The Music That Made Me: Angelica Frey’s Story

How an antisocial and awkward teen finds a voice through Italian disco music

After Disco Bambino presented readers with his “Why,” Angelica Frey now relays her own musical journey.

It’s April 2019, and I am in a tightly packed karaoke room in Milan’s chinatown. In the last six months, I had lost my mother to a suddenly ruptured brain aneurysm, and my partner of four years had decided that I was not coping well enough for him to continue our relationship. 

Weirdly, by the time March had rolled around, I had been overcome by a propulsive mania: I hoarded work, I resumed seeing my friends, I numbed my loneliness with dating apps with forgettable, but distraction-worthy dates, and I resumed listening to my music. You see, I refuse to listen to music when I am too down on myself.

That April night, we could only fit in that common room, where people are usually courteous enough to select crowd pleasers. As soon as Raffaella Carrà’s Italian Disco anthem “Tanti Auguri” came on, I took it as my personal battle hymn. My world had, indeed, fallen apart (se per caso cadesse …