Neo televisione, nuova ossessione playlist

Neo television, new obsession

Already in the late 1970s, singer-songwriters who were traditionally engaged in civil, if not overtly political issues, more and more frequently addressed topics involving the private sphere. Then in the 1980s, thanks to a decisive change of course in the habits of the Italians (increase in consumption, assimilation of foreign fashions, greater freedom of movement), the word "reflux" was used to indicate a generational condition that favoured the individual at the expense of society and a hedonistic life style in which the look, the ephemeral, and disco triumphed. At the centre of this revolution was commercial television, which took off in that decade - thanks to the end of the public monopoly - and forcefully became part of the lives of Italians. The impact of this anthropological shift could not leave the most sensitive socially-engaged songwriters indifferent. After singing about the joys and sorrows of collectivism, they understood that they now had to deal with a "showbiz society". The playlist brings together songs recorded during the hedonistic decade or shortly after, centred on what was called "neo television", to distinguish it from "paleo-television", that of mother RAI, because there was no other channel ... The tone is often one of parody, sometimes disconsolate, sometimes accusatory. When listening to them again, we dive into our recent past, rediscovering names and programs that, for better or for worse, wrote a page of national history.