The transition of popular music from the physical space of the record to the immaterial space of the web represents the decisive turning point around which today’s post-record music industry has been organized. Historically, it has already happened that, in conjunction with these developments, songs have changed at a macroformal level: moving from the Broadway stage to the record, the American song lost the verse and preserved only the chorus-bridge core (AABA), which became a formal reference model for the following decades. In this light, it is legitimate to ask whether changes of the same kind are currently affecting the song form. Bringing this question back to the Italian context, this study investigates the variations in total duration and in the duration of musical introductions alone that emerged from the observation of the songs that competed in the ‘champions’ category of the Sanremo Festival between 1983 and 2025. The results of the study will be analyzed and discussed, on the one hand in relation to trends observed in international popular music production, and on the other in relation to current processes of platformization of music consumption and the Festival’s regulations.
l trasferimento della popular music dallo spazio fisico del disco a quello immateriale del web rappresenta lo snodo decisivo intorno al quale è andato organizzandosi l’odierno scenario post-discografico. È già accaduto storicamente che in concomitanza con questi rivolgimenti la canzone sia mutata a livello macroformale: nel passaggio dal palcoscenico di Broadway al supporto fonografico la canzone statunitense perse il verse e preservò solo il nucleo chorus-bridge (AABA), che a sua volta divenne un modello formale di riferimento per i decenni successivi. In quest’ottica è lecito interrogarsi se mutazioni dello stesso tipo stiano attualmente interessando la forma canzone. Riconducendo questo interrogativo al contesto italiano, il presente studio indaga le variazioni delle durate totali e quelle delle sole introduzioni musicali emerse dall’osservazione dei brani che hanno concorso nella categoria campioni del Festival di Sanremo tra il 1983 e il 2025. I risultati dell’indagine saranno problematizzati e discussi, da un lato in relazione ai trend osservati nella produzione popular internazionale, dall’altro in rapporto agli odierni processi di piattaformizzazione della fruizione musicale e alle disposizioni regolamentari del Festival.
Canzoni a Sanremo, dal CD allo streaming: analisi delle durate e delle introduzioni
Mignogna, Dino
2025-01-01
Abstract
The transition of popular music from the physical space of the record to the immaterial space of the web represents the decisive turning point around which today’s post-record music industry has been organized. Historically, it has already happened that, in conjunction with these developments, songs have changed at a macroformal level: moving from the Broadway stage to the record, the American song lost the verse and preserved only the chorus-bridge core (AABA), which became a formal reference model for the following decades. In this light, it is legitimate to ask whether changes of the same kind are currently affecting the song form. Bringing this question back to the Italian context, this study investigates the variations in total duration and in the duration of musical introductions alone that emerged from the observation of the songs that competed in the ‘champions’ category of the Sanremo Festival between 1983 and 2025. The results of the study will be analyzed and discussed, on the one hand in relation to trends observed in international popular music production, and on the other in relation to current processes of platformization of music consumption and the Festival’s regulations.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
