Classix Nouveaux
Night People

Other years, belonging to a culturally magnificent decade, the 80s, in which music underwent many developments in intermediary, temporary, experimentally innovative but always somewhat uncertain genres. Not for nothing New wave means new wave.

Perhaps it is precisely in this decade that it becomes mandatory and expected for bands, even future ones, to present themselves to the public not only with their musical proposal but also with their look, serving as a calling card for their lifestyles. In fact, already in the mid-70s, music and youth movements were characterized by ideologies of rebellion that gave birth to punk music - I claim with the Sex Pistols - bands [like the Sex Pistols], became famous despite not knowing how to play, simply thanks to an image factor that shocked London and the entire England. The clothing, the hair, but also the facial expressions and photographic poses were perhaps more curated and studied than the music that was presented.

The chain extends, each link in the chain leads to another link, along its entire length, not for nothing glam rock emerges and establishes itself, like hair metal that becomes more extreme over time. And still today in death metal, face painting is a must.
But I want to focus on a handful of years from the already mentioned 80s decade, where music followed the human trend closely; and since technology, particularly electronics, was developing, music could not be left behind. Electronics fused with rock and pop became an excuse to capture what was left of punk to evolve it into music that, although it never established itself, made history - the history of bands now unknown but pioneers of celebrated and still current movements. I mention three genres: New Wave, Synth-pop, and Dark Wave, while promising that other men discovered and played with synth years before [see Bowie, Pink Floyd, Kraftwerk].

The romanticism of pop music and the energy of rock music, filtered, compressed, and wrapped in synthesized sounds, in keyboards, essentially in music created by man through the upcoming future, electronics. A Neoromantic movement where Duran Duran reigned. But also participating in this style were the Classix Nouveaux, who perhaps either didn’t quite understand how it worked or decided to remain alternative to what was nonetheless a trend. And in fact, this band, composed 90% of extravagant looks, the remaining 10% of innovation and quality of musical proposal, played music that left room for drums and guitars, and just enough doses of keyboards and synth.
The band’s leader, a certain Sal Solo, who didn’t have great vocal talent, but with his bald head, his black makeup, and the clothes of a modern Nosferatu, accompanied by the rest of the crew in an elegant-refined-unconformist-effeminate-scarily-mysterious style, won right away only in appearance.

I have one of their albums in my hands: 'Night People' from 1981. Elements characterizing the band:
if OMD like New Order and many others inserted melancholic and sad contexts into sometimes fun digital games, C.N. inserted an aura of darkness and mystery into music distinctly marked by rather dynamic and playful times. It is announced with "Foreward", an instrumental piece where drums and guitar play with digital sounds creating a rather futuristic and psychedelic atmosphere.
It is followed by "Guilty", a piece that made them famous, even if only for a little while, a truly beautiful song, melodic, atmospheric, sweet, and rhythmic in my opinion, a hit, yes, but much more beautiful than certain YMCA or others. A carnival party in an abandoned castle by darkness and strange mystical expressions of those present is what you see in the video available on YouTube along with many others from the same band. "No Violins" slow and calm but sung by a slightly angry voice and accompanied by strange choirs and sounds. Then very interesting was "Run Away" supported by a cadenced base ready to include sketches and sudden changes of time, but the specialty is the chorus sung by a graceless and lively scream.

Following are "Inside Outside" with psychedelic electronic swirls and the fantastic "623" of pure playful digital energy that in high tones still maintains a mysterious atmosphere. "Tokio" is very nice, sweet, and expressive, always very rhythmic. There are pieces a bit thrown in there and not very expressive like "Or a Movie", pieces that seem the same like "Nasty Little Green Man" and "Test Tube Babies" but others very enjoyable like "Soldier", "The Protector Of Night".

This album is from 1981, one of the first, but by '83 C.N. already didn’t exist anymore. This is unfortunate, a VERY STRONG success (the "medley" video on YouTube also testifies to this) but decidedly short. Critics claimed that the songs were nice, but nothing special. It's true the saying "the habit doesn't make the monk" a band cannot continue to live if known and remembered for only one song like "Guilty", and so Sal Solo exits.
Do you say he learned the lesson? I don't think so, indeed he continued to sing, but in the Rockets, that little band where the members were dressed as extraterrestrials in space suits, wrapped in laser beams and colored smoke on stages.

It's to be said that the song "Galactica" is very graceful, nice and with a good rhythm, check it out on YouTube. But believe me that Sal Solo learned the lesson, and what he did after the Rockets had to do with God. I don't know what religion he was before, but he discovered God and remained fascinated, he converted to Christianity, and now he sings Christian music dedicated to the Lord, like a good prophet and faithful servant. So much so that one of his interviews lies on the pages of a church music portal [http://www.informusic.it/old/Intsolo.htm] but just click on the discography on his official site [http://www.salsolo.com/salalbum.html] to discover recordings like "Look at Christ" - "San Damiano" - "Anno Domini".

What to say, he, who in "Guilty" seemed the antichrist opponent of Marilyn Manson.