Where Sanremo was more about the textbook definition of canzone italiana and its auteur and wholesome components, Festivalbar was its youth-focused and commercial counterpart. It was the purview of “tormentoni,” i.e., earworms, by design.

Festivalbar started via jukeboxes: back in 1964, in Cremona, Vittorio Salvetti came up with the idea of finding a way to determine and track what songs received the most plays on jukeboxes located inside bars, which would, in turn, determine the most popular song of the summer. Thus, a device that could count the plays was installed inside jukeboxes and tallied how many tokens went to each track on the device’s media library. This, in turn, would determine which track got the most tokens within that device, then on a city-wide and nation-wide level. Italy uses the term “gettonato” to indicate something in demand, but the origin of the term actually indicated something that was, literally, receiving tokens. The intent was to give an award to the songs that received the most plays.

He wanted to turn this into an actual show, and that year, it aired on the radio, and, in 1967, Festivalbar debuted on the state network RAI. The more TVs gained prominence in households, though, the less relevance jukeboxes would hold, to the point that, in 1983, the show moved to Fininvest’s own Canale 5, in a multi-event affair on a weekly basis that took place in some of Italy’s most famous town squares and arenas, such as Lignano Sabbiadoro’s Arena Alpe Adria and the landmark that is the Arena di Verona. In 1989, it moved to Italia Uno, Italy’s youth-focused channel. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the hosts were youth-centric personalities, such as DJ, producer, and presenter Claudio Cecchetto (remember Gioca Jouer, composed by Claudio Simonetti?), a young Gerry Scotti, and Fiorello.

From the very beginning of the initiative, however, what stood out was that it was not limited to Italian music. Caterina Caselli and the likes went hand in hand with The Beach Boys and The Rolling Stones. Within the same edition, the pool of contestants was the opposite of cohesive and homogeneous: in 1970, “Finché La Barca Va” by Orietta Berti competed with Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love”; in 1976, David Bowie vs. Cugini di Campagna; in 1980, we saw Blondie’s “Call Me” face off against Rettore’s “Cobra.” Festivalbar drew huge audiences, so it was catnip for sponsors; the official Sanremo compilation paled, in terms of sales, compared to Festivalbar’s.

Festivalbar was the ideal stage for youth-oriented music tastes: the 1980s were for italodisco; the 1990s were for Eurodance, bubblegum pop, and boy bands. Indeed, the 1990s were peak Festivalbar, and we might blame it for Italian Millennials’ enduring nostalgia and passion for 1990s Eurodance tracks as foundational texts. Creator Billi Foster zeroes in on the 1990s as the peak earworm era. “Thanks to the obsessive replay of episodes via television, a song could get stuck in the heads of millions of people and never leave,” he said. One of the participating songs would be chosen as the de-facto opening theme, which, in turn, would amplify its earworm component.

1998 was a watershed moment: Vittorio Salvetti passed away and more and more households were gaining access to high-speed internet, which, in turn, meant the ability to peruse file-sharing platforms. People started making their own mixes, and did not need Festivalbar’s “official” releases.

On an amusing note, Festivalbar famously used lip sync, and artists sometimes would protest this production-wide convention. Music creator Mark The Hammer gives a sound explanation regarding the use of playback: it streamlines the production, given that, during certain episodes, you’d have up to thirty different performers onstage, each with their quirks, singing just one song (not even a 15-min. set), so lip sync would make the sound tech’s job a little easier and keep the assembly line well oiled.

So what does that have to do with disco and dance music? Whenever there was a record that managed to combine dance rhythms, an electronic base, but a pop-and-radio-play-friendly top line, that was all the prime Festivalbar audiences would ask for. There are no deep cuts in this selection of videos, and if you read the entirety of the preceding paragraphs, you’ll understand why.

Did your country have anything comparable to Festivalbar?

In 1976, Marcella Bella sang a disco version of “Resta Cu’mme,” one of the eminent examples of Italian disco in that it gave the Neapolitan standard a Philly-sound flair.

Raf’s “Self Control” came out in 1984, so he did make an appearance in the 1984 edition.

In 1985, Baltimora appeared with “Tarzan Boy,” and other Italo acts that year included Den Harrow’s “Future Rain,” Jo Squillo’s “Roulette,” and Vivien Vee’s “Americano.” The DiscoVerde episode that took place in Rimini actually had a full dance-music lineup.

In 1986, a highlight of the festival was Tracy Spencer’s “Run to Me.” The track is a clear example of Italo disco both hybridized with pop and with the first hints of what would become the distinctive signifiers of Eurodance. Italian comedies of the time, such as Scuola di ladri, L’estate sta finendo, and Rimini Rimini, all included the track.

In 1987, Spagna won the festival with “Dance Dance Dance,” another Italo-disco pop hybrid that has the feeling of 1980s Madonna and prime Cyndi Lauper. The lyrics were prime audience bait: it has been, historically, hard to resist songs that contained a clear-as-day invitation to dance.

That same year, we saw Sabrina Salerno with “Boys,” and she returned in 1988 with “All of Me,” “My Chico,” “Funky Girl,” and “Guys & Dolls.”

We’re now knee-deep into Eurodance territory so it comes to no surprise that the 1992 edition saw the appearance, for example, of Snap!’s “Rhythm Is a Dancer.”

Eurodance is mainly an Italo-German affair (I’ll stand by it till the day I die), so in 1993 we got another example of German dance-music excellence, namely Haddaway’s “What Is Love.” Yes, Haddaway is Trinidadian-American, but as a musician he did work in Germany.

The 1994 edition featured Corona’s “Rhythm of the Night,” which also became that year’s de facto opening theme. They tried to catch lightning in a bottle again in 1995 with “Baby Baby” and “Try Me Out.”

By 1996, Alexia was slated to become one of the main paragons of Eurodance, and “Summer Is Crazy” was an earworm that summer. She was a highlight again in 1997 with “Uh La La La,” in 1998 with “Gimme Love,” and “The Music I Like.”

1999 was the year Eiffel 65 came out with “Blue,” and they proved they were far from a one-hit wonder in the following years. They came back in 2000 with “Move Your Body,” “Too Much of Heaven,” and “My Console,” and in 2001 with “Lucky.”

