History Music / ElioELeStorieTese

* VisualPun: In the video for "Pipppero®" Elio ends the exchange with the Bulgarian official by saying "Certo che voi bulgari siete proprio delle sagome!" ("You Bulgars are all such characters!", where "sagoma" literally means "cutout"). Earlier, the Bulgarian choir accompanying the performance is entirely made of life-sized cutouts (of the same woman, to boot)!

* YouWouldntHitAGuyWithGlasses: "Luigi il pugilista" ("Luigi the Pugilist") is about a boxer who wears glasses and becomes a champion, since nobody would hit him. The one time he removes the glasses, to impress a [[PitGirls pit girl]] holding the card, he is promptly trounced by the opponent. To top it off, the girl was actually a man. But Luigi [[IfItsYouItsOkay doesn't really care]].

* IntercourseWithYou: "Piattaforma di trivellazione", a wacky, absurdist parody of Music/SergeGainsbourg's ''Je t'aime... moi non plus''. Among all the allusions and weird sound effects, the singer duets with a lover with a suspiciously young-sounding voice... [[spoiler:The ending reveals that it's ''his son''.]]

* ImpracticalMusicalInstrumentSkills: Sometimes, Elio plays Faso's bass guitar while standing behind him when the latter is busy performing the fake phone call at the end of "Servi della gleba" ("Serfs"). It looks like [[http://l7.alamy.com/zooms/63743abe9ecb4d4aa3becf886f284f79/italian-singer-elio-and-bassist-faso-during-a-show-at-2014-torino-e08ftc.jpg this]] or [[http://elioelestorietese.it/files/2013/09/969337_10151728725979617_1667417172_n.jpg this. ]]

-->Here comes a little friend... "Let me introduce myself, I'm the faggot teddy bear, and as you can tell [[spoiler: I'm going to bugger you.]]"

%% * GettingCrapPastThe Radar: Due to overwhelming and persistent misuse, GCPTR is on-page examples only until 01 June 2021. If you are reading this in the future, please check the trope page to make sure your example fits the current definition.

After Feiez's demise, they reduced their appearances on TV and the live concerts, only restarting in about the mid-2000s. Since then Elio and the others made such things as sport and commercial jingles, hosted TV programmes, played in classical concerts and more. The band has also been the first one, in 2004, to sell instant [=CDs=] of their live performances immediately after their end. Oh, and they went again to Sanremo in 2013 and won second prize. Again. For real this time. 2016 saw their third Sanremo participation but they only got to 12th place this time.

* ShoutOut: In the coda of "Pipppero®" Elio quotes several '70s dance music stars, such as Carl Douglas, The Trammps, Boney M, in addition to "Ramaya" by Afric Simone.

* ADateWithRosiePalms: Implied with Cesareo's part in "I Delfini Nuotano". It's difficult to understand it, though, since he sings one word every four, the other three being words from other bandmembers' parts.

In 2017, after almost four decades of career, they announced their retirement and the date of their last live concert ever: December 19, 2017. However, they said it wasn't really true and that they wanted to do one last tour in 2018. They also went to Sanremo in 2018 one last time but their song was voted dead last; they took this in stride because they used to say half-jokingly they always wanted to get the last place in that competition.

* BigOlEyebrows: Elio's unibrow is legendary, and the man himself makes fun of it every now and then.

* MinimalisticCoverArt: ''Cicciput'''s cover is just a pair of cartoony eyes on a monochrome blue background. [[https://d3rt1990lpmkn.cloudfront.net/640/0cc685762044ad408228f3df878a78f41985f70a Here]].

* ToiletHumour: There already are some examples... but what about "Shpalman" (a song from ''Cicciput''), about a superhero who smears shit on the faces of bad guys with a trowel? Or the woman from "Cateto" who secreted shit instead of sweat from her pores?
* TradeSnark: "Pipppero®".

