Giuni Russo Part I: Solar Energy, Voice, and Mediterranean Longing

Record executives said no, but she did it anyway.

Giuni Russo was one of the greatest innovators in Italian music. A classically-trained soprano, she fused Italian music traditions and global influences with experimentalism in instrumentation, top-line melody, and lyrics.

Admittedly, the impetus behind the writing of this series came from the release of Rosalia’s Lux, as she combined mysticism, operatic, industrial, and contemporary pop sounds in a way that those who are familiar with Giuni Russo’s music would instantly recognize. This series will take as many posts as necessary. At first, we wanted to go by theme but given the complexity of her work, going by album was the more reader-friendly option.

Born Giuseppa Romeo, she went by different names early in her career. In the 1960s, she was “Giusy Romeo”, in the 1970s, when attempting an English-language career, she was “Junie Russo” in order to pose as an Italian-American artist.

She stepped into her stage name Giuni Russo in 1978, when her single “Soli noi” became a surprise hit in France.

To better understand her artistry, here is a brief overview of her co-authors and collaborators. In the first place, Maria Antonietta Sisini was her artistic and life partner for 36 years (they met when they were 17 and 18 and were together until her death in 2004); then along came Franco Battiato, the boundary-breaking musician, singer, composer, and filmmaker; Giusto Pio, a conductor, composer, violinist, music educator and songwriter and artistic partner of Battiato; and Radius, guitarist and singer-songwriter. An early collaborator was Cristiano Malgioglio, known for his poetry of yearning and desire applied both to himself and to Mina, Amanda Lear, and Raffaella Carrà.

Below, we will break down the three albums she released with CGD— Compagnia Generale del Disco— and the artistic conflicts that arose between the artists and the executives. The erstwhile pop idol Caterina Caselli was the one who scouted and signed her, but she would hardly ever understand the depth of Giuni’s artistry, and always pushed for commercial releases.

Full of solar energy: Energie (1981)

Her 1981 album Energie laid down the groundwork for her oeuvre. The title derives from a quote (wrongly?) attributed to Bette Midler, who expressed her wish to be beautiful, sexy, and full of solar energy (we could not immediately locate the quote, but we can insert it in the post once it comes along). Per her official biography written by Bianca Pitzorno, Giuni did not align with the wording “sexy and beautiful,” but fully identified with the “energy” part of the quote. This album marked the start of the artistic collaboration between Giuni Russo — and her lifelong artistic partner Maria Antonietta Sisini — and Franco Battiato, the artistic producer and co-author of the pieces.

Conceptualizing this album also led to a new look, which involved hair, makeup, and apparel. Gianni Versace crafted a series of two-piece suits and jumpsuits with strong shoulders and sharp lines that were, indeed, reminiscent of what you’d see in a space opera (these were the years of the first Star Wars trilogy, and Star Trek was enjoying immense popularity).

Il sole di Austerlitz is modeled on an older song by Franco Battiato, best known as “Bulgarian Song,” in turn an adaptation or re-elaboration of Boris Karamdichev’s Бразда в небето. “Crisi Metropolitana,” which fuses synth, virtuosity, past citations (‘O Sole Mio’) and dissonance, would be at home in Nina Hagen’s repertoire.
“Una vipera sarò” can, at first, lull audiences into a sense of familiarity with similar early-80s cheeky pop songs like “Kobra,” but soon devolves into her vocalizing in a way that will ring familiar to those who have watched the 1995 space opera The Fifth Element (as a reminder, this album was released in 1981). “L’addio” hints at late summer and bygone loves, which would become mainstays in her oeuvre, and alternates ballad melodies in the verse with a more propulsive, synthwave-like refrain.

Energie disrupted the Italian pop-music scene, to the point where critics and reporters failed to fully understand it and would ask her to explain herself. “Were I from London, Oklahoma, or Canada, you would never ask me this question: if you accept foreign artists defying genre boundaries, why don’t you give Italian singers the same grace?” she reportedly told reporters who asked her to clarify what Energie was even about.

Also included in later versions of this album is “Un’estate al mare,” originally presented as a standalone single in 1982. It starts in a recitativo fashion and presents vocal flourishes in the refrain, and talks about sex workers and other members of the underworld yearning for a summer reprieve. A track like this was both a blessing and a curse. Unlike the full-length album Energie, this single climbed the charts and eventually became one of the best-selling records of the year. Record executive thus pigeonholed her as a summer-hit hitmaker.

