Arabic
Azerbaijani
Chinese (Traditional)
Danish
Dutch
English
French
German
Italian
Kazakh
Norwegian
Portuguese
Russian
Spanish
Swedish
Turkish
Ukrainian
Italians do it better: write terrific songs and sing them properly on a stage, especially if it’s the one at the Sanremo Festival. They proved it more than all Mtoneskin, who in 2021 flew from the Ligurian Riviera to conquer the world with theirs Shut up and good.
But every Sanremo Festival, from the first edition of 1951 to today, has its definitive songs and performances, verses and refrains that have marked both the pop history of our country and, in a different way, each of us.
It’s called its own Italians Do Hits Better the format conducted from 1 to 5 February on Amazon Music’s social and Twitch channels by GrenBaud and Gaia Clerici. During Sanremo, the two streamers will meet the competing artists, who will tell behind-the-scenes stories and anecdotes of their experience at the Ariston. Together with GrenBaud and Gaia Clerici, singers and bands will also comment on the songs they have chosen for the creation of their playlists on Amazon Music: come on guilty pleasure – because we all have some musical skeleton in the closet – to those songs that, yes, change the lives of those who listen to them.
Follow the social channels of Amazon Music, where exclusive contents of Italians Do Hits Better will be published and enjoy the Festival with Alexa, ready to comment on Sanremo with you. He will give the votes to the singers in the competition, he will not spare himself with sharp jokes and, above all, he will let you listen to all the great classics of Sanremo from 1951 to today. Just ask: “Alexa, Sanremo atmosphere” and prehistoric successes such as Poppies and ducks by Nilla Pizzi and much more recent catchphrases like Money by Mahmood o Rolls-Royce by Achille Lauro. Every day a different playlist.
But who is the female artist who has won the Sanremo Festival several times? What is Amadeus’ greatest passion? And what does kermesse really mean, the word that he resonates overbearingly every year near the Festival? The protagonists of Italians Do Hits Better they will also be put to the test with a series of tantalizing themed games, and it is sure that all of us will have much to learn. For the record, the answers to the questions above are in order: 1) Iva Zanicchi, 2) Horse riding because love for horses is a tradition in the Amadeus household, 3) Dictionary in hand, it is a term that derives from French, originally it indicated parish festivals, here in Italy it applies to any public event: from village festivals to monumental events such as, precisely, Sanremo.
Those of the guest artists of Italians Do Hits Better in fact, these are just some of the thematic playlists curated by Amazon Music on the occasion of the 72nd Sanremo Festival. There is something for all tastes, to relive one’s own Festival of the heart or discover unpublished sounds and thus lose one’s head for other songs: Sanremo: let us be recognized, Italians what a passion, [RE]DISCOVER Sanremo winners and playlists [RE]DISCOVER dedicated to individual artists in the competition. Naturally, the Sanremo 2022 playlist is not missing with all the songs of this year’s Festival.
And there’s even a Rolling Stone playlist. Listening to dozens and dozens of pieces that have made the history of the Sanremo Festival, including revolutionary songs and memorable performances, we have chosen 15 artists and their respective songs in which we fully recognize our attitude: to break with tradition and leave our mark.
To listen to our playlist on Amazon Music click on the banner below.
1Dominic Modugno
In the blue painted blue (Volare) – 1958
The year of the first Sanremo revolution. L’oh-oh released from the uvula of Modugno is full of sensuality, the traditional Italian song yields to the shock wave of the screamers. Predictions give Nilla Pizzi the winner, but In the blue painted blue it has an overwhelming charge and seduces the whole world: it is not only a Sanremo success, but a global one. Only the Mstoneskin manage to fly so far, higher than the sun, over 60 years later.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nD8BryVB9d0
2The Rokes/Lucio Dalla
One must know how to lose – 1966
You can’t always win, repeats the rest of the chorus. In a festival where everyone wants to finish first, a band of long-haired Englishmen teaches us to accept defeat. In the 1960s, Shel Shapiro’s Rokes weren’t the only British beat group to find fortune in Italy, but be careful: at the Festival they present You have to know how to lose together with Lucio Dalla, future star of our songwriting.
3Luigi Tenco
Hello love, hello – 1967
Not a goodbye, but a farewell. The voice and the body, the ultimate sacrifice. “Luigi Tenco died for you”, the Baustelle would sing decades later to underline the power of Tenco’s gesture: he takes his own life after being eliminated at the 17th Sanremo Festival, which prefers the light-heartedness of Orietta Berti to his deep, tormented existentialism . And for this reason it is a doubly poignant love song.
4Lucio Battisti
An Adventure – 1969
You never forget the first time, especially if it’s the only one. And a teenage love can be that of a lifetime. Only one performance of Battisti in Sanremo with An adventure rhythm & blues presented in tandem with Wilson Pickett: the jury didn’t fully appreciate it, but the piece, which finished in ninth place, became one of the greatest classics of Italian pop, and we fell in love with it more and more.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_MABAyr5jI
5Rino Gaetano
Gianna – 1978
Sex, “a world made of sex”. Rino Gaetano is the first to explicitly pronounce this word at the Festival and does so with his light-hearted style, apparently bullshit. Because behind puns and leaping puns, Gianna criticizes discography, politics, society and major systems characterized by an ambiguous rigidity. Are you also talking about Freemasonry? Maybe, time will tell.
