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175 pages

English

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A propos
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Extrait

Description

Mina (Anna Maria Mazzini, born Lombardy, 1940) is an Italian popular music icon who throughout her sixty-year-long career has come to represent a range of diverse meanings. She is one of the best-loved popular music stars in Italy and abroad, with a large fan base across Europe, Asia, and South America. Her career began in the late 1950s and reached its peak in the 1960s and 1970s.

Despite having retired from public appearances at the end of the 1970s, Mina remains popular and successful today, and continues to release new albums that consistently debut in the number one spot of the Italian charts. As an Italian popular music star, she is exemplary of the way in which stardom is constructed by different media and has come to represent different local and global identities, values, ideologies, and ways of behaving. This is because whilst Mina is first and foremost a popular music star, she has also been a film star and a television personality during different phases of her career. She has advertised successful Italian brands on television, and she has been a magazine writer and agony aunt. Her star persona is the product of her work in many different areas, as well as of the promotional materials and commentaries that are produced in response to her work.

This book explores these different ‘mediums’ that Mina has been involved in and which have shaped her career and significance. It traces the process by which she has come to embody a diverse range of meanings that reveal something of the values and ideals at work within contemporary Italian society.

Rachel Haworth is a researcher of Italian popular music and culture of the twentieth century, and Senior Lecturer in Italian at the University of Hull, UK.

The primary market for this book is students and academics in the following subject areas: Italian Studies; Popular Music Studies; Stardom and Celebrity Studies; Media Studies; Cultural History. Also scholars and researchers working on music divas.

The book is suitable for use on courses and modules at all undergraduate and postgraduate levels, which deal with Italian cultural studies, Italy’s post-war history, and the role of women in Italy, as well as the wider study of popular music and the construction of stardom and celebrity.

The secondary audience for this book will be fans of Mina around the world, accessibly written, this will appeal to fans in Italy who are able to read in English.

List of Figures

Acknowledgements

Introduction

1. Signore, Signori, Mina!: Mina as Popstar in Post-War Italy

2. Mina, Rock ‘n’ Roll, and the Sanremo Festival

3. Mina and the Musicarelli

4. Scandal, Tragedy, and Mina’s Star Image

5. A Star of the Small Screen: Mina and RAI

6. Mina as Carosello Star

7. Picturing a Star: The Changing Face of Mina on Album and Single Covers

8. Mina Today: The Ever-Present Absent Star

Conclusion

Bibliography

Index

Sujets

Informations

Publié par	Intellect Books
Date de parution	22 septembre 2022
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781789385625
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,4250€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

