This great musical, political and social heritage was therefore widespread and known (for more than two generations now) only through the typical instrument of clandestine cultures, the “word of mouth”. In the midst of a century of global communication, we are therefore faced with an enormous, as it is unrecognized, phenomenon of artistic expression that is antagonistic, an “alternative”, which breaks the patterns of mass communication.
For the amount of production, time duration, quantity of material produced and conveyed, number of people involved and interested, no other “carbonaro”, “clandestine” or “underground” cultural phenomenon has ever had the dimensions that can be attributed to ” alternative music “, which can therefore be defined as: the most complex, lasting and macroscopic example of a submerged culture that Italy has ever encountered in the course of its history. Read this music blog to know more about it.
A Bit Of History
The definition of “alternative music” was born in the mid-seventies to indicate the musical production of groups or soloists belonging to the area of Italian political Right. The choice of this expression was motivated by the fact that it was an “alternative” musical movement in the contents of the songs and in the form of dissemination of the products even if not in the musical languages used both in “light music” and in songwriters “committed” and left-wing billionaires.
Songs of the “right”, however, had already been written even before the seventies, so much so that it can be said that “alternative music” was born with almost a decade of cultural background behind it, ranging from the cabaret tradition of the “Bagaglino” and the “Giardino dei Supplizie” to which a good part of the rich production of Leo Valeriano refers to the anti-communist protest songs of the group “Europa e Civiltà”, to the militarist or nonconformist ballads of some Italian and French singer-songwriters.
The Birth
The “alternative music” was born in a period of great cultural ferment for the right, contrasted however with a phase of very serious physical oppression and a strong reduction of political spaces. This dramatic period, is also marked by the death of many young militants. In this context, in 1977, “Campo Hobbit 1” was held in Benevento, the first free gathering (not organized by a party) of right-wing youth, which for the first time offered a stage common to a dozen musical groups that had begun to put their militancy in notes often without even knowing each other.
What Used to Happen then
In those years also free radios are born, many of which are also on the right, which help to spread these songs and sometimes even make them popular. Throughout the seventies, with the multiplication of groups and singer-songwriters, the official production of cassettes, 45 rpm and LP is also starting, but always informally spread during concerts or musical fields and then almost always “duplicates” and passed from hand to hand in thousands of specimens. The “Campi Hobbit” (1977, 1978, 1980) represent as many stages of growth of the “alternative” musical movement always in search of a better musical quality in support of strongly politicized texts, but often also highly poetic. The time has changed, but still now the relevance of this music is not yet gone, but only increased.
