The Italian Canzone and the Sanremo Festival: change and continuity in Italian mainstream pop of the 1960s

Abstract

AbstractIn this essay I propose an analysis of the Sanremo Italian Song Festival from 1964 to 1967, to which is added an introduction about its history and musical, social and cultural features. The aim of the essay is not only to propose a different perspective on the songs presented at the Festival in the 1960s, but also to re-configure our understanding of the popular music mainstream and the mechanisms of musical change in our mass-mediated and industrialised societies, as well as the question of identifying the peculiarities of the Italian canzone.