Bold voice, no compromises: Vox (1983)

Was the commercial hit “Un’estate al mare” enough to buoy the executives and let her fully go the experimental route? Yes and no, but she did it her way. This time, Battiato only penned “Post moderno” and “Good good bye,” and Sisini and Giuni Russo herself did most of the heavy lifting both in composing and songwriting.

Experimentalism goes full throttle with “L’oracolo di Delfi,” which interpolates ancient-Greek gnomes and phrases alongside a Far-East-inspired instrumental accompaniment, and, similarly, in “Oltre il muro,” you’ll hear hints of glam rock, Klaus Nomi’s work, and elements of new age as well, while “Post-moderno” is punk-operatic up to its coda that culminates in manic laughter.

In line with the music trends of the 1980s, “Buenos Aires” combines Italo disco with accordion, “in the style of Grace Jones’ ‘I’ve Seen That Face Before,’ a cover of Libertango,” per Italian Futuribili. “Le grandi colpe,” composed by Roberto Cacciapaglia, combines a heavy synth base in the style of what we heard from Eurythmics in Sweet Dreams with music citations from the interwar period, opera, and intentional dissonance or cacophony, complete with a guitar solo courtesy of Radius. “This would have become a global hit, had it been performed by the likes of Annie Lennox,” is the assessment of Italian Futuribili. “Good Good bye” is a meta-musical hit, which includes a meditation on the genres that achieve commercial success, and comprises a Spandau-Ballet-like verse and a pure-pop chorus.

Upon listening to it ahead of its release, executives still did not get it, and wondered why she did not create a spiritual successor to “Un’estate al mare.”

Still, despite their hardly supporting the album, Vox started charting quite well. They chose “Sere d’agosto,” a late-summer-themed reverie with a drive-by-night feel (it could pass for city pop), as the lead single because, well, it was about summer after all, and, to them, Giuni was to be a summer-hit machine.

Commercial sound and experimentation, 50/50 split: Mediterranea (1984)

For her third and final album with CGD, Giuni Russo and Maria Antonietta Sisini tried to have it both ways with commercialism and experimentation, and they succeeded. Enter Mediterranea.

The title track “Mediterranea” is a summer hit just by name. It starts with the retro instrumental base you hear in the likes of Be My Baby by the Ronettes and Those Magic Changes by Sha Na Na in Grease, but they made it electronic! Still, the lyrics are wistful and this duality gave the song depth and dimension. Executives wanted this track to come out as a single, so it needed a companion piece. Her and Sisini thought of “Limonata Cha Cha Cha,” an intentionally frivolous, dance-hall tune in the fashion of the 1981 hit “Maracaibo” that quotes Pepe Luis and has an electro-tropical sound, combining brass and synth. The assumption that “Mediterranea” would be the A side was unfounded. Executives wanted to lead with “Limonata Cha Cha Cha,” and Giuni bristled at that decision, to the point that she was once and for all marked as difficult to work with. The third track of the album, “Aprite le finestre,” also channels tropical rhythm (one could think of Samba) and mentions the feelings of merriment that come with seeing Raffaella Carrà on tv. This is where the commercial-friendly songs end.

“Demenzial song” is fairly similar to Matia Bazar’s “Elettrochoc” in its melodic component, and it relays the idiosyncrasies of the present times. “Babilonia” describes the excesses and pleasures of the time more on a corporeal, rather than societal level, with the refrain having Giuni utter “in the oblivion, in the oblivion, I’ll remain in a dreamlike state.”

She paid tribute to the Peruvian singer Yma Sumac with “Keiko,” whose vocal range was similar to hers; projected existentialist dread with “Champs Elysees,” which narrates of affairs in a world that does not exist.

A personal favorite is “Le contrade di Madrid,” where we hear Giuni as a contemplative and wistful balladeer, instances where her vocals fully shine even without pyrotechnics.

Despite the subpar lack of promo for both “Mediterranea” (the track) and Mediterranea (the album), audiences embraced both, and the album itself ended up selling more than Energie and Vox.

The next installment will analyze Giuni, Album, and Jazz a casa di Ida Rubinstein