A coin drops into the jukebox. A brief, suspended moment of hesitation. Then, almost instinctively, fingers tap out an alphanumeric code, a sequence remembered as effortlessly as the poems learned by heart at school throughout the year. After that, it’s simply a matter of taste: a restless twist for quiff-shaking teenagers, the twang of a surf-rock guitar, or the string-soaked vocals of a 1960s pop diva spill from the jukebox’s sleek mid-century speakers.
For decades, the music of Italian summer was defined by the tormentoni—songs released outside the Sanremo season to boost label profits, which, almost by accident, became the season’s soundtrack. They spilled from beachside loudspeakers, car radios in a country racing towards modernity, portable record players carried beneath striped umbrellas, and the jukeboxes of village cafés and seaside resorts.
