Napoli by night playlist

Naples by night

In the 1950s, the Neapolitan song underwent a profound innovation, the result of differing but complementary strategies: on the one hand, it assimilated foreign rhythms and sounds to achieve greater success on the international market, and on the other, it opened up to non-native interpreters who had the ability to make it more popular throughout Italy.

The result, which was remarkable in terms of visibility, was the re-launch of Naples as the "capital of song", as a brand, beyond Italian borders also thanks to the contribution of numerous American stars - often of Italian origin - who wanted to perform the new repertoire, a repertoire that had finally shed the limits of the bel canto genre, the classical song associated with the early 20th-century mythologies (Caruso, immigrants, serious opera, etc.).

At the same time, the Sanremo Festival had made the model of songs in original language prevail, thanks to the novelty of television.For this reason, the second winning move was to establish a twin Festival that was not in competition but in harmony with the city of flowers, to ensure that those performing in the one festival could also perform in the other, leading to increasingly blurred differences between Neapolitan repertoire and the Italian song.

The collection favours a subgenre that thrived in the night clubs in the 1950s, with a soft, intimate mood that flirts with jazz and speaks with the voice of the crooners. Often, only a guitar or piano was needed, but more often a combo - the typical nightclub ensemble - but sometimes a light orchestra was used to convey danceable, romantic, persuasive melodies that are still rooted in the universe of timeless hits.