French Affair’s “My Heart Goes Boom” was one of the most memorable dance hits of 2000, and, of course, Festivalbar featured them.

Directed by Michele Capozzi and Simone de Bagno, it was initially screened in Rome with Federico Fellini and Michelangelo Antonioni in the audience. In the U.S., it was screened at Paradise Garage in front of Andy Warhol and Keith Haring.

TV Transvestite resumed being screened around its 30th anniversary in 2012. Please note that while the in-universe language might sound outdated in 2026, it reflects the reality of the early 1980s.

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Across cultures, we celebrate Raffaella Carrà as an all-around singer, dancer, and performer who put Italian pop culture on the global map; who could equally entice housewives, children, and queer audiences; and who put as much emphasis on the visual component as on the musical/performing component of her art.

Here, we covered her music and the costume designs she favored. Yet, five years after her death, we would be remiss in our duties as Italian-performing-arts cultural ambassadors (and makers, in the case of Beppe) if we did not analyze her love for musical theater—an art form that has permeated both her stage and TV performances over the decades, both via stylistic cues and direct tributes.

An important thing to remember is that Carrà was, first and foremost, a stage performer. She had professional and academic training both in dance and acting, and only included singing as an add-on, so it should come as no surprise at all that her musical-theater-inspired numbers include full-fledged choreographies.

Consider “Ma che musica maestro,” the opening theme of the varieté show Canzonissima 70, which would also serve as Carrà’s own debut single.

The entirety of the performance takes cues from Hollywood musical comedies, and Raffaella doesn’t sing as much as she performs and interacts with the corps, in a combination of front-facing and bird’s-eye-view cinematic shots. The song itself is very meta: in it, Raffaella sings about an invitation to dancing and singing for a celebration thrown in their own in-universe honor, eventually praising the melodic line invented for that exact purpose. The fanfare-like instrumental base is, blatantly, more stage-play- or parade-friendly than radio-play-adjacent.

Gisa Geert, the choreographer, had cut her teeth with revue theater and musical comedies, and she was known for the artful sets she deployed for her choreographies. For Totò’s “Bada che ti mangio,” she deployed a life-size chessboard, with the dancers playing two opposing sets of pawns (in that case, Capital vs. Labor), and, for the finale, a musical fountain shooting up 15-foot-tall jets. Keep that name bookmarked, as she would choreograph the debut season of Fantastico as well.

When it came time for her to co-host Milleluci with Mina in 1974, the direction mandated that each episode be devoted to a different performing art: Radio, Café Chantant, Revue, TV, Avanspettacolo, Cabaret, Musical, and Operetta + Circus + Commedia musicale.

So, for the episode devoted to musical theater, under the choreography of Gino Landi, Mina and Raffaella Carrà performed some of the best-known pieces of the musical repertoire, not in the style of a medley, but as individual performances. “Top Hat,” from the eponymous musical, has both of them perform in sync, only to then have Carrà perform a virtuosic tap-dance number. In the Hair segment, which consists of a mash-up of “Age of Aquarius” and “Let the Sunshine In” and only features Carrà and a host of ensemble singers and dancers, she starts off clad in a caftan, only to make room for a fringed two-piece set. She has solo parts in “Age of Aquarius,” while “Let the Sunshine In,” performed under a clear plastic tarp (?), is more of an ensemble dance number. Mina’s corresponding solo number is Jesus Christ Superstar’s “Everything’s Alright.” Another notable duet is “Bye Bye Baby,” from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, which mirrors, in performance, what Carrà and Mina did for “Top Hat.” (You can watch the entire episode on Rai Play if you’re located in Italy or resort to the janky version of Dailymotion, part 1 and 2)

She and Don Lurio engaged in a Broadway tribute in 1974 for Canzonissima and then again for La Hora de Raffaella (we chose the latter due to the availability of better-quality video). In the Spanish version, she introduces it as a “potpourri of American musical comedies,” with a strong improvisational component. She starts with “I Could Have Danced All Night,” which has a strong polka-inspired arrangement. Lurio plays a very enthused stage peer. They then proceed to duet in “Tea for Two,” from No, No, Nanette, fully showing their range, since this number requires more restraint than others. For “Singin’ in the Rain,” they engage in a game of subtle footwork, and they dance. She then swiftly transitions to the standard “Yes Sir, That’s My Baby,” and she and Lurio engage in a Charleston-inspired choreography. Their duet of Gershwin’s “I Got Rhythm” is pure zest, showcasing both Carrà’s and Lurio’s unfettered enthusiasm.

For her around-the-world show Millemilioni, she devoted an entire musical segment, filmed in London, to a medley of numbers like “There’s No Business Like Show Business,” “Hello, Dolly!,” “Steam Heat,” “Wouldn’t It Be Lovely,” “I Could Have Danced All Night,” “Aquarius – Let the Sunshine In,” “Day by Day,” “Jesus Christ Superstar,” and “I Got Rhythm.” She fully leads the performance both as a singer and a dancer, performing a full choreography with footwork and legwork. In the performance, Carrà and the dancers start off in suits complete with Breton tops, top hats, and yellow gloves, and, when “Hello, Dolly!” comes along, she is partially disrobed, with the same basic outfit but with Dolly’s parasol. For “Steam Heat,” she ditches the parasol for an oversized men’s shirt; when the My Fair Lady segment comes around, she puts on a smock that is supposed to recreate Eliza Doolittle’s demeanor, which she ditches for a feather boa for “I Could Have Danced All Night.” Again, she performs “The Age of Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In” with a jazz- and gospel-adjacent arrangement that makes the performance feel more raw and intimate. She also becomes a clown for “Day by Day.” She returns to her top-hat outfit for “I Got Rhythm.”

In 1984, for Pronto, Raffaella?, she performed a 10-minute musical segment devoted to Cats, conceived as a lengthy and virtuosic ensemble choreography with an original melody, where the ensemble makes full use of the scaffolding and props on set, true to their feline inspiration. Carrà arrives as Grizabella, regaling us with a rendition of “Memory” that shows us a vocal range we’re not fully used to when it comes to her own music. Funny enough, the song then fully transitions into the closing dance segment, and Carrà ditches Grizabella’s mournful demeanor and garb to join the other cat-like performers.

