solo career. Franco Battiato, the total musician, threaded metaphors and cultural references as if it were nothing.

Different as they were, these four had one thing in common: they were all born as musicians more than as writers, and approached lyric writing only later, curious about the journey and the elsewhere. They also had an impressive instinct for discovering other talents. Dalla launched Ron, Luca Carboni, and Bersani. Battiato discovered Alice and Giuni Russo. Fossati became a song factory for half the Italian discography (Pravo, Martini, Berté, Oxa, Mannoia).