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H. P. L.'s undefeatable thread of ancient, odd and frankly embarassing Italian pop-rock


H. P. L.
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I'm going to make this a semi-permanent feature, if it's ok for everyone. And remember, it's for FUN!

Not that I'm going to post a song everyday, either, even if the source material is vast and deep and unfathomable.

 

Seeing that there are a lot of vintage Italian prog lovers here, I thought it might be fun to share "the dark side" of that particular moment in time. Bands and singers that, although influenced to a larger or lesser degree by "prog", kept one and a half foot firmly in pop territory. They couldn't play, they wouldn't, they didn't care, they wanted to make money. Your choice.

But say what you want, they knew how to hold the stage and they could deliver.

 

So be ready for a barrage of ridicoulous melodic honey, awful british rock covers, silly jackets and terrible hair.

 

No other song is fit to be the first in thread like this, so here it goes. You might recognize this one.

 

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Ok, not even King Diamond in his prime went this far. Never mind the cowls: adding a customized stand for your pet crow on the bass machine head. How metal is that?

But then, I Corvi (The Crows, obviously) were something else. The bad boys of Italian pop, but still able to get to television and so be preserved for posterity.

This is their best known song, and yes, it's a cover of "Miracle worker", but they really turned into their own song: the lyrics ("I am a rough boy / and you're messing me up") and the delivery make it even angrier than the original.

Still popular today, they have their own annual festival around Parma. You just don't mess with I Corvi.

 

http://youtu.be/bhAlqe2x6SI

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Pooh (named after Winnie the Pooh) are not a group. They are an institution. You don't grow up in Italy and NOT go through a Pooh phase. You just don't. Starting off as a beat-pop band, they morphed briefly into a prog band with the Parsifal concept album, and then proceeded to craft their own style of bombastic, stage friendly pop-symphonic-melodic-rock. They probably have released even more albums than Rush.

This is from their heyday in the 70s, and yes, they look kinda like a 4-piece EL&P. Killer guitar, though. Dodi Battaglia is a true axeman.

 

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Oh yeah, Righeira were huge. So many school memories attached to those songs, with their fake spanish and fake english. They started off as an intelligent pop band, but then they became so obvious I got to hate them.

 

They however represent also the worst thing that happened to pop music in the 80s: it became corporate music. In the 70s there still was a degree of anarchy and freedom, in which a band could be more or less "independent" and still make a buck, even in catholic-driven italian media. In the 80s, it became corporate-driven. The previous decade was completely erased. The younger generations, like myself, were exposed ONLY to corporate crap-pop. No second choice. No alternative. No way of discovering Led Zeppelin or Jefferson Airplane if you didn't have an older brother or a hippie papa.

 

That's why I'll be sticking to "true" rock-pop by "true" bands in this thread. And thanks for your replies!!

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Italy: land of poets.

For centuries, the likes of Dante, Petrarca, Ariosto, Tasso, Leopardi, Foscolo, Montale, Ungaretti took female beauty and made it, through words, an eternal work of art.

Then in the 60s this bloke comes around with this cover of "Yeeeh" and the opening, immortal line: "Your eyes are blinding headlights / And I'm stuck in front of them". And all the girls went crazy. I mean Beatles-crazy.

The lover man in the 60s was livestock on a road in the middle of the night, with a truck full headlights coming right at him.

Futurist poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti would have been proud.

 

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That really captures an era!

That clip is taken from one of those so called "summer flicks" they used to make in the 60s. They made a ton of them. The plot was always the same: bunch of guys going to the sea to get girls. Throw in a little comedy, some eye candy and the mandatory "hit singles" of the moment. They were so silly! But as you said, they're the best picture of Italy in those happy times.

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Somehow, Italy never produced its own Jimi or Eric or Jimmy or Ritchie or Tony.

The reasons are many, and many more I don't even know: the melodic tradition, the different market, whatever.

That does not mean Italy did not have its fair share of talented guitar players (Dodi Battaglia of Pooh being one of them). You already know the prog-heads, so today I'm going to introduce to you one of the finest - if not THE finest - Italian axeman ever. Ivan Graziani.

A serious contender for the title of most underrated guitarist EVER, Ivan had a long career before passing away untimely in 1997. He had many hits but never became a big name. Why?

He was shy, down to earth, unsophisticated, not much political. He could come up with fierce rockers as well as melancholic ballads. And boy, he could play.