In 1985, for Buonasera Raffaella, Carrà staged an hour-long tribute to Andrew Lloyd Webber’s then-fairly-new Starlight Express across nine different performances over several episodes, with choreographies by Sergio Japino. The costumes are fully in line with the West End original, with Carrà perfectly at ease in a cosmic-queen aesthetic. Tracks she performs as a soloist include “Rolling Stock,” where she flawlessly dances with the ensemble to the point that they all gather in a pyramid formation and Carrà ends up doing the splits at the very top, with two other dancers each holding her feet on opposite sides of the formation. In “Here Comes the Diesel Train,” she starts with a solo performance that is sensually charged, only to then erupt into a dynamic choreography with the ensemble. In the pivotal song “I Am the Starlight,” she ends up singing Rusty’s part, belting the famous lines “I am the starlight/I can achieve anything/All the things I didn’t believe I could do,” and then performs the role of Pearl in the solo “Only He,” which reprises the melody of “I Am the Starlight.” Her rendition is pretty convincing both in terms of acting and vocal command.

And while she never actually starred in a full-length musical production onstage, she became both the basis and the muse for one in the 21st century. Raffaella Il Musical is the first biographical stage musical devoted to her life and career, written by Luciano Cannito with artistic direction by Valeria Arzenton. It completed two Spanish runs in 2023 and 2025 and will soon hit Italian stages. A jukebox musical film titled Explota Explota, directed by Nacho Alvarez, uses Carrà’s songs to detail the dreams and aspirations of an aspiring dancer and her friends in post-Franco Spain and was released in 2020.

June 26 marks the release of “Dancing Without You,” Disco Bambino’s original composition featuring the vocals of Sophie Ellis-Bextor and the guitars of disco titan Nile Rodgers.

The track has a lush orchestration, an opening monologue in Italian about theater and stage lights, and Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s “character” dancing on her own. And while, despite the dominating 1970s soundscapes, the first verse has some ’80s synth-pop and ’90s dance hints (the phrase “You’re so long gone but you’re in my heart” can make you think, melodically, of “You’re My Heart, You’re My Soul” and “Desperately Seeking Someone Willing to Travel”), the rest has the lush opulence of a late-1970s disco hit with some Broadway (or West End) theatricality. When the beat picks up in the pre-chorus and Ellis-Bextor sings, “put on my makeup, a fashionable fool, mascara running when I think of you,” you’ll hear the assertiveness of an “I Want” musical number; the phrase “they shine / like diamonds when I move” presents …

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By singing, with equal ease, about musings on threesomes, meditations on humanity as a whole, and meditations on those whom society deems outcasts—topics that were all welcome on what he called il carrozzone (his bandwagon)—Renato Zero (born Renato Fiacchini) remains one of the most, for lack of a better term, polymorphic musical artists of the Italian panorama.

Accompanied by the most flamboyant costumes and full-face makeup, his performances do blend elements of pop, theater, cabaret, varieté, and stagecraft. In fact, his artistic approach is a multidisciplinary statement in its own right, in that he started as a dancer, was shaped by cinema, bore a lifelong fascination with the circus, and dabbled, in equal measure, in pop (from ballads to uptempo songs), art pop, R&B, rock, and disco.

As for his self-presentation, he became willingly known as and ran the gamut from unabashed hedonism and childlike disposition, with monikers including “perverse polymorph” to “merchant of stars” (the …

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In early May, profiled Andrea Tirone and Roberto Conigliaro, the neo Italo disco duo Mind Enterprises for The Guardian.

The commission was prompted by their Coachella set and by their skyrocketing fame on social media, thanks to clips of their at-home sessions going viral on platforms like X, TikTok, and Instagram, which turned them into memes symbolizing the “European way of life”, whatever that means across the political spectrum. Their press representative completely vetoed our talking about their virality and their subsequent memeification, and considering what accounts initially spread their videos, we can see why the duo barely wants to have anything to do with or say about it.

Still, over a 45’ conversation, aided by the fact that the interview was conducted by an Italian native, the topics ranged from 90s Eurodance and Italian chav culture to how to source second-hand vintage, but not without talking about the way Italian music always emphasized a strong melodic component from…

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Make sure you catch up with the disco years

As Eurovision entered the 1980s and into 1990, we can clearly see a clear display of emotional maximalism: artists like Anna Oxa and Fausto Leali brought a level of theatrical intensity to the stage, in line with past genre-defining schlager entries like “Ein bisschen Frieden” (which won in 1982) and Céline Dion’s own “Ne partez pas sans moi” (which won in 1988). And speaking of Nicole’s plea for “A Little Peace,” that anthem actually set the stage for the political and hopeful themes seen later in Toto Cutugno’s “Insieme: 1992.” It was a soft-rock and gospel-influenced ballad that is as cheesy as it is fist-pump-in-the-air worthy.

Also, Despite the dominance of Eurodisco and Italo disco in the European imagery of Italy, Italy’s 1980s entries during this time, such as “Magic oh Magic” and “Insieme: 1992,” have a strong “anthemic pop” component. The chosen songs often featured mid-tempo verses that exploded into massive, communal choruses, in l…

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There are moments in Italian-music history that have become pop-cultural landmarks for the way they seared themselves into the collective imagery, and not necessarily in a positive way.

In 1983, Sibilla, stage name for Sibyl Amarilli Mostert, was to make her mainstream debut at the Sanremo Music Festival. She had been a protégée of Franco Battiato and Giusto Pio, with whom she had been working for the previous couple of years. Battiato and Pio, known for combining intellectualism, experimentalism, and radio-play-friendly sounds, wanted to turn her into a jukebox-friendly but highbrow hitmaker, à la Alice and Giuni Russo.

The track in question was “Oppio,” a folk-electronic-Italo-pop hybrid that depicts a Middle Eastern fantasy land— “Carthage was beautiful amid the pomegranate trees”—and whose refrain, “uru belev sameah,” is a direct citation of “Hava Nagila.”

