Anni ruggenti playlist

The roaring twenties

It is no coincidence that the most tumultuous and innovative decade of the twentieth century went down in history as "the Jazz age”: that music synthesized its rebellious spirit. Conveyed through gramophones and phonographs, slowly the American rhythms supplanted the old European dances accompanying the desire for change perceived in every sector of society. But Italy in those years was a little less roaring and carefree, due to the disastrous economic situation - a consequence of the war - and a widespread uneasiness that fostered the rise of fascism. The songs in this collection capture the many faces of Italy a hundred years ago: from the attraction to the exotic (Creola) and its sexual implications (Il tango delle capinere) to the ostentatious glamor of a class in decline (Addio tabarin, Come una coppa di champagne), from labor tragedies (Miniera, Rotaie - both written by Bixio and Cherubini) to songs in dialect (L'eco der core, Firenze, Nannì) which in those years experienced one of its most successful periods. Thanks to these contrasts - American rhythms (tango, foxtrot) versus regional folk songs; modernist impulses versus lamenting nostalgic ballads - Italian song grew to maturity, in the years when it was primarily the radio that made songs known. Not all the recordings date back to the 1920s (some come from the following decade) but all the songs are a product of that decade in which the first national repertoire was taking shape.

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