"Despacito" has been a viral musical phenomenon that has not stopped playing across the world. Shortly after it's release, this contagious song set off unprecedented success: it was the first song sung in Spanish to reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in more than 21 years; it also became the most watched video in YouTube's history, with more than three billion views; on Spotify, it has four million daily streams, and already has 1.2 billion streams since it came out.
Matia Bazar is an Italian pop band formed in Genoa in 1975. The original members of the group were Piero Cassano (keyboards) Aldo Stellita (bass), Carlo Marrale (guitar), Giancarlo Golzi (drums) and Antonella Ruggiero (vocals). They represented Italy in the 1979 Eurovision Song Contest with a song called Raggio di luna. Their major hits were Solo tu (1978), Vacanze Romane (1982) and Ti Sento (1985), which peaked the charts in Belgium and Italy.
Born from the ashes of the prog band Jet, whose sole album was 1972's Fede Speranza Carità, Matia Bazar formed in Genoa in 1975, with a line-up comprising Piero Cassano (keyboards), Aldo Stellita (bass), Carlo "Bimbo" Marrale (guitar), Giancarlo Golzi (drums) and singer Antonella Ruggiero. The very first releases – e.g. the singles "Stasera Che Sera", "Cavallo Bianco", "Per un'Ora d'Amore", "Solo Tu" and "Mister Mandarino" and the albums Matia Bazar (1976), Gran Bazar (1977) and the anthology L'Oro dei Matia Bazar – showcased the band's ability to build well-crafted and lush pop songs, made unique by the huge extension and versatility of Ruggiero's voice. In 1978 the song "… E Dirsi Ciao" (from Semplicità finished first at that year's edition of the Sanremo Music Festival. The live album Tournée and Il Tempo del Sole followed respectively in 1979 and 1980.