It was not too dissimilar to those eclectic melodic/electronic tracks that Giuni Russo had been singing, and it contained all of Battiato’s and Pio’s signature stylistic conventions. A technical problem during her live performance at Sanremo caused her to sing off key in front of millions of viewers, putting a negative mark on her rising career. In an interview quoted on Orrore a 33 giri, Giusto Pio tried to reframe it as a matter of nerves. “She was panicking, so, instead of just giving her the instrumental base, for which she was supposed to fully sing, she was given the full track, to be sung in playback.” Unaware of that, she apparently sang anyway, and the difference between the base and the slight delay of her own voice amplified slightly off-key moments. “When I saw that on my TV, I just laughed. It was such a disaster. What a pity, she was really good, and the record sold 30,000 units anyway,” Pio continued.

See the Sanremo exhibition:

According to other sources, however, she knew she had to just sing in playback but, in order to keep the illusion of a real-life performance, singers did sing anyway with the mic turned off—and hers wasn’t.

However, while her career was over before it could even start, she actually did release other tracks, and we want to highlight them to showcase their merit and to reflect on what is lost when someone becomes a one-hit wonder by sheer bad luck and the perfect storm of unfortunate circumstances.

Svegliami (Oppio’s B-Side)

“Svegliami,” which means “wake me up”, opens with creepy organs, and has lyrics about IV drips being equated to an hourglass. Its refrain almost sounds like wholesome 60s Italian musica leggera, but the scene depicted is apocalyptic. The moon is burning, everything is up in flames.” The images conjured in the lyrics are fairly poignant: “over a parasol, a rainbow disappears,” and “now I am the way you want me to be; in the shadow and backlit, a sense of uselessness.”
“Svegliami” is a wake-up call both real and metaphorical, and it applies both to a bed-bound comatose patient and to a woman who wants a healthy dose of truth by her mentor. Friend of the letter the playwright and critic William G. Costabile Cisco notes that, musically, this song is reminiscent of “Atmosfera”, another Battiato/Pio number that Giuni Russo recorded in 1981 and which was then re-released by Milva eight years later.

Plaisir D’Amour

Plaisir d’Amour dates back to 1784, when Jean-Paul-Égide Martini set a poem by Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian to music. Notable 20th-century renditions include the folksy interpretation by Joan Baez as “The Joys of Love”, the proto-Jim Steinman delivery by Demis Roussos and Vangelis of Aphrodite’s Child as “I Want to Live,” and the crystalline performance by Nana Mouskouri.

Battiato/Pio tailored it to Sibilla with a minimal, electronic base where, as soon as you expect a beat drop, she interpolates with a whole other melody, the propelling “Skin me, Wind me”, which she delivers in a way that may remind you of Cyndi Lauper (ex. “All Through the Night”), creating a new base for a chamber-music classic. Funnily enough, in 1988, with A casa di Ida Rubinstein, Giuni Russo would devote an entire album to revisiting opera and chamber-music pieces in an experimental manner. “Battiato himself would include experimentations with classical music in his 1991 record, and would actually revisit Baroque music in the track “Bist du bei mir”from 2001,” says Cisco.

Sex Appeal to Europe

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By 1982, Italo disco producers had lost interest in the acoustic, funky grooves of the ’70s in favor of music made mostly with synths. It was the rise of DJs in the role of producers, which yielded tracks that were easier to make and definitely less expensive to put together in the first place. With its glacial and distant sounds and its nimble production timeline and cost, electronic music promised to satisfy the demands of the youth hitting the dance floor. It became an “attire” used to dress both new and older acts in need of a career revamp, aiming for quick radio play and record sales. This was the year in which Italian disco shed its older skin and morphed into Italo disco, heavily influenced by the sounds of Northern Europe and facilitated by the commercial accessibility of instruments.

This new electronic music also reflected a different way of experiencing the dance floor. If, in the late ’70s, discotheques were sanctuaries of communal pleasure, places where people could meet and share the joy radiated by music that was itself uplifting and exuberant, the early ’80s, by contrast, were years of individuality, marked by the rise of the ego in both aesthetic and cultural terms. It was also the period of fragmentation into musical subgenres and cultural subtrends, with each country around the world producing their own variation of disco and then dance music.

So discotheques became places where different emotions scattered onto the dance floor like a large puzzle of the human soul, taking on different musical shapes and atmospheres. A sought-after mood was a gradient of melancholia, which varied in intensity but relying on a very specific BPM range, approximately 100 to 108, while still carrying the beat, and most importantly the synth sounds (TR-808, TR-909, Jupiter-8, Juno-60, Prophet-5) typical of the Italo disco scene.

Here are some of our favorite slow Italo disco tracks that make us dance and dream and received some commercial success when released.

Savage – “Don’t Cry” (1983)

For hardcore fans of Italo disco, Roberto Zanetti is a name that rings many bells. Under the stage name Savage, Zanetti’s productions gained considerable popularity in Italy as well as across Europe, and he applied the formula to several other records he produced.

Rose – “Magic Carillon” (1984)

Also created by Zanetti, Rose’s “Magic Carillon” continues the tradition of melancholic melody laid over brazen synths and drums. The vocals of Stefania Dal Pino add an eerie vibe throughout the entire track, which over the years has gained the status of an iconic record to own on vinyl.

Valerie Dore – “The Night” (1984)

Considered one of the staples of Italo disco, “The Night” features the voice of Dora Carofiglio from the band Novecento. The dreamy vibe of the song, paired with its dubious English lyrics, makes it a perfect dance-floor mood setter.

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It’s quite rare for a premium American channel or streaming platform to devote much thought or care to Euro music acts—unless they want to poke fun at them or conduct some well-meaning but often tone-deaf ethnography. So when HBO announced it had acquired Zackary Drucker’s Enigma, which premiered in 2025 at the Sundance Film Festival, our interest was piqued.

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Italian-American actress and showgirl Nadia Cassini experienced this firsthand. Born Gianna Lou Müller, she rose to prominence for her roles in Italian erotic comedies, known as “commedia sexy all’italiana.” Relevant participations include the sexually dissatisfied bride Paola in Il dio serpente, known for its soundtrack penned by Augusto Martelli; a supporting role in Mike Hodges’s 1972 movie Pulp; the lead role in the 1979 flick L’insegnante balla…con tutta la classe (the teacher dances…with the entire classroom), where she plays a dancing-enthusiast gym teacher; the titular character in the 1979 comedy L’infermiera nella corsia dei militari (the nurse in the military ward) and the sexu…

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Florals for spring? Not for Loretta Goggi’s Maledetta primavera.
The song narrates a toxic relationship, where the arrival of spring is meant to portray the sensual but violent power of nature reawakening from its slumber. “What remains of an erotic dream if, upon waking, it has become a poet?” she asks herself in the second half of the first verse.