6Alice
For Elise – 1981
A legendary song, but it doesn’t talk about drugs. Also thanks to a scene from the film Toxic love in which the protagonists hum it, the text of For Elisa it has sometimes been interpreted as a metaphor for heroin addiction, but Alice herself has denied this. Written with Franco Battiato and Giusto Pio, this sophisticated pop piece quotes Beethoven’s homonymous piece at the opening and wins Sanremo in ’81. We’ve been addicted to it ever since.
7Vasco Rossi
I go to the max – 1982
The last will be the first. Exactly 40 years ago, Vasco Rossi made his debut at the Festival with a performance remembered above all for the thud of the microphone that fell onto the stage from his pocket. The common vulgate wants him to bring up the rear of that edition, but the reality is different: the rules of the time placed all the artists excluded from the podium on an equal footing. I go to the max it’s a drunk reggae, Vasco took it out on the criticisms of that famous guy who wrote in the newspaper and… We know who was right.
8Matia Bazaar
Roman Holiday – 1983
New romantics in Sanremo. Imbued with nostalgia both in the text and in the melodic lines sung by Antonella Ruggiero, Roman holidays manages to be simultaneously a postcard from the beautiful Italy that was and a clear sound photograph of the new European music of the time. This version of Matia Bazar, a group that has changed form and substance several times during its career, played a very personal, refined synth pop. Many younger artists dear to us then treasured it, see Bluvertigo.
9Subsonic
All my mistakes – 2000
So hands up, 21st century! The electro pop to dance comes from Turin to the Sanremo Festival: Subsonica are in fact children of motor city Italian culture contaminated by European subcultures, rave parties in the lead. The Sanremo jury stops them in eleventh place, but once they leave the Ariston they travel at high speed, they don’t miss a beat and all the buildings jump with them.
10Elise
Light (Northeast Sunsets) – 2001
An enlightening mantra. Elisa sings in Italian for the first time and triumphs in Sanremo. In fact, after two albums in English, she presents herself at the Festival with a piece with trip-hop suggestions, written in collaboration with Zucchero. Light rests on a carpet of ethereal voices, the interpretation is a charm and the sunset in the north east, the end of a story, is a new dawn for our pop.
11bluvertigo
Absinthe (The power of nothing) – 2001
The year of brackets. In a Festival won by Elisa with Light (Northeast sunsets)the Bluvertigos finish last with Absinthe (The power of nothing). Morgan switches from electric piano to bass, sings “if I’m not mistaken this morning it was 1904” and marameo in Sanremo and all of Italy. The sound of the piece is contributed by software downloaded from the MIT site in Boston and the ringtone of an old cell phone by Andy: truly amazing band, song and interpretation.
12Afterhours
The country is real – 2009
A boost of freedom, at the Ariston Theater as in the talent shows. Paolo Bonolis, director of the 59th Sanremo Festival, is a fan of the Afterhours and insists on having them in the race. Manuel Agnelli doesn’t want to know at first, but then he realizes that it could be an opportunity to demonstrate that there is another Italian music. Obviously the song The country is real it was immediately eliminated, but all the non-aligned artists present at the last few Festivals owe a lot, if not everything, to Manuel Agnelli.
13Madame
Voice – 2021
An intimate struggle daily. Madame escapes any classification, she arrives at the Festival in urban adolescent fluidity, but her piece has a profoundly Sanremo flow and melody. She barefoot, with the wedding veil, she captures the attention of the general public, who however struggle to understand the lyrics of the song. “Where have you gone love?”: She is not a lesbian love, she is addressing herself, hers Voicewhich is then that of an entire generation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q11z1wx3AZs
14Colapesce Dimartino
Very light music – 2021
A triumph of minor chords, depression made catchphrase. Arrived at the last Festival as outsiders, Colapesce and Dimartino did not win Sanremo but theirs Light music, indeed very light it reached everywhere and to anyone because with that seventies sepia sound it soothed a creeping collective malaise, making us dance. The black hole that becomes a strobe light: yes, sometimes a song really can be the cure.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuvjAjNPEcQ
15mtoneskin
Shut up and be good – 2021
Like Domenico Modugno, but shirtless. In the year in which Italy wins everything in any competition, four guys who emerged from a talent show bring blood rock back to Sanremo. From here on, the Maneskin soar higher than all: they triumph at the Festival, break the bank at Eurovision, duet with Iggy Pop, open for the Rolling Stones, conquer the British and American charts and – not at all silent, but good good – become the first true international pop phenomenon made in Italy for over 60 years now. And blue painted blue is tinged with glitter.
