Franco Battiato
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| Franco Battiato | ||
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| Background information | ||
| Born | March 23, 1945 | |
| Origin | Catania, Sicily, Italy | |
| Years active | 1965—present | |
| Label(s) | EMI |
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| Website | www.battiato.it/ | |
Franco Battiato (born March 23, 1945) is an Italian singer-songwriter, composer, filmmaker and (as Süphan Barzani) painter.
He is considered one of the most original personalities in Italian music from the 1970s to now. Together with Alice, Franco Battiato represented Italy at the Eurovision Song Contest 1984 with the melody "I treni di Tozeur". Battiato's songs are dreamy, controversial collages of images and sensations, very experimental and convoluted, with a quasi-dadaist disrespect for what is passed as 'artsy' or 'trendy' by the intelligentsia.
His collaborations (from 1994 onward) with the nihilistic-cynical philosopher Manlio Sgalambro have added further depth to his apparently nonsensical lyrics, with references to Emil Cioran, Friedrich Nietzsche and other anarchistic and problematic thinkers.
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[edit] Biography
[edit] Early years and experimental period
Francesco Battiato was born in Jonia di Riposto, in the province of Catania (Sicily).
At the age of 20 he moved to Milan and in 1968 he obtained the first musical contract. He scored some success with the romantic song È l'amore. After further covers of pop songs, he met the experimental musician Juri Camisasca in 1970 and collaborated with Osage Tribe, an Italian psychedelic-progressive rock band. As a solo he released the science-fiction single "La convenzione" ("The convention"), one of the finest Italian progressive rock songs of the 1970s.
Starting from 1971, Battiato devoted much of his efforts to experimental electronic music, producing a series of LPs that remained almost unknown at the time, but are now eagerly sought by collectors worldwide: Fetus (1971, whose cover was censored), Pollution (1972), Sulle Corde di Aries (1973), Clic (1974) and M.lle Le Gladiator (1975).
In 1975 he passed to Ricordi label, producing Battiato (1975), Juke Box (1976) and the experimental L'Egitto prima delle sabbie ("Egypt Before the Sands", 1977), which won the Stockhausen award for contemporary music.
[edit] National success
After having been fired by Ricordi, Battiato signed a contract for EMI. Largely, though not wholly, abandoning the experiments of the early years, he moved to a more pop-oriented style which afforded him ever increasing popularity with Italian audiences. In this period his albums were usually in collaboration with the renowned musician and violinist Giusto Pio, whose two later albums were produced by Battiato.
After L'era del cinghiale bianco ("The Era of the White Boar", 1979) and Patriots (1980), Battiato obtained astounding success with La voce del padrone ("The Voice of the Master") of 1981, which was the first Italian LP to sell more than one million copies. The commercial success was confirmed by L'arca di Noè of 1982. Song like "L'era del cinghiale bianco", "Prospettiva Nevskij", "Centro di gravità permanente", "Bandiera bianca" ("White Flag"), "Voglio vederti danzare" ("I Want to See You Like a Dancer"), with their original mix of Oriental and philosophical fashions with pop rhythms, established Battiato's status as one of the most capable and intelligent musicians in Italy. Many of the songs of this era contained parts in English and, most of all, Arab, a language that Battiato had started to study after a trip to Turkey. Battiato's albums were also published in Spanish and English versions.
Orizzonti perduti (1983, that he himself defined "a kipper") was followed by the successful Mondi lontanissimi ("The Farthest Worlds", 1985), which featured the popular "I treni di Tozeur", but whose best songs were probably the science-fiction/metaphysical "Via Lattea" ("Milky Way") and "No Time No Space".
1988's Fisiognomica (more than 300,000 copies sold) confirmed Battiato's status: among others, it contained the song "Nomadi" ("Nomads"), written by his old friend Camisasca, who in the meantime had retired to a Franciscan convent. One of the songs of the album was performed by director/actor Nanni Moretti in his 1989 movie Palombella Rossa. Come un cammello su una grondaia (1991) was divided into two parts, the second made up by classical German lieder. Among the pop songs, "Povera patria", a poetical denouncement of Italy's lack of culture and honesty, became a kind of hymn of the civil society rebelling against the mafioso attempts of the following year against judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino.
Pio and Battiato also worked as producers for several singers, including Alice and Giuni Russo, and for two of Milva's albums.
Starting from 1987, Battiato also produced several classical operas: Genesi, Gilgamesh (1992) and Il cavaliere dell'intelletto (1994). In 1990 he also began to experiment with painting, initially under the pseudonym of Süphan Barzani.
[edit] Collaboration with Manlio Sgalambro
In 1994 Battiato began to collaborate with the Sicilian philosopher Manlio Sgalambro, who was to write almost all the lyrics of his following albums.
After the tentative L'ombrello e la macchina da cucire of 1995, in 1996 the duo published what is considered their best work so far, L'imboscata, containing the romantic hit "La cura", elected best Italian song of the year.
Gommalacca (1998), Ferro battuto (2000) and Dieci stratagemmi (2004) continued on the same path, with variations mainly set by Battiato's unceasing desire of musical experimentation.
In 2003 Battiato released his first feature film, Perduto amor ("Lost love"), for which he also composed the soundtrack. The movie won the Silver Ribbon for the best debutant director. However, heavy criticism struck against his following movie, Musikanten, a rather experimental work about Beethoven's last four years of life. The German musician was played by the Chilean director Alejandro Jodorowsky.
In 2004 he hosted a cultural show for a satellite channel of RAI, the Italian state network.
[edit] Trivia
In 1999 Battiato released a collection of covers of Italian love songs, Fleurs. He repeated the experiment three years later with an album inexplicabily numbered Fleurs 3, no "Fleurs 2" having been released in the meantime.
[edit] Discography
[edit] 1970s
- La Convenzione (1971)
- Fetus (1971)
- Pollution (1972)
- Sulle corde di Aries (1973)
- Clic (1974)
- M.lle le "Gladiator" (1975)
- Feed Back (1975)
- Battiato (1976)
- Juke Box (1977)
- L'Egitto prima delle sabbie (1978)
- L'era del cinghiale bianco (1979)
[edit] 1980s
- Patriots (1980)
- La voce del Padrone (1981)
- L'arca di Noè (1982)
- Orizzonti perduti (1983)
- Mondi lontanissimi (1985)
- Echoes of Sufi Dances (1985, in English)
- Genesi (1987, opera)
- Nomadas (1987)
- Fisiognomica (1988)
- Giubbe Rosse (1989)
[edit] 1990s
- Come un cammello in una grondaia (1991)
- Caffè de la Paix (1993)
- Unprotected (1994, live)
- Messa arcaica (1994, opera)
- L'ombrello e la macchina da cucire (1995)
- Battiato studio collection (1996, collection)
- L'imboscata (1996)
- Shadow Light (1996)
- Battiato live collection (1997, live)
- Gommalacca (1998)
- Fleurs (1999)
