Angelina Mango won Sanremo 2024 and is set to represent Italy at the Eurovision song contest 2024 in Malmö with her La noia (Boredom). By winning Sanremo this soon 23-year-old talent managed to achieve what his father (or mother) never did despite being hugely popular and respected musician and singer. In a way at the time he changed Italian pop music the way Mahmood has been doing the past few years, bringing a new sound to charts and influence others.
Mango did seven Sanremos between 1985-2007 placing 5th, 6th and 7th at best. Strangely the songs that became his biggest Sanremo hits and among his biggest hits overall didn't do that well, 11th and 14th.
He released 18 studio albums (two of them covers) debuting in 1976 with La mia ragazza è un gran caldo, but the three first albums didn't do so well even if his songs were so loved that legends like Mia Martini (Se mi sfiori) and Patty Pravo (Tu pioggia, io mattino and Sentirti) wanted to cover them. Also Scialpi, at height of his career covered Nero e blu. The story goes he was about to leave his musical dreams for which he had moved from south of Italy with his brother to Milan as things didn't go so well.
Faith is one of his demos ended up to Mogol, a legend himself as author and the result is a song called Australia, also title of his fourth album that became a success after his participation in Sanremo among Newcomers with song Il viaggio. The next album sold already gold, the next one 3 x gold and the success continued with yet another album.
Mango had found his Mediterranean pop sound with his unique voice and way of singing that culminated in 1990 with Sirtaki album, selling 4 x platinum. After albums kept coming selling multiplatinum and gold. In the height of his growing success he also released three albums in Spanish for the Latin market.
He also wrote three books of poems and wrote a lot of songs to other artists (even for Sanremo) including Loredana Bertè, Loretta Goggi, Mietta, Andrea Mirò. Denns Fantina, Andrea Bocelli, and recorded duets with Zenima, Lucio Dalla, Franco Battiato and Neri per Caso just to name a few.
One artist that was always present was Laura Valente, Angelina's mother. They met when she sung backing vocals to Mango's early tracks, then he wrote her debut album in 1985. They married in 2004 after 11 years together and decided not to work professionally together except for some very rare occasions, like Sanremo 2007. Son Filippo was born in 1995 and Angelina 2001. Flippo is musician, too, and they both have performed with their father already in early age, Angelina recorded with him already back in 2014 in a The Beatles cover Get back.
In Sanremo 2024 Angelina sung for the first time a song by his father in public during the covers night and was the moral winner of the night with her touching performance.
I guess at this point is it needless to say I'm a huge fan. He was my soundtrack of the 1990's, I started following him since Australia in 1985 and he became one of my favorite singer ever.
Mango had a heart attack while singing his first big success Oro on December 7, 2014 in front of 4000 people. He died shortly after in backstage.
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