Italia Express Podcast Explores Italian Music History Across Five Cities

The podcast Italia Express, created by Edoardo Florio di Grazia and Jacopo Marretti, aims to narrate Italy's history through its music across five episodes. Each episode focuses on a different city: Naples, Rome, Bologna, Milan, and Genoa. The podcast uses the collaborative music platform Radiooooo, launched in 2013, which allows users to explore music by country and decade curated by a community. The first episode starts with the 1943 Allied landing in Salerno, highlighting cultural exchange between Neapolitan tradition and American black music. The Rome episode explores sexual freedom through Patti Pravo's song 'Pensiero Stupendo' and the Piper club. The Bologna episode features the avant-garde band Skiantos, who famously cooked and ate spaghetti on stage instead of playing music. Future episodes will cover Milan on February 5 and Genoa on February 12. The creators, both Florentine but living in France, started the podcast to fill gaps in knowledge about Italian music history abroad and in Italy. They chose Radiooooo for its human-curated playlists, avoiding algorithms. The podcast is produced by Artribune and written by Claudia Giraud.