Cover Songs in Italy in the Beat Era |
In the sixties Italy was one of the biggest and more improving markets for music and discs. In order to answer a constant growing demand, the music industry decided to take a simple way: to translate in Italian songs that were already successes in other country, mainly in US and UK, or even songs not so well known in their countries, but interesting for their potential. In this way more than 2000 cover songs were registered and published during the decade and within them they are included the major and more remembered successes of the sixties in the "Covers Country". |
Other resources in this website |
A list of 1300+ Cover Songs / Burt Bacharach In Italian / The Beatles' songs In Italian / The Rolling Stones in Italian / The Animals in Italian / The Them in Italian |
In this page |
Music in Italy in the '60s / The Italian version / The Italian lyrics / Examples / The Italian groups "I Complessi" |
Since the ending of the II World War the whole music world was largely influenced by the Anglo-Saxon genres and artists. Maybe only starting from the '90 a wider interest started in the Western world, with the progressive success of the world music. But, coming back to the sixties, the models to refer have came almost totally from UK and US, as far the new music, the music for the young generation. And so dozens and dozens of English and American songs have became Italians, mostly without a consciousness by the listeners, and an huge part of the Italian beat groups ("complessi") and singers have became famous thanks to the covers. Italy was at that time quite different from today, but even more different was the Italian music market. At that time it was one the main markets in the whole Western world. A single 45 rpm reached easily over a million copies, and a real big success as "La bambola" by the Italian "princess of beat" Patty Pravo has sold more than nine millions of discs in Europe, most of them in Italy. |
So, even very important UK and US musicians, as The Rolling Stones, Stevie Wonder, David Bowie, surely under pressure by their producers, issued Italian version of some of their most important hits. |
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The Italian version could have been targeted to a song that was already an international hit, as for example I’m a Believer by the Monkees or The Whiter Shade Of Pale by the Procol Harum. The original version was already known and the Italian one was so pushed by the original one. In these cases there was sometimes a competition between several groups, in order to be the first and the preferred one. This was the case, for example, of the famous hit of Cher Bang Bang, covered in Italy by the Equipe 84 (the best selling version), by I Corvi, by Dalida (the famous french singer), by Milena Cantù (an Italian singer of that time). |
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The Italian lyrics were rarely related to the original ones. The two languages are quite different, it's difficult to adapt the rock pace to the Italian words, and moreover the sensibility and the respect of the original work was not so high. Result: in many cases the meaning of the original tune was completely changed (sometimes reversed completely) in the Italian one. Sometimes the Italian lyrics were even better, in most cases the original ones were ignored. |
The reason for an unrelated version of the original one could have been many. |
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It is possible to visualize an almost complete list of Italian cover songs (more than 1300) here, from Adriano Celentano up to "The Wretched". It is also available a selection of reverse cover songs (where the original was Italian). See also: a selection of 45rpm cover art |
© Music-Graffiti 2006 - 2016 / Alberto Truffi |