On TV, Goggi was already known as an actress and comedian, especially as an impersonator. A former child actress, she achieved her first mainstream recognition as the voice actor of Looney Tunes’ Tweety and in the 1968 Italian TV adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Black Arrow: A Tale of the Two Roses, which had a viewership of 20 million.

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Liza Minnelli had just finished performing the Pet Shop Boys-penned ballad “So Sorry, I Said” for Terry Wogan on the July 31, 1989, episode of his show when he remarked on how it was “so smashingly sad.” That was his answer to her “Isn’t that a pretty song?”

Wogan’s remark was by no means a dig. “That’s the major reason I asked the Pet Shop Boys if they’d do this record with me,” Minnelli replied. “I just found that what they said in their songs was so right-on as far as emotions go.” She reflected on the fact that the sadness of her life “[has] been thrust upon [the public],” Minnelli said. “I’ve read some incredible things about myself.”

This interview with Terry Wogan was meant to promote Minnelli’s album Results, which is the epitome of what cabaret singer Kim David Smith once described to me as “Electro Camp”—that unique mixture of soulful vocals, churning machine-like basslines, cosmic synths, and a modicum of strings thrown in. Call it 1980s Euro Disco, if you will. In honor of the publication day of her memoir Kids, Wait Till You Hear This, let’s examine this record.

The duo had already produced a similar artistic feat with Eighth Wonder, whose “I’m Not Scared” combines a Madonna-like vocal affectation bordering on recitativo and a continental, Kraftwerk-like sound classed up by PSB; Minnelli had been curious about the duo ever since she heard their song “Rent.” After a couple of months, she heard that maybe they’d produce and write that album. “I just went crazy; it was just so wonderful.”

The album consists of ten tracks, a combination of covers, reinterpretations of PSB tracks, and songs written for this very project. She had not done any pop prior, but that did not faze the boys. “It’s always good when you’re working with someone that’s a huge star, which is something we get off on,” Chris Lowe told Wogan. “They might’ve assumed, correctly, that Results would be a hit on fumes alone, but they programmed the garish effects and wrote the purple lyrics that market calculations forced them to omit from their own work,” wrote Pitchfork in 2017. “And Minnelli, strutting always like the biggest hen on the farm, inhabits what Tennant called in an interview the ‘power woman’ tropes that the Boys wrote for her.”

PSB covers include “Tonight Is Forever” and “Rent.” The former has minimal chords in the beginning, which give way to swelling strings. In a way, it almost sounds like a Rodgers/Hammerstein track, a Disney love theme of yore, or maybe even Bernstein’s own “Tonight” from West Side Story. Thankfully, the beat drops, but it still feels Disneyesque: “Open the door, you hold the key.”

As said above, “Rent” was actually what got Minnelli hooked on the PSB sound. It includes lyrics such as “you dress me up, I’m your puppet” and “you buy me things and I love it.” It might sound theatrical at first, but this is no “So This Is Love” from Cinderella. While Minnelli strips it of the cynicism of the PSB original, she turns it into an 11 o’clock number. After all, “I love you. You pay my rent” is a great confession—whether it be uttered in an overly emphatic or a deadpan manner.

Other covers include the lead single “Losing My Mind,” which originally appeared in Sondheim’s Follies. To Euro-disco aficionados, this version is the musical equivalent of a Europudding film.

The opening chords are reminiscent of Umberto Tozzi’s “Gloria,” the bassline is very “machine-like” and continental, and if you listen closely enough, you might be able to catch a hint of “Disco Samba.” Overall, the instrumental track is reminiscent of Lear’s “Follow Me” and “Love Is a Stranger” by Eurythmics, but neither song has the anthemic gravitas of Minnelli’s “Losing My Mind.”

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To the untrained ear (and eye), Sanremo might not scream “innovation” or “experimentation,” nor would it be associated with anything emerging from nightlife. Ever since its inception in 1951, it has been associated with a type of musica leggera that’s heavy on melodic flourishes –both vocal and instrumental– and seemingly plays it safe.

By the time the 1980s rolled around, however, Italo disco was no longer contained within clubs, and, thanks to variety shows like Fantastico, Discoring, and, subsequently, Premiatissima, it did not feel out of place on the quaint stage of the Ariston theater. Here is a list of our favorite italo-disco entries at the Sanremo Festival editions that took place between 1981 and 1985.

Passengers “Midnight” (1981)

This is perhaps the earliest proper Italo disco track to be included in the official Sanremo Festival selection. Sung in English (not an uncommon occurrence at the time), the track is played entirely on synths, with a complete absence of live instruments–quite groundbreaking for such a traditional music event. The previous year, Lorella Pescerelli dared to surprise the audience with a cascade of arpeggiated synths in her song “New York,” although its lush orchestral intervention still tied it to a somewhat traditional style.

Barbara Boncompagni “Notte e Giorno” (1983)

1983 was perhaps the most prolific year for Italo disco at Sanremo. The genre had not only permeated club culture, but many established Italian artists also discovered that synth-driven productions offered a way to connect with younger audiences and keep their careers relevant. The daughter of renowned writer and director Gianni Boncompagni—who played a significant role in popularizing disco music in Italy and in making Raffaella Carrà an iconic TV personality—Barbara entered the Sanremo Festival with “Notte e Giorno,” a pop tune that begins with a dark, minor-key vibe before opening up in the chorus.

Flavia Fortunato “Casco Blu” (1983)

Iconic and evergreen, “Casco Blu” by Flavia Fortunato holds a special place in our hearts—not only for its catchy melody but also for Flavia’s distinctive styling and fierce stage presence during her performance at the Sanremo Festival of that year. Flavia was signed with YEP, a Rome-based record label that, though modest in budget, was bold in its ideas. The accessibility of synthesizer production allowed many small labels to thrive in early-'80s Italy, with YEP being one of them. Previous to her participation in the festival, Flavia released the single “Rincontrarsi,” featuring “Se Tu Vuoi” as its B-side—a track that, a few years ago, had helped re-introduce Italo disco sounds to a global audience.

