Donatella Rettore - The lioness of Italian pop

Italian TV began broadcasting in colour in 1977. That year Donatella Rettore appeared at the Sanremo Festival with "Carmela", a song steeped in political references to the Spanish revolution. Indeed, few people know that Rettore's career didn't begin with "Splendido splendente", her first hit single, but as far back as 1973, continuing for a few years with records — now highly sought-after collector's items — that fit into the singer-songwriter tradition typical of those years, often dealing with themes of social protest.

The turning point came in 1978, when she became simply Rettore and made her mark with an aggressive, fashionable look and the single "Eroe": from there began a new chapter, with a new record label (Ariston) and a long string of appearances on the first private Lombard TV channels, from Antenna 3 to TeleMilano.

Looking back today, it almost seems as if the pre-1978 Rettore was an artist in black and white, just as the music, the artists and the fashions of those years were: sober, understated, uniform. The shift from black-and-white to colour was more than a mere technological novelty: it was austerity versus consumption, poverty versus affluence, the old versus the new, and Rettore seems to have been the very first in Italy to grasp this, building an image and a look that would have been pointless without the beauty of colour and the freedom of private television.

Without claiming any scientific rigour, if we look through the winners of the Festivalbar in the years just before the colour revolution, we find they are all, fittingly, "black-and-white" artists: Drupi, Claudio Baglioni, Gianni Bella, Alunni del Sole... whereas by 1979 (by which time colour had also taken hold in people's homes, as households bought the appropriate TV sets) the winners Alan Sorrenti and Ivan Graziani already seem to belong to the new era, as do Miguel Bosé (winner in 1980) and Rettore herself in 1981.

We're talking about Italian examples because, by contrast, in the US colour TV had existed since as early as 1956, and in Germany and France since 1967: and isn't it true, after all, that it would be hard to imagine artists like David Bowie or Kraftwerk emerging in a country where black and white was still the norm?

Perhaps this is the secret behind Rettore's success, which lasted at least until 1983: she anticipated, at least in Italy, what would become one of the watchwords of the notorious 1980s — image above all — making up for a serious delay that remains a peculiarly Italian anomaly, one that may have been reflected (cause or effect? who knows...) in the music itself as well.

The trilogy

Having concluded this digression, let's turn to the music and the records: in 1979, Brivido divino was the first of a trilogy in which the album title is formed by combining the titles of two songs (in this case "Brivido" + "Divino divina"), and the tracks are fine examples of pop, with a touch of disco, fun and entertaining, boisterous just enough. One of them, "Splendido splendente", would become an extraordinary hit, in Italy and across Europe, despite lyrics that were anything but lightweight: it dealt with sexual identity and plastic surgery, topics that in those years were certainly not debated ad nauseam as they are today (“…anestetico d’effetto e avrai una faccia nuova/ grazie a un bisturi perfetto, invitante, tagliente… Come sono si vedrà/ uomo o donna senza età/ senza sesso crescerà/ per la vita una splendente vanità”). But the rest of the album too — pressed, incidentally, on all-red vinyl — is playful yet thoughtful, catchy yet intelligent: in Italy it was rare to find anything of the sort in the mainstream.

Magnifico delirio, released the following year, first of all contains another hugely successful single, "Kobra", built around a double entendre so well concealed that it went almost unnoticed (“Il kobra non è un serpente/ ma un pensiero frequente/ che diventa indecente/ quando vedo te … Il kobra si snoda, si gira m’inchioda/ mi chiude la bocca, mi stringe e mi tocca”). But far more enjoyable and successful are other tracks, starting with "Delirio", with effected vocals, pseudo-operatic choirs and frenzied strings, through to "Gaio", an utterly nonsensical and surreal lyric, perhaps referring to homosexuality (“Scotta la pista di plastica rossa/ Gaio saltella e si prende la scossa… Gaio, che beve le sue ore col cucchiaio/ Gaio, che perde il suo calore sotto il saio”), that borders on, and perhaps crosses into, the outright absurd. Not to mention "Benvenuto", another risqué double entendre, censored by Rai at the time ("...Benvenuto uomo/ in gola e nel palato"), and all the other songs which, thanks to a sprinkling of electronics and bold orchestral arrangements, make Magnifico delirio an album that is still pleasurable to listen to today.

Less successful overall is Estasi clamorosa, from 1981, with the exception of "Donatella", a compelling, danceable ska single with unforgettable lyrics (“Non capisco perché/ tutti quanti continuano insistentemente/ a chiamarmi Donatella … Lavati i fanali per favore/ cerca finalmente di imparare/ qui c’è scritto solo Miss Rettore … Donatella c’è stata ma non chiederlo a me/ s’è strippata suonata s’è impiccata sul bidet”). The rest falls decidedly short of the previous albums, including "Remember", written specifically for her by Elton John.

A suicidal choice

Absolutely essential, however, is Kamizaze rock'n'roll suicide, from 1982. With the trilogy wrapped up, Rettore raises the stakes and, having soaked up the atmosphere of the Falklands War period during a trip to London, puts together a concept album about suicide, war and Japanese culture. Precisely because of its thorny subject matter, the record meets with far less success than its predecessors, at least in Italy: it's an attempt to defuse a difficult topic with humour, but perhaps one ahead of its time. Sure, punk had already happened, for instance, but it shouldn't be forgotten that Rettore is an artist "for everyone," hugely popular and a regular TV presence: at a mainstream level, a record like this, with playful yet demanding lyrics, was an oasis in the desert.

