Black Box - Ride On Time just played on the radio which got me spontaneously thinking about this.
For decades Italy was a major cultural force in international pop culture, primarily in music and film. But a few years after the 90's kicked in they just seemed to fade into obscurity and have remained there since. It's kind of odd that they ever were so affluent in the first place given that they appear to be one of the more culturally isolated European nations.
Any film buff is going to recognize names like Sergio Leone, Dino De Laurentiis and the mark they left on cinema from the 60's to the 80's, along with their trademark film composers like Ennio Morricone or the band Goblin. Giorgio Moroder producing synthesizer-focused disco for Donna Summers in the late 70's also kickstarted the Italian synth movement which practically defined dance music for more than a decade. The last "wave" of Italian culture export seems to be the early 90's Italo House with the aforementioned Black Box being an example.
It reminds me of Japan in a lot of ways in that there are plenty of these little odd idiosyncracies you can identify which sets them apart from the melting pot of globalized media. The completely nonsensical lyrics of Italo Disco shows their poor English skills (for example Ride On Time is clearly meant to be Right On Time). In fact from what I've heard a lot of Italian producers started producing for J-Pop artists after their music went out of vogue in the western market. I'm not as knowledgeable about film but I know there's enough there to spawn modern tributes to Italian exploitation films like Italian Spiderman.
It just makes me curious what factors were involved with the rise and fall of Italian pop culture in the 20th century.
For decades Italy was a major cultural force in international pop culture, primarily in music and film. But a few years after the 90's kicked in they just seemed to fade into obscurity and have remained there since. It's kind of odd that they ever were so affluent in the first place given that they appear to be one of the more culturally isolated European nations.
Any film buff is going to recognize names like Sergio Leone, Dino De Laurentiis and the mark they left on cinema from the 60's to the 80's, along with their trademark film composers like Ennio Morricone or the band Goblin. Giorgio Moroder producing synthesizer-focused disco for Donna Summers in the late 70's also kickstarted the Italian synth movement which practically defined dance music for more than a decade. The last "wave" of Italian culture export seems to be the early 90's Italo House with the aforementioned Black Box being an example.
It reminds me of Japan in a lot of ways in that there are plenty of these little odd idiosyncracies you can identify which sets them apart from the melting pot of globalized media. The completely nonsensical lyrics of Italo Disco shows their poor English skills (for example Ride On Time is clearly meant to be Right On Time). In fact from what I've heard a lot of Italian producers started producing for J-Pop artists after their music went out of vogue in the western market. I'm not as knowledgeable about film but I know there's enough there to spawn modern tributes to Italian exploitation films like Italian Spiderman.
It just makes me curious what factors were involved with the rise and fall of Italian pop culture in the 20th century.
