A Bite of Mina 🍪
The original weird girl from Italy
Monday Bites are bite-sized musician spotlights & playlists by Grace Lilly.
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• 3 min read •
Weird girls love weird girls
Mina is anything but normal. For me and my fellow weird girls, she’s a Founding Mother, one of our Patron Saints like Julia Fox, Annie Clark and Parker Posey.
She’s playful, bizarre, and bursting with creative force. She shaves her eyebrows, wears strange eye-makeup, and was banned from TV & radio in her home of Italy in the 60s.
She sang about sex and smoking and religion. People didn’t approve and she kept being herself anyway.
Her voice is lush and powerful. Writer Edoardo Sanguineti described her as “a revelation.” She’s (still) ready to entertain you.
Mina
The basics
🤝 Italian singer
🤝 b. 1940 (Italy)
🤝 Known for her three-octave vocal range & her image as a liberated woman
Why you should know her: Considered one of the greatest singers of all time, she is the best-selling Italian musical artist in history
If you like
✨ Rosalia
✨ Grace Jones
✨ Janis Joplin
✨ Madonna
✨ Lady Gaga
Known for
🏆 A trailblazing figure who challenged social mores, became a symbol for female empowerment, pushing boundaries with her liberated image and unapologetic lyrics
🏆 Sold over 150 million records worldwide, scored 79 albums and 71 singles on the Italian charts
🏆 Nicknamed “Queen of Screamers,” her voice has distinctive timbre & power
🏆 Frequently jumps genres: Italian pop, R&B, soul, bossa nova, jazz, disco
🏆 Released an album every year during 1958–2003, and continues to release music on a yearly basis to the present day
Bite-sized facts
🍪 Born Anna Maria Mazzini, into a working-class family in Lombardy; went to college for accounting
🍪 Discovered at 18 in a nightclub after giving an improvised performance for her family while on summer vacation in 1958
🍪 Banned from TV & radio in 1963 because she refused to cover up her relationship and pregnancy with a married actor; divorce was illegal in Italy and single motherhood was considered shameful
🍪 Her record sales were unaffected, and due to public demand the ban was ended
🍪 Her non-conformist choices represented the emancipation of women in Italy
In film & TV
📺 Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas (1990): features Mina’s song “This World We Love In”
📺 Pasquale Festa Campanile’s La sculacciata, aka “The Spanking” (1974): Minna records the theme song for this comedy about a married couple who resorts to sadomasochist practices in the hope of addressing virility issues
📺 Pedro Almodóvar: The Spanish director has used Mina's songs in his movie soundtracks
📺 Michelangelo Antonioni's L’eclisse (1962): this Italian romance film features Mina’s single “L'eclisse twist”
Songs & dates
♫ 1959 Her first Italian No. 1 hit, the up-tempo “Tintarella di luna”
♫ 1964 “È l'uomo per me” becomes the biggest selling record of the year in Italy
♫ 2010 “Se telefonando” is voted her best song of all time by 30,000 people in a reader’s poll for the the la Repubblica newspaper
♫ 2016 Her album Le Migliori becomes the best-selling album of the year in Italy
♫ 2023 Intergenerational duet from Italian singer Blanco (20) and Mina (83), “Un briciolo di allegria,” reaches No. 1 for 5 consecutive weeks
My Mina Playlist
I gathered my fav Mina songs, from me to you with love. Like & save on Spotify and listen all week 💗
Where to start
Making history
Her TV appearances in 1959, like this one, were the first for a female rock & roll singer in Italy; she further broke with tradition by shaking her head, hands, and hips to the rhythm 💃🏻
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“Ciao diavolo, ciao!"
Performing one of my favorite of her songs “Sacumdì Sacumdà,” which was almost banned when it was released because of its lyrics involving the devil 😈
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Live in studio
Footage of Mina recording “Oggi sono io” in 2001
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I *LOVE* Mina!! So glad you're spreading the worddddd ❤️