Unfortunately, I can't download the new single and album, or any other new Italian album that's not from Pausini, Bocelli or Eros, on iTunes. You can't even hear the Gemelli clips on US iTunes. You would have to switch the country location of My Store located on the very bottom of the iTunes home page to Italia. Your page should now turn into the Italian iTunes home page which has the same layout as the US site. I usually just check out the Top Singoli and, more often than not, most of the songs are in English although this week was a particularly good one with Italians regularly holding 5 spots in the top 10.
Among the newer clips that sound promising are those from Io, Carlo (see clip below), Vasco Rossi and Tiromancino. The problem with this is you can't buy anything on this site - unless you have a credit card with an Italian billing address.
Amazon.com is releasing the new Gemelli Diversi album on June 21 at a pretty hefty $28. So if it's available for orders in the US on that day, then why can't iTunes release the songs as well?
What's funny is I did a search on US iTunes for the latest Festival di Sanremo winner, Simone Cristicchi, and got no song matches but was offered a chance to download the full video for the Sanremo song. So I guess I could look but not listen...
I don't get why a record label would want to restrict any sales especially when all they do is gripe about the lost amounts of money to illegal downloading. It's not just with Italian music either. For instance, Rihanna's latest album in the UK contains a pretty good additional track, Cry, not found on the US version of the album; a fan of the artist would have pay again for the same songs on an import album in order to obtain the missing track. Here's a link to a short segment on NPR regarding "The Songs You Can't Buy on iTunes," and a link to the article which spurred the radio report.
On a positive note, iTunes just recently started a "foreign exchange" program this month where they get bands from different countries to cover each other's songs, while also translating the song's lyrics. The first week saw a German electronica act, Wir Sind Helden, and US band +44, made up of former members of Blink 182.
Io, Carlo - L'Ego
