How Italy created its own experimental genre without anyone realising
Everywhere else in the world, libraries symbolise peace, quiet, and a safe haven. In Italy, they mean a total experimental groove.
In a landscape renowned for its sublime offerings of food, fashion, and fine art, something that the country is perhaps less acclaimed for is its musical output. But picture the scene: the 1960s, ‘70s, and ‘80s were dominated by a British and American sonic way of thinking, which ranged from psychedelia to glam rock to new wave. Italy had to find a way to get a slice of the action.
Yet with no major artists of this kind to market to the mainstream, they had to get slightly sneaky with it. Their solution? Library music, which is far less mundane than it sounds on the face of it. Beginning a life as background stock music for films, TV, and radio, the genre soon developed a whole adventurous life of its own, without anyone really realising it.
The whole point was that library music was never intended for any form of commercial release. In fact, it was effectively designed not to be heard, as its main purpose was for someone else to take the spotlight and talk over it, whether that was on screen or through the speaker. It was basically created as a distraction – but increasingly became anything but.
In a lot of ways, the virtue of lurking in the background – in life in general, but in this case with music – is that you can do things you really shouldn’t without anyone noticing, mainly because their eyes are being kept elsewhere. It’s the mantra adopted by seasoned criminals and, as it turns out, Italian musicians, who latched on to this secret to make stock music not so stale.
As they realised they had the ability to run wilder than they had ever first imagined, the musicians recording library music began to experiment with a whole selection of styles. Avant-garde, psychedelic, jazz, funk – you name it, they had a go at it. In some ways, it could be seen as a way of matching the exciting sonic world they saw gaining acclaim outside Italy, but in others, it was just people having fun.
It was only a matter of time, however, that eventually the cover got blown and the full eclectic energy of Italian library music got exposed in all its technicolor glory to the world. Once the wider masses caught wind of the swirling, psychedelic kaleidoscope of what was going on, the songs quickly became coveted collector’s items.
The type of rare vinyl only to be found in dusty corners and with perhaps frayed sleeves, library music has taken on this massive sense of folklore all of its own. The music itself may only be between 40 and 60 years old, but they act as a time capsule of unheard sound, new promises, and a truly zany time.
In the Italian microcosm, libraries were no longer places of quiet, solitude, and archival study in the plainest sense. It proved that there was a whole fiesta of life to be found in places where you wouldn’t necessarily look for it – in this instance, the background of film, TV, and radio. You just need to listen closely to find the greatest musical gems.