 

Here is one of his first TV appareances. You can clearly see he's out of place on TV but still he soldiered on all his life, making crappy televisions appearances to promote his records. This one is pretty precious because he shows his unique strumming technique. The rock song following, loosely inspired by Peter Gunn's Theme, is about the man who stole the Gioconda from Le Louvre.

 

 

This one is another example of what he could do with a guitar. The crazy drummer is an added bonus. The song is called "Lazy" but actually is a way to shout a 4-letter word without saying it.

 

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Here's one of Ivan's ballads. Guaranteed to bring a teary eye to every sweet sixteen...

 

 

And another tv appearance with one of his best guitar songs. Check out the solo. It's a dirty story of gambling and sex and is called "The guitarist" (what else?). This is from the early 80s. Looking at it now, from the dresses to the girls, seems shot on Uzbekian television... :LOL: :lol: :LOL: :lol:

 

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Ah, i Nuovi Angeli.

Not much to say here: the perfect band to produce silly, brainless summer pop songs. But still they hold a special place in my heart so I'm gonna post not one but two of their best known songs.

 

This is Donna Felicità (Madame Happiness, if you will). Subtle sexual content. And the most menacing moustache this side of Tony Iommi.

 

 

And this is Singapore: absolutely not a political song. Actually, rhyming "Singapore" with "belle signore" is close to genius.

 

http://youtu.be/rBiBPU_iplQ

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Nomadi are more than a band. They are Planck's constant. Or Higgs' Boson, if you will.

Without them, this little slice of the universe would be different, and much more hopeless.

Starting off in the 60s, they were a unique blend of beat and hippie philosophy-italian style, built around the incredible, beautiful, unique voice of Augusto Daolio (who sadly left us in 1992). A love of nature, simple things, humble people: an ethos the band incredibly carried on through the years until today. They are still touring (with keyboardist/co-founder Beppe Carletti as the only original member), they still draw HUGE crowds and they still win over young people. For the life of me, I cannot remember someone ever saying "I don't like Nomadi".

 

They first success was a "Hair"-inspired single that went: "How can you judge us / by our long hair". It's a bit silly so I'm not going to post it. Instead, let's start with a beautiful, prog-tinged ballad (note the white mellotron):

http://youtu.be/E9qWxw5ja74

 

And here's another example of their uniqueness: an apocalyptic vision of the nuclear end of mankind, and nature reclaiming its place:

http://youtu.be/WUMEczhcqYA

Edited by H. P. L.
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One of Nomadi's strenghts was the partnership with songwriter Francesco Guccini (more on him in future installments), who provided them with deep, fresh, intelligent, poignant songs. Pre-dating black metal and Opeth's "The Devil's Orchard" of decades, they sang "Dio è morto" (God is dead), a song that was banned from TV (Italy, everyone!) for years, even if it's a deeply religious song. Here's a later rendition:

 

Their dabbling with prog rock led them to cover "Nights in White Satin", which becomes a murder ballad. Sorry for the crappy video.

http://youtu.be/KV10uV-xx-A

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QUICK UPDATE

 

Man, I just found this incredible video of Nomadi playing in a square, and I had to share it.

 

 

This song was an object of controversy, not unlike The Doors' Light my Fire, and the lyrics had to be changed to make it to television. The original line was: "To make a man it takes 20 years / to make a child one hour of love" and all the powers that be went: hey, he's talking about SEX, ain't he? We can't have that on television! So the lyrics were changed and became. "To make a man it takes 20 years / to make him true one hour of love" The only thing that doesn't make is sense.

 

I gotta say, doing research for this posts, I am falling again for Augusto's voice. It's just incredible.

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Let's dabble a little bit more in proggish territory, shall we?

The difference between Rush and Pooh is that the former donned the kimonos in 1977, more or less, while the latter were still sporting them in 1981! Here's the nice cover of their album of that year:

 

http://www.progarchives.com/progressive_rock_discography_covers/3832/cover_5228166112010.jpg

 

And here's the epic from that album. It's called "Inca" and is pretty deep stuff: the first encounter between Incas and Spanish conquistadores. The Inca king is sure of his immortality so walks up to the Spaniards and says: "Strike me one thousand times with your sword, I won't fall". Reality check. The king goes down. "And the sun, the sun king wouldn't wake".

 

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