Talking about the songs, it's genuinely astonishing to hear the musical range that allows Rettore to move from a wild track like "Lamette" to a harrowing ballad accompanied only by piano like "Giulietta". "Lamette" was a hugely successful single, even though reading the lyrics is startling: “Dammi una lametta/ che ti taglio le vene/ ti faccio meno male del trapianto del rene”, "Senti come affetta questa lametta/ da destra verso il centro" hardly sound like hit-parade lines, yet that year they were on everyone's lips and played constantly on radio and TV, where Rettore flaunted a perfect kamikaze look.

"Oblio" is another song you wouldn't expect to find on a pop record, while others, like "Karakiri" and "Sayonara", are packed with references to Japanese culture, to the point that the record includes a little glossary of the more obscure terms.

In short, it certainly slips into naivety here and there, but Kamizaze Rock'n'Roll Suicide is a minor masterpiece of Italian music, unjustly forgotten and underrated, when it would deserve attention if only for being a "stray shard" within the Italian mainstream music scene of those years.

Unfortunately, it also remains Rettore's last truly accomplished record: in 1983 she would move from Ariston to Cgd and later to Ricordi, but would go on to record mediocre albums, far removed from the four LPs that made her name. Worth remembering, though, are "Io ho te", a big hit that very same year, "Adrenalina", a duet with Giuni Russo in 1987, and "Fax", co-written with Elio delle Storie Tese and dated 1996.

After the modest Stickers in 2005, a confused jumble of covers and remixes, six years later a new album of original material arrives, Falling Rocks (2011), marked by rock sounds and built around songs centred on the various stages of life: youth ("Adolescente" and "L'estate è un'onda breve"), adulthood ("Falling Rocks", "Ghepardo") and old age ("Se morirò", "La vecchiaia"). Guests include Platinette and rapper Nottini Lemon.

Her career has continued mainly on TV. In 2019 she was one of the coaches/judges on the Rai1 show "Ora o mai più". Two years later she was a guest at the Sanremo Festival during the covers night, joining the band La Rappresentante di Lista on "Splendido splendente". In March 2021 she embarked on a theatre tour titled "RETTORE Rockopera".

Breaking a 14-year hiatus from new material – with the sole, dispensable exception of "Chimica", brought to Sanremo 2022 as a duet with Ditonellapiaga – the Veneto-born singer returns with a new album, Antidiva in an uproar (2025), which, right from the title and artwork, evokes the historic triptych Magnifico delirio–Brivido divino–Estasi clamorosa. A deliberate nod underlined by the pop-art cover, created by Flora Sala, the same artist behind the cover of Magnifico delirio.

Rettore is someone who simply refuses to grow old, in any sense of the word. Depending on how you look at it, that can be a good thing or a bad one. What's commendable, first of all, is the intention to update her classic Italo-disco/synth-pop sound with new, contemporary arrangements, helped along by a string of collaborators ranging from Big Mama to La Sad, by way of Tancredi, Beatrice Quinta and Marta Tenaglia. But at times there's a nagging sense of déjà vu disguised with a bit of "flashy anaesthetic". After all, Donatella herself (can we say that now?) describes the record as a "musical Rubik's cube", able to bring together past and present through collaborations with young Gen Z artists and a sound that blends vintage and contemporary textures. Then, though, come some painfully predictable lines like “Tutti fenomeni, tutti fenomeni/ Sui social, in posa, ti giuro, che noia!… Social life, social passiva/ Social meh, social bleah, social figa”, and the impression of a slightly forced youthfulness inevitably surfaces, hidden behind the four-on-the-floor beat of opener "Antidiva". On this dance-leaning front, better are other tracks like "Ventilatore", with Marta Tenaglia and a lyric that's not at all trivial about the meaning of the superfluous, the surreal rant against mosquitoes in the Venetian lagoon (!) on "Malamocco", and the romantic "Il senso del pericolo", which nails a pleasing Italo-disco mood, also found again on "Cielo Cabrio".

On other occasions, you get the feeling that the woman who was once ahead of everyone else is now desperately chasing contemporary chart sounds: the cloying "Faccio da me", a duet with Tancredi, has a dangerously The Kolors-like drive, the ode to emotional instability "Beepolare" stirs up the pseudo-punk ghosts of Sanremo's La Sad, while "Occhiali da sole di notte" winks at Lady Gaga's "Poker Face", and "Thelma & Louise", a duet with Beatrice Quinta, chases after risky Latin-tinged summer-anthem vibes.

The real summer anthem, though, does exist, and it goes by the name "Disco Prosecco" (feat. Big Mama), a kind of "Splendido splendente" shaken up with Spritz, lacking that song's charm but at least boasting a driving beat, as well as an explicit homage to Chic's "Le Freak" (the ironic refrain "spritz/ c'est chic").

Courage and irony, in short, are not lacking. And how could it be otherwise, for the author of distilled, irreverent sarcasm disguised as hits like "Splendido Splendente", "Kobra", "Donatella", "Lamette" and the rest? Sure, a certain weariness can be felt, that same difficulty mentioned earlier in trying to relaunch a persona now frozen in the collective memory. But, knowing that certain "circles in the mind" now belong only to the past, what remains is the testimony of an artist who, at 69, is putting herself back in the game, whatever the cost. And a dive back into her well-worn groove, amid bubbles, mosquitoes and madness, can always lift the spirits.

An unconventional figure, in some ways a forerunner of the transgressions Madonna would bring a few years later, but also one of the rare examples of an Italian singer-songwriter in the full sense (she writes all her own lyrics), Rettore still stands today as the icon of a particular era in our country, one with a greater appetite for transgression and fun, for refusing to conform and for tackling taboo subjects in a way completely unlike anything people were used to.

Ride the wave of great music

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