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Italian rock is a form of rock music produced primarily in Italy. The music genre has roots in the country as it spread in the early 1960s from the United States with the earliest versions of rock and roll during this period being cover versions or interpretative covers of already existing songs.

History

1960s & 1970s

The first distinctively Italian singer-songwriter was Piero Ciampi, whose style was reminiscent of the French chansonniers. The United States and United Kingdom during the 1960s were in the midst of the psychedelic rock boom, which inspired Italian psychedelic bands such as Mario Schifano and Le Orme. At the time of the 1968 student uprisings, many young and educated Italians began to identify with the counterculture in France, Mexico, USA and across the world. Young Italians still had a well educated familiarity with classical music composers like Bach. The result was an influx of classically-influenced rock bands which fit right into the international move towards progressive rock. Italian progressive bands include:

• Banco del Mutuo Soccorso
• Celeste
• Devil Doll
• Goblin
• Jacula
• Latte e Miele
• New Trolls
• Premiata Forneria Marconi
• Reale Accademia di Musica
• Saint Just

Some bands, like Osanna, Area, Perigeo and Arti & Mestieri, fused progressive rock with jazz. Il Balletto Di Bronzo's YS is one of the most debated Italian prog-rock albums; some calling it trash and others extolling it as one of the greatest progressive albums ever made. The same period, the early 1970s, also saw the rise of Italian singers and songwriters like Lucio Battisti, Fabrizio De André and Francesco Guccini.

By the end of the 1970s, Italian punk rock pioneers Skiantos had released 1978's Monotono, which kickstarted the Italian punk scene. Later bands like The Confusional Quartet and Gaznevada fused New wave and Italian varieta with punk and other influences.

1980s

In the 1980s, Italy boasted one of the most vibrant hardcore and thrash metal scenes. In the late 1980s, more extreme bands of heavy metal bands appeared. Of these bands include:

• Affinita
• CCCP Fedeli alla linea
• Franti
• Gianna Nannini
• Necrodeath
• Negazione
• Opera IX
• Pankow
• Raw Power
• Vasco Rossi
• Zucchero

1990s & 2000s

In the 1990s, Italian avant-garde and alternative rock bands gained international notoriety, at least among critics. Gianna Nannini in 1970s, 1980s and into the 1990s was the first Italian rocker who achieve real popular success outside of Italy. Especially in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Benelux and later in Mexico. While Francesco De Gregori was well appreciated by critics and well-informed fans outside of Italy it was Nannini who was first Italian pop icon to stick and to shift between pop and rock with ease and to stay the course through trends and upcoming generations. Zucchero, Eros Ramazzotti and Jovanotti (later: Nek and Laura Pausini) all went on to become huge international pop names in the late 1980s and 1990s.

Another Tuscana (like Nannini) Irene Grandi has had a similar journey and has a similar persona only up-to-date and even more versatile. Sadly for Irene Grandi her success has remained mostly confined to Italy. The corporate structure and overt policies of the music business has in fact intensified the Anglo-American duopoply-monopoly over the past twenty years along with a culture of regime-playlists and radio deejays in most countries void of a mind or taste of their own. It is thus even harder for artists from countries such as Italy to get airplay in other countries in 2006 than it was in 1986.^{citation needed}

Other artists to emerge in the 1990s and beyond include:

See also

• Italian progressive rock

Wikipedia content modification information:

• This page was last modified on 28 October 2008, at 02:58.

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