Sibilla “Oppio” (1983)

Although Italian visionary songwriter and producer Franco Battiato never set foot on Sanremo’s stage, his protégé Sibilla became his messenger through both music and style. "Oppio" is a beautifully written and arranged song, co-created by Sibilla with contributions from Battiato and violinist Giusto Pio. Unfortunately, a technical glitch during her Sanremo performance led to her singing off key for the entire song, broadcast live to millions worldwide. Yet, this setback does not change the fact that "Oppio" remains a masterpiece.

DHUO “Walkin'“ (1984)

Comprising the Italian composer Bruno Bergonzi and British musician Mike Logan, Dhuo is the last act to have brought an English-sung track to the Sanremo Festival. "Walkin’" is a slow, romantic electronic tune that clearly showcases the intersection between Italo disco and the British new wave—styles popularized in those years by bands such as Depeche Mode, Erasure, and others. In fact, the track (and the album) was licensed in the US by SIRE Records, which was distributing records by those bands as well as by the rising pop star Madonna. This is a true little gem, and Dhuo’s album deserves to be rediscovered.

Richter, Venturi & Murru “Mondorama” (1984)

Talk about a one-hit wonder! There is hardly any information about this trio, who released only this track—a competing entry at the 1984 Sanremo Festival. The project was led by Varo Venturi, who had written Nada’s stellar “Amore Disperato” and most of the tracks on her album Smalto, arguably one of her best. “Mondorama” is a sophisticated electro-pop gem that has unjustly faded from Italian collective memory. It’s time to bring it back into the spotlight. Still, all 3 members of the band all went on to have their personal careers in music and theater.

Canton “Sonnambulismo” (1984)

Following the massive popularity that British new wave bands were enjoying in Italy, record labels tried to replicate this success locally by promoting a variety of groups—many of which disappeared before their music was officially released. Canton was one such attempt to capitalize on the international music trend. Despite this, their Sanremo entry remains one of the catchiest songs ever presented at the festival, securing its place in history. Buoyed by the band's success in Italy, the label also released an English version of the track in an effort to launch the band onto the international stage, though this move ultimately failed to generate any significant impact.

Eugenio Finardi “Vorrei Svegliarti” (1985)

To conclude this list, here is a beautiful and unjustly forgotten gem by one of Italy’s most talented songwriters, Eugenio Finardi. In 1985, he released “Vorrei Svegliarti,” produced by Angelo Carrara—a longtime collaborator of Franco Battiato, Giusto Pio, Giuni Russo, Alice, and many others. The song’s chorus, with its tantric longing (“I miss you tonight”), strikes deep chords within our hearts.

This post was originally published in February 2024.

As much as Sanremo is Italy’s most eminent music festival, the event is hardly just a music show: the songs are just one component of a variety-style tv show known for its hosts, performers, comic interludes, and the endless stream of discourse that arises after each night. Needless to say, fashion has become the subject of discussion just as much as the songs. 

In the current era, costumes exist to make a singer’s performance go viral on social media: think of Achille Lauro’s glam-rock unitards in 2020, of Paola and Chiara’s 2022 metal-corset-adorned chainmail-like gowns (from Dolce and Gabbana’s 2007 collection) and of this year’s BigMama, outfitted like a 1920s Cabaret performer, or Mahmood, looking like a futuristic reinterpretation of a Greek statue thanks to Rick Owens’s draped tunic.

When it comes to the female co-hosts, the gowns they wear are just a showcase of a designer’s couture collection, and they tend to safely play with red-carpet-ready tropes (ball gown, mermaid gowns, high slits, lots of chiffon). Singers, however, have to convey creativity, innovation, and, to the extent deemed acceptable by national tv standards, transgression. And while now all of this results into social-media and meme bait, between the 1970s and the1990s, Sanremo’s costume and fashion department had reached a delicate balance between couture and variety-like spectacular fashions. 

For the sake of coherence, we will just discuss the looks of singers who had some affinity with Italian and/or Italo disco, even though they did not necessarily present a disco-infused track at Sanremo.

1970s

Color tv did not arrive in Italy until after 1976, and, as a consequence, clothes were not particularly outré until the late 1970s.

The first appearance of ska and Italo disco diva Donatella Rettore at the Sanremo music festival took place in 1977 with “Oh Carmela.” On that occasion, she wore an outfit that still looks current to this day: a tunic-like shirt and black leggings tucked into cowboy boots, topped with a long, voluminous bob.

When Anna Oxa first debuted on the stage of Sanremo in 1978, her outfit consisted of a menswear-inspired three-piece suit, complete with a waistcoat, and her hair was slicked back. To offset the overall gender-bending component, she sported a heavily editorial, almost Cleopatra-like makeup, complete with maroon eyeshadow and eyeliner. Overall, the styling clearly contrasted with the borderline-operatic nature of her song “Un’emozione da poco.” 

1980s

The 80s were the decade where the balance between couture and costuming reached its peak, where outfits were, in equal measure, creativity, virtuosity, and artifice.

Take the singer Marina Lai. When she presented “Centomila Amori Miei” in 1982, she wore a black fan-pleated jumpsuit by Krizia, with bold shoulders and exaggerated barrel-shaped wide legs. In a way, it’s reminiscent of Kansai Yamamoto’s famous jumpsuit worn by David Bowie.

In 1983,  synth pop group Matia Bazar presented “Vacanze Romane” and on that occasion, front woman Antonella Ruggiero wore a 1940s-inspired two-piece suit and performed in a way that would have been perfectly at home in a David Lynch film. The strength of that performance lay in the juxtaposition of the 1940s vocals and visuals with the synth and electronic-heavy instrumentation. In addition, they performed on an elevated stage platform,  which gave the performance an even more otherworldly feel.

Visually, Patty Pravo dominated the 1984 edition of the festival: she wore a high-priestess-like lurex gown by Versace coupled by a geometric hairstyle with blunt strands of hair that hinted at Japan’s own hime haircut, as seen on Cher in the 1960s.  Her song, “Per una bambola,” has an elegiac tone that reminisces about lost love, lacking bitterness. 

