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Righeira

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Righeira was an Italian Italo disco duo from Turin, consisting of Stefano Righi and Stefano Rota, who called themselves Johnson and Michael Righeira. The two knew each other from secondary school and had been making music together since the late 1970s. As a duo they broke through in 1983 with Vamos a la Playa, a summer hit with a lyric about an atom bomb.

Music and breakthrough

Vamos a la Playa was released in May 1983 on the Italian label CGD. Johnson Righeira wrote it with Carmelo La Bionda, who produced it with his brother Michelangelo. The song is sung in Spanish and built on synthesizers: a simple, skipping melody, an electronic beat and two voices singing the chorus like a beach song. Anyone who follows the lyrics hears about a beach after an atomic explosion. It reached number one in Italy and Switzerland, number two in the Netherlands and Flanders and number three in West Germany. According to La Repubblica, more than three million copies were sold. The duo went on to have more hits with No tengo dinero and L'estate sta finendo (1985), which reached number one in Italy and won the summer competition Festivalbar.

Influence

Righeira belongs to Italo disco: dance music from Italian studios, mostly sung in English, with synthesizers and drum machines. Vamos a la Playa is an example of how the fear of the bomb in the 1980s was packaged in cheerful pop music, like 99 Luftballons by Nena. The duo split up in 1992, came back in 1999 and stopped again in 2016.

Listening

Listening tip. In Vamos a la Playa, listen to how cheerful the synthesizer melody and the sing-along chorus sound, and then pay attention to the lyrics: the 'playa' is a beach after an atomic blast. The contrast between the sunny sound and the content is precisely the trick of the song.

Discography

Studio albums

In School of Rock

The chapters, maps and magazine stories of School of Rock are currently available in Dutch only.

Sources

  1. Wikipedia (en): Righeira
  2. Wikipedia (it): Righeira
  3. Wikipedia (en): Vamos a la playa (Righeira song
  4. Wikipedia (en): Italo disco
Categories: ArtistsItalo disco