Italy And The New Romance

There aren't too many Italian rock bands that have a lot of mainstream fame in North America. But two bands I recall hitting the international music radar were '70s progressive rock band PFM and '80s New Romantic Euro-pop phenom, Gazebo. PFM (short for Premiata Forneria Marconi, the name of the bakery that originally sponsored them) gained some notoriety in prog-rock circles after signing to Emerson Lake And Palmer's Manticore imprint in the early '70s. But the band's best material pre-dated this signing — including their stellar work on Storia di un Minuto and Per un Amico, as well as their English-language debut, Photos Of Ghosts. PFM's material is decidedly light and airy, avoiding the denser classical trappings of their English and Germanic counterparts, and features ethereal vocal and a decidedly psychedelic touch in the symphonic musical backing.

During the New Romantic revival of Spandau Ballet, Ultravox et al, Italy's Paul Mazzolini began his recording career under the name Gazebo. Mazzolini, who was the son of an Italian diplomat and American singer, traveled the world as a child and studied classical guitar in Paris before writing and recording "Masterpiece." This gained Mazzolini popularity in Italy and, after completing a self-titled debut, his fame grew throughout Europe and small pockets of North American influence, especially with the release of the campy song, "I Love Chopin" (which went to #1 in Italy and eight other countries). It was a popular song in dance clubs in downtown Toronto and on alternative radio station, CFNY. Unfortunately, Gazebo never followed up the massive success of this song, although though he did cover "Dolca Vita," a song he initially wrote for fellow '80s Euro-pop singer Ryan Paris.

Looking at the Top 50 chart for the week of October 3, there are some bands present that could have been influenced by PFM and, to a much lesser extent, even Gazebo. The link to bands like Metric, The High Dials and Do Make Say Think is tenuous at best, but there is common ground there through Cocteau Twins, Godspeed and Radiohead. Anyway...

The first four entries in the chart this week are the same as last week. The Weakerthans' Reconstruction Site sits at #1 for three weeks, followed by The Constantines' Shine A Light at #2, Metric's Old World Underground, Where Are They Now? at #3 and Ween's Quebec remains at #4. Jumping up 17 places to #5 is Do Make Say Think's Winter Hymn Country Hymn Secret Hymn. Frank Black And The Catholics' Show Me Your Tears drops to #6, Buck 65's Talkin' Honky Blues moves up four places to #7 and The High Dials' A New Devotion drops three places to #8. Sloan's Action Pact moves up to #9 and finally, Belle And Sebastian's Dear Catastrophe Waitress catapults up 30 places to #10.

After the inordinate number of new releases last week, there are fewer debuts this week. My Morning Jacket's It Still Moves leads the pack of new entries at #16. The Louisville, Kentucky quintet received top 20 airplay support from the following radio stations: CHYZ at #8 (Laval), CKUT at #10 (McGill), CJSW at #10 (Calgary), CHRW at #17, (Western) and CHUO at #8 (Ottawa).

Enon's Hocus Pocus gets the runner-up prize for the week for entering the charts at #31, followed by Oh Susanna's self-titled major label debut at #35, former Morganfields' leader Alun Piggins' Awaken The Snakes comes in at #37 and The Rapture's Echoes debuts at #40.

The New Pornographers' Electric Version remains on the charts for the 22nd week — other albums reaching that mark include: Hot Hot Heat's EP Knock Knock Knock and The Weakerthans' Left And Leaving. Now, only NP's debut album, Mass Romantic and Royal City's Alone At The Microphone, Bran Van 3000's Glee and Sloan's One Chord To Another have bested this mark.

Looking at the rest of the current Top 50, only Moneen's Are We Really Happy With Who We Really Are (at 16 weeks) and Dandy Warhols' Welcome To The Monkey House (at 14 weeks) come anywhere close to The New Pornographer' longevity.