Through my journey of learning Italian, I have discovered some Italian musicians that I absolutely love, and I want to share two of my favorites here. Following these artists and studying their lyrics has been an enormous help in my learning Italian. My goal is to start a regular series of posts where I share a Youtube video of one of their songs, list the original lyrics in Italian, and then provide my (rough) translation. Hopefully this will help others both progress in learning Italian and discover these great songs. Look for the first post to be up soon.
First up: Adriano Celentano
Celentano has been a successful Italian singer since the 1960s. His parents are from the Puglia region, but they moved north to Milan for work. Celentano was born in Milan on via Gluck, which features prominently in the song above: Il Ragazzo della via Gluck. Having been a singer for so long, his musical career has gone into all kinds of areas and the range of his songwriting is great. I also think he is a great storyteller.
Next up: Negramaro
I love these guys. Seriously. Alternative rock has been one of my favorite genres for most of my life, and Negramaro fit right in. They also hail from the Puglia region in southern Italy. When I was living in Milan in 2005-2006, the song above, Estate, was all over the place. I bought the album Mentre tutto scorre
Celentano is not only a great singer of wonderful songs, but also a very special person. And I absolutely adore Negramaro. Their lyrics are pure poetry. This morning I woke up listening to their interpretation of Modugno’s “Meraviglioso” and I can’t get it out of my head. The moment I sat down to write a post about, I found a tweet leading to your blog and I was a bit shocked to find out that somebody else had this idea too
. Do you know Caparezza as well? He’s also from Puglia, his music isn’t mainstream at all and he’s a great songwriter. Compared to Negramaro, he’s more kind of a “angry young man”, treating social problems in his songs.
I can’t wait to see the rest of your posts about your favourite italian artists!
Ciao Myrthe, I’m glad to see a fellow Negramaro admirer! And you’re absolutely right about the poeticism of their lyrics. I just bought the San Siro Live album with “Meraviglioso” last night, so I’ve been listening to that and I think it’s great. I haven’t heard of Caparezza, but I will check him out today. Grazie!
Hai acceso i commenti! Sono strafelice!! Bravo/a! (scusami tanto, ho letto il tuo “about” ma non sono ancora sicura se tu sia maschile o se sia femminile) Mi piace Negramaro. Nonostante abbia una libreria strapiena di canzoni italiane sul mio ipod non ho nessun cd di questo gruppo… ma ascolto la radio (streaming) di italia e sento le canzoni tutta la volta. A presto!
Ciao Melissa! Si, i commenti sono disponibili adesso (ed io sono maschile). Gli album di Negramaro non hanno una canzone cattiva (secondo me).
[...] I mentioned in my last post, I want to start a series of posts looking at songs by Italian artists, and this is the first post [...]
love your website and your insights..but you do know that the singer in the first video is NOT adriano celentano..but a celentano imitator. in italy, there are celentano imitators much as in america there are elvis imitators.
i learned much of my italian from listening to celentano as well….but I think you should show the original, not a facsimile. thanks a lot.