The Many Meanings of Mina
Trajectories of Italian Cinema and Media
Series editor: Flavia Laviosa
Trajectories of Italian Cinema and Media intends to engage with diverse academic communities, build new conceptual frameworks and foster a globally-focused and representative corpus of scholarship in Italian cinema and media studies. With the aim of exploring new critical and historical trajectories, this book series will trace the evidence of Italian cinema's international polysemy and polycentrism, define the extent of its inspirational force, examine other cinemas artistic innovations resulting from their osmosis with the Italian film tradition, and foster comparative analyses of themes and genres between Italian and other world cinemas.
Previously published titles:
Fellini's Films and Commercials: From Postwar to Postmodern by Franke Burke (2020)
Paolo Sorrentino's Cinema and Television edited by Annachiara Mariani (2021)
Pasta, Pizza and Propaganda: A Political History of Italian Food TV by Francesco Buscemi (2022)
The Many Meanings of Mina
Popular Music Stardom in Post-War Italy
Rachel Haworth
First published in the UK in 2022 by
Intellect, The Mill, Parnall Road, Fishponds, Bristol, BS16 3JG, UK
First published in the USA in 2022 by
Intellect, The University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th Street,
Chicago, IL 60637, USA
Copyright 2022 Intellect Ltd
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Copy editor: MPS Limited
Cover designer: Tanya Montefusco
Cover image: Mina hosting Studio Uno . 1 January 1965.
1965 Mondadori Portfolio/Archivio Tv Sorrisi E Canzoni
Production manager: Debora Nicosia
Typesetter: MPS Limited
Hardback ISBN 978-1-78938-560-1
ePDF ISBN 978-1-78938-561-8
ePUB ISBN 978-1-78938-562-5
Part of the Trajectories of Italian Cinema and Media series
Print ISSN 2632-487 | Online ISSN 2632-488
To find out about all our publications, please visit our website.
There you can subscribe to our e-newsletter, browse or download our current catalogue and buy any titles that are in print.
www.intellectbooks.com
This is a peer-reviewed publication.
For Ringo, who supervised much of this project. A book for getting your teeth into.
Contents
List of Figures
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. Signore, Signori, Mina! : Mina as Popstar in Post-War Italy
2. Mina, Rock n Roll, and the Sanremo Festival
3. Mina and the Musicarelli
4. Scandal, Tragedy, and Mina's Star Image
5. A Star of the Small Screen: Mina and RAI
6. Mina as Carosello Star
7. Picturing a Star: The Changing Face of Mina on Album and Single Covers
8. Mina Today: The Ever-Present Absent Star
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index
Figures Figure 2.1: Mina performing ‘'Na sera 'e maggio’, still from the eleventh episode of Canzonissima 1960 . Screenshot provided by the author. Figure 3.1: Mina as modern performer, still from Appuntamento a Ischia . Screenshot provided by the author. Figure 3.2: Mina as traditional performer, still from Appuntamento a Ischia . Screenshot provided by the author. Figure 4.1: Official photograph of Mina with baby Massimiliano. 1963. © Reporters Associati Archivi/Mondadori Portfolio. Figure 5.1: Still from Studio Uno (originally broadcast 11 November 1961), as Mina performs ‘Someone to Watch over Me’. Screenshot provided by the author. Figure 5.2: Still, Milleluci , 6 April 1974, featuring Mina, Alberto Lupo, and Raffaella Carrà. Screenshot provided by the author. Figure 6.1: Cover of TV Sorrisi e canzoni , 11 March 1962, showing Mina as Marilyn Monroe. © Mondadori Portfolio. Figure 6.2: ‘Mina interprets the stars’, TV Sorrisi e canzoni , 11 March 1962, p. 12. © Mondadori Portfolio. Figure 6.3: ‘Mina interprets the stars’, TV Sorrisi e canzoni , 11 March 1962, p. 13. © Mondadori Portfolio. Figure 6.4: Gown for ‘Se telefonando’ (1966). Screenshot provided by the author. Figure 6.5: Still of Mina performing ‘Un colpo al cuore’ (Zurlini, 1970). Screenshot provided by the author. Figure 7.1: Album Cover Maeba , released 23 March 2018. © PDU Music Production SA.
Acknowledgements
There are many people who have supported this project and helped me to develop my thinking and ideas since I started working on Mina. I would like to publicly acknowledge and thank them here, and apologize should I (inevitably) forget to mention someone. I have received a lot of support and help over the past 10 years and am very thankful for all of it.
I am especially grateful to the British Academy for funding a Small Research Grant in 2016 that enabled me to conduct research at the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Roma, the Discoteca di Stato at the Istituto Centrale per i Beni Sonori ed Audiovisivi, and the RAI archives at the Biblioteca Centrale Paolo Giuntella. I would like to thank the staff there who helped me to source materials and navigate their technology. I must also acknowledge the financial support provided by the Faculty of Arts, Culture, and Education at the University of Hull whilst I was employed there.
This book has been a source of refuge at a particularly challenging point in my career. I would like to express my gratitude to the following people who in different ways have helped me with the research, ideas, and motivation for this book: Stephen Gundle, Fruela Fernandez, Danielle Hipkins, Claire Honess, Flavia Laviosa, David Looseley, and Catherine O'Rawe. I am especially thankful to my colleagues in Languages at Hull for their support and the time that they invested in discussing Mina and helping me to develop my ideas: this book is a testament to the strength of the department. Helena Chadderton, Angela Kimyongür, Imogen Long-Levasseur, and Maria Cristina Seccia deserve special mention in this regard. To Michelle Delaney, I am grateful for an always open office door and good advice. To Jo Page, I am thankful for opportunities to laugh at work in spite of everything. To Sarah Adams, I am grateful for a shared love of all things Italian and ideas about reading images.
My undergraduate and postgraduate students have given me opportunities to share ideas and discuss ways of thinking about Mina: I would like to thank them for their patience and their contributions in class. Tamsin Boynton, Jess Hildreth, and Riccardo Orlando have all been particularly patient with me! Cecilia Brioni has been especially supportive and her research and feedback have helped me to develop my approach to and analysis of Mina. My other colleagues in Italian at Hull have been similarly willing to listen to me talk about Mina: thank you to Donatella De Ferra, Giorgia Faraoni, and Stefania Triggiano. Laura Rorato, I am very grateful for your friendship and guidance. You have pushed me to be a better researcher and I know that this is a better book thanks to you.
Rhian Atkin, thank you for the endless conversations about research, inspiring me to do better, and providing cheesecake when motivation was low. Angela and David Patrick, thank you for setting me on this path and supporting me in everything I try to do, and for pretending to listen when I talk to you about my research. Hannah Patrick, thank you for letting me complain about how challenging writing is, for cutting down my very long sentences, and for your advice and love. And Bryan Haworth, thank you for coming with me to all the different places I have wanted to visit, in order to collect materials on Mina and present my ideas, for getting excited about the opportunities I've had, and for reassuring me in the difficult times that everything will be ok.
Introduction

Mina is the greatest Italian singer of all times, but not only. For Italians, Mina is an icon equally important as the biggest and best known names about which they boast as proof that Italy has the highest quality everything in the world, like Ferrari or Fellini. In the Italian collective imagination, Mina is a national treasure to be proud of and jealously guarded. During the 60s and the 70s Mina embodied the very essence of the ultra-talented superstar on stage, in TV and in her records. She made television history and then suddenly, inexplicably decided to retire. She sang Italy's greatest hits, which for over 40 years have been the leitmotiv of the everyday life of the Italian people. Nowadays Mina releases one record a year. She is perhaps the only artist in the world that does not offer herself up to the media - as a matter of fact, she does not grant interviews, has not appeared in concert or made any other public appearance for more than 20 years. Yet, all her new albums reach number one in the national hit parade.
(Mina Mazzini Official Website 2020a: n.pag.).
Mina (born Anna Maria Mazzini, 1940) is arguably the best-loved and most successful female Italian popular music artist. Since the start of her recording career in 1958, she has to date released 72 studio albums and scored eight number one singles in Italy alone. In 2018, Mina celebrated 70 years as an active popular music artist and her popularity showed no signs of waning: the 2018 solo album Maeba charted in the number one spot upon its release in March and had sold more than 25,000 copies in Italy alone by 11 June 2018, thus achieving gold record status.
Yet as the above excerpt from Mina's website suggests, the popular music star is famous for being much more than just a singer. In addition to her recording career, Mina was the face of Italian Saturday night variety television during the 1960s and 1970s, hosting popular series such as Studio Uno ( Studio One ) (1961-65), Canzonissima ( Lots of Songs ) (1959, 1960, 1968), Teatro 10 ( Theatre 10 ) (1972), and Milleluci ( A Thousand Lights ) (1974); she starred in twelve musicarelli movies between 1960 an