Oxa made her mark again on the fashion front. After shedding her proto-punk, androgynous and provocateur persona, she became the ideal canvas for couture. In 1985,  when singing “A Lei,” she majestically  descended a staircase, Wanda Osiris-style,  and for her first performance, she wore a red cape-like coat that she took off to reveal a matching sleeveless catsuit, notable for its crotch-length frontal zip. For the subsequent performance at the 1985 festival, she also had an alternate jumpsuit in the same style, but with a more intricate, cosmic-like pattern. 

She got flak for it, but she pushed back by remarking “all dancers wear this type of unitard, and it never caused any clamor.” In 1986, upon presenting “E’ tutto un attimo,” she went in yet another direction: this time, Versace created a riff on the little black dress: a midriff-baring criss-cross top coupled with a scifi-like hood, all made in leather. 

Overall, Sanremo 1986 was marked by excellence in costume design.

That same year, Loredana Berté wore leather too and, thanks to the creative zest of Luca Sabatelli, she sported a studded minidress whose focal point was a fake baby bump. This caused controversy too, and, at the time, she declared herself surprised by that reaction. “Had Madonna done it, nobody would have objected,” she said then. Sabatelli and Berté also wanted audiences to stop seeing pregnancy as a debilitating illness but, rather, a state of heightened strength and vitality.

Donatella Rettore went full sci-fi with a draped, stark white gown with a thigh-high slit and maximalist, wing-shaped shoulder pads, a cross between princess Leia and a cosmic Valkyrie. Her alternate outfit looked like a figure-skating costume, complete with an ornamental skirt and mirror-like shards on the bodice area. The song had been originally written by Viola Valentino, and only assigned to Rettore at the last minute. Rettore, on her part, never shied away from talking about how displeased she was with that song, seen as an admission to weakness and meekness, and, for a long time, blamed her decline in popularity on those Sanremo performances.

1990s

By the time the 1990s rolled around, Sanremo’s fashion choices started crystallizing around standard red-carpet fare. As for the last two decades, though, Anna Oxa was the one delivering the most statement-making looks. As she co-hosted the 1994 edition, she wore a Versace gown made of the finest chainmail and what looked like a Longobardian iron crown. The sheath-like gown might have looked simple and sleek at first glance, but the material, the styling, and the color made it one of the most remarkable looks in Sanremo’s history. 

Five years later, in 1999, Oxa presented the anthemic song “Senza Pietà.” In the music video, she played a medieval warrior, brandishing a sword, but when she debuted the song at the Ariston theater, she instead chose a Tom-Ford-era Gucci ensemble consisting of low-slung, rhinestone-studded suede pants, with a thong peeking out, and a simple mock neck sleeveless top. Her hair had a dramatic two-tone styling, with platinum and jet-black strands seamlessly atlernating.  Italian newspapers now maintain that Italian tiktokers copy this look, but it’s unclear whether they’re willingly referencing Oxa or just the y2k style signifiers that outfit embodied.

On the 20th of February 2026, during London Fashion Week, Fiorucci staged an immersive presentation titled “Memorie,” in the guise of an intimate gathering “suspended,” per the show notes, “in an undefined era.” The set is an apartment in an undefined moment in time: it’s both vintage-inspired and retro-futuristic, slightly reminiscent of Metaphysical art, with clothes referencing various decades. Those who love David Lynch’s worlds will find themselves at ease: his heavy red stage curtains are now seaglass-colored; his signature chevron pattern is a Dalmatian print. Instead of Julee Cruise, you hear Nada’s “Ma che freddo fa,” Patty Pravo’s “La Bambola,” and Iván’s “Fotonovela.”

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We continue our exploration of the leading visual-culture players in Italian music. After celebrating the lens of Mauro Balletti and the art direction of Luciano Tallarini, we want to highlight the animation of Guido Manuli, an animator who sits at the intersection of Italian modernism, anime inspiration, adult animation, satire, and a modicum of Disney influence, who created examples of cyberpunk and steampunk universes for artists signed to Baby Records, most notably La Bionda and Rondò Veneziano.

Indeed, Guido Manuli was a pioneer in the early 1980s music video scene, merging “fantasy animation” with the era’s electronic and disco sounds.

On…

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This post was originally published in February 2024.

As the oldest and most followed platform for popular music tradition in Italy and the direct inspiration for continental (and now global) sensation Eurovision, the Sanremo Music Festival is still standing after more than 70 years from its first edition in 1951. Ever since its inception, its stage has been a mirror not only for the musical trends du jour but also for social, political and most importantly fashion changes of the country through the decades. 

One can clearly distill the melodic fil rouge that makes a song sound typically “sanremese”. If you listen to most winning entries from the 1950s till the 2020s, you’ll clearly single out the main ingredients: slow ballads, vocal virtuosity, catchy melodies and (somehow individual or collective) relevant, or otherwise, simply memorable lyrics. Of course there are plenty of exceptions, but if you compare the first winning song, Nilla Pizzi’s “Grazie dei fior” from 1951, and last year’s “Due Vite” by Marco Mengoni, you would hardly believe that these songs stand more than 70 years apart. You might think that the canzone italiana is impervious to evolution.

Thankfully, innovation and rule breaking can be found in the hundreds of songs that never made the podium, many of which have been unjustly forgotten or overlooked - or that have triumphed thanks to record sales. Just like every other “new” genre that has had some form of commercial success, disco music started lurking onto Sanremo’s stage in the mid 70s and had to fight its way into it, trying to co-exist with the traditional melodic pop style that is now considered the typical “sanremese” fare. All of this happened while Italy faced political storms with kidnappings, murders, terrorist threats and inflation. It is perhaps to distract people from the grim reality, that Italian TV truly mastered in the late 70s the art of crafting a variety show.

1976

Winds of innovations towards disco and electronic music on the stage of Sanremo can be traced back to 1976. The band Daniel Sentacruz Ensemble, still riding on the wave of success of the track “Soleado” from the 1974 competition, performed “Linda Bella Linda”, a blend of pop and chanson, with a lurking disco beat that showed how young generations of musicians and listeners were ready to leave the introspective mood dominating the festival and were ready to open up to the world, to come together and dance. 

