You could get lost for hours among the 200,000 popular songs released by Italy's Culture Ministry at its new streaming music site, Canzone Italiana—and it's all free.
The collection comes from Italy's Central Institute for Sound and Audiovisual Heritage (ICBSA), with technology supplied by Spotify. Its inauguration this week was timed to coincide with the San Remo Festival, which opened Tuesday. The collection includes 49 years of Festival recordings.
The site is indexed to allow searching by artist, composer and more, and includes themed playlists, along with historical and musical context in eight languages. And it's not all pop: Enrico Caruso's 'greatest hits' are there, too.
And, if that's not enough, the Ministry plans to add about 5,000 new tracks each month. Here are five playlists from the site recommended by TheLocal.it
- 'O Sole Mio: No, not Naples' most famous song on repeat, but 12 classics of Neapolitan song.
- Dialects in the City: Early recordings of ballads sung in regional dialects from across Italy – a rare chance to hear lyrics in original Venetian, Sicilian, Florentine and more.
- Sanremo '58: Go back in time to this legendary edition of the Sanremo festival, the one that gave the world Nel blu dipinto di blu (better known as 'Volare').
- Mina 1960-1970: Italy's greatest modern diva at the peak of her extraordinary powers. Go on, treat yourself.
- Italian Songs in the World: Did you know that Dusty Springfield's You Don't Have to Say You Love Me was originally Italian? Or that Elvis Presley's It's Now of Never is based on 'O Sole Mio? You'll find and other songs that might surprise you on this playlist of internationally covered Italian hits.
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