The year 1976 also marked the rise of synth music. Technology came to the rescue with the integration of machines with the traditional instruments to welcome a new era in music. Italian producer, singer and composer Toto Cutugno and the founder of the band called Albatros (as if to indicate that synth music represented the rebirth of music from the ashes of traditions) presented the magical “Volo AZ 504”. Though not disco in its DNA, with its spoken words and blaring lead synth, “Volo” opens the door of the festival to new expressions in music, in the attempt to keep the interest of young consumers. 

1977

The 1977 edition of the festival is mostly a sequence of classic pop, heartbreaking, yawn- inducing ballads about love and its many joys and problems. 

The only interesting acts were the band Matia Bazar that veered toward disco rhythms with “Ma Perchè”; Albatros came back with “Gran Premio” , while the iconic Donatella Rettore debuted with the track “Carmela” throwing “poisoned” candy from the stage during her live performance. The lyrics of the song feature homoerotic hints, mentioning male soldiers holding their guns in their hand and meeting secretly at night to make love. 

Donatella was already displaying her irreverent and revolutionary approach to music, which peaked in 1979 with the release of “Splendido Splendente”, a disco track about cosmetic surgery and gender identity. 

International acts making an appearance as guests during the 1977 Sanremo Music Festival include Barry White, Rick Dees, and the Belgian Eurodisco act Chocolat’s, who performed a medley of their most famous tropical-inflected hits, including “La chatte à la voisine” and “Brasilia Carnaval.” Chocolat’s performance never made it on air, though: due to timing constraints, RAI cut off its recording before they went onstage. 

1978

A pivotal moment for Sanremo’s festival came in 1978, thanks to the musical direction of Paolo Zavallone (aka El Pasador), who was quite keen on the new trends that were clearly developing not only in music but also in style and fashion. During this edition Anna Oxa made her debut on stage with a look curated by artist Ivan Cattaneo, sporting a stage persona that played with gender identity and rebellion. Her performance of the song “Un’emozione da poco” polarized the audience and made the festival a platform where artists could dare and be provocative about social and political issues. Magazines and newspapers made Oxa the symbol of a degenerate youth, lost and without any ideology. However Anna’s move was the reverb of a bigger change, triggered the year before with the movie “Saturday Night Fever”.

Young generations were stepping away from the collective awareness of a broken society, to an individual desire to be at the center of  their own existence. If in the late 60s youngsters used to meet and interact at social centers or political protests, in the late 70s they convene at the discotheque, surrounded by mirrors where all they could see was themselves in smoke and colored neons. 

In 1978 Sanremo also welcomed iconic international artists like Asha Puthli, singing “The Devil is Loose”, Grace Jones with “La Vie En Rose”, and Sheila B. Devotion with a disco version of “Singin’ In The Rain”. Diversity, eroticism and disco culture are clearly conquering popular culture. The jury is still out on how receptive the live audience was to such innovative bands. For instance, when Belle Epoque performed a live version of “Bamalama,” riding the coattails of “Black Is Black,” the audience barely batted an eye at its frantic, borderline Dionysian beat, or at the lyrics that overtly celebrated drugs, bondage, intoxication, and rough sex. 

1979

1979 perhaps marks the triumph of disco and electronic culture on the stage of Sanremo. First, the band Ayx recreated an actual discothèque-like dancefloor on stage with approximately 30 dancers moving to the beat of their “Ayx Disco”, all dressed in some super heroes of the night attire. The French band Il Etait Une Fois debuted with the slow beat and super chic “Impazzirò”. Enzo Carella with his iconic performance of the song “Barbara” brought a disco-infused ballad in the main competition.  

On the other side of the spectrum, the influence of Kraftwerk on Italian composers and producers shone through through “New York” a song performed by Lorella Pescerelli, with a stunningly beautiful arrangement supporting her lyrical dream to move to New York and become a star (another effect of the disco fever coming from the United States and taking over Italian youths).

We can say that by the 1979 edition of the festival, disco had had some influence on most of the participating artists, with a list of songs that were a balance between the traditional Italian love songs and the more upbeat compositions. Some bands such as Grimm, Collage and I Camaleonti,  also changed their style of singing that is definitely evocative of Bee Gees in the soundtrack of “Saturday Night Fever” vocalizing over faster BPM tracks, reflecting once again, that disco was the bridge not only to higher record sales but also to the future. 

The momentous Disco Demolition Night in July 1979 had barely any reverberations in the European music panorama. On the contrary, varieties and sub-genres of Eurodisco would continue to flourish, and, going into the 1980s, Sanremo would host even more memorable disco acts.  

At the dawn of the 1980s, two main players helped ramp up the form and content of variety shows. One was the rise of Fininvest, Silvio Berlusconi’s network that was unabashedly commercial and had a keen eye on the culture and aesthetics of the United States of America and was less bound to the decorum of RAI. The other was, of course, color broadcast, which only arrived in Italy in 1978 and enabled more sophisticated and/or artistically ambitious and/or immersive sets and costumes, which, in turn, meant even more stellar music numbers, both original and covers. We got an inkling of it with Stryx in 1978, but the eighties saw sets that recreated discotheques, abstract halls of mirrors, enchanted fairy-tale landscapes, circus and revue theater halls, cruise ships, beauty centers, and drive-in movie theaters. In case you missed it, read Part I here.

At the heart of 80s television was also the attempt to find someone as impactful as Raffaella Carrà, who was aging out of her “showgirl” per…

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If we accept the definition of a concept album as a record in which each track serves an overarching narrative, Italian disco divas produced a remarkably rich body of work. In Italy, the concept album became a theatrical device: a space in which performers could stage erotic fantasy, metamorphosis, and self-mythologization through sound.

The selection that follows comprises a chronological selection of albums anchored in sharply defined worlds and obsessions. These include sexual fantasy and transgression; Faustian bargains and revenge narratives; witchcraft, initiation, and rebellion against patriarchal or infernal authority; insects and animal metaphors as vehicles for movement and transformation; psychological duality and masked selves; aerobic discipline and bodily futurism; the American frontier as pop myth; and medieval legend refracted through synth-driven camp.

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