** Really, the lyrics of their songs take this trope UpToEleven. It's like the trademark style of the band.

* {{Corpsing}}: Every time they perform "Alfieri" live, Elio and Faso try to make Cesareo laugh while he's singing his stanza. It's not a particularly difficult task.

The style: Their lyrics are largely nonsense mixed with puns, references, allusions to popular sayings and to facets of their youth, with generous heapings of ToiletHumour (especially in the early days), [[BlackComedy dark humour]] and even social/political {{Satire}}; the weirdness of their humour, however, belies their extreme technical proficiency (again, just like Frank Zappa, who can be considered one of their sources of inspiration). [=EelST=] have dabbled in almost every possible genre from hard rock to disco, from reggae to blues and even latin and opera, often [[NeoclassicalPunkZydecoRockabilly mixing them to an extent]] or spoofing their rules and conventions.

* NeoclassicalPunkZydecoRockabilly: [[HiddenDepths It helps that they're all very skilled musicians]]. Sometimes, the genres are switched ''during'' the song, like in "Il vitello dai piedi di balsa''.

** "Il vitello dai piedi di balsa (Reprise)" ends with a short [[NeoclassicalPunkZydecoRockabilly salsa-style coda]]... then, after some seconds of silence, all the instruments give way to the most cacophonous chord possible.

* BiggusDickus:
** Early in their career, they wrote a song about (and sung from the perspective of) John Holmes. Enough said.
** "Burattino senza fichi", and its international English version "Puppet On A Swing", is all about a carpenter who crafts a big wooden dick for his son, [[Literature/{{Pinocchio}} an unnamed liar wooden puppet]].
-->I'm a proud and happy puppet,
-->with my new and shiny piece of wood.
-->I'm the new Italian Stallion,
-->'coz my daddy made it good.

* {{Mondegreen}}: The reason for the existence of "Pipppero®": Elio was listening to "Dilmano, dilbero" ("My beautiful Dilmano") by Le Mystère Des Voix Bulgares and misheard the title as "più umano, più vero" ("more human, more truthful").

** In their video for "Servi della gleba", they briefly appear dressed as the fictional band Bee Hive from the shojo manga ''Manga/AiShiteNight''. The reason: Italy had in the late 80s a [[GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff quite popular]] LiveActionAdaptation of ''Manga/AiShiteNight'', called "Kiss me Licia".

** The cover of their first live album, ''[[http://www.marok.org/Elio/Discog/japan.jpg Made in Japan]]'' is almost identical to the much more famous ''[[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c5/Deep_Purple_Made_in_Japan.jpg Made in Japan]]'' by Music/DeepPurple. Although they mantain that their album is called [[ItIsPronouncedTropay Made in JUH-pan]].

* BadassMustache: Faso's spectacular [[http://www.laregione.ch/sites/default/files/node/images/featured/Elio%20e%20le%20Storie%20Tese%201370.JPG facial hair]] and equally spectacular bass guitar lines.

* Sergio Conforti "Rocco Tanica - keyboards, backing vocals, vocoder, drum machine, melodica

* BilingualBonus: The title of their first album means "Let's happily fart and cum with Elio" in Sinhala (see also GettingCrapPastTheRadar). The title of their 1992 album means "The Greek spy, an Italian, has been expelled" in Turkish and was RippedFromTheHeadlines of a Cyprus newspaper.

* GettingCrapPastTheRadar:
** Other than the examples already mentioned under BilingualBonus and SomethingSomethingLeonardBernstein, there's also the example of "Supergiovane". The titular "superhero" (voiced by Mangoni) who goes against "[[TheMan The Government]]" at one point says a minced oath, but immediately after he actually blasphemes pretty heavily! The swears are said while he's running away on his moped, so they're heavily muffled by the distance and the noise, but they're definitely there.
** The most egregious example may be their version of "Largo al factotum" from Rossini's Theatre/TheBarberOfSeville. By the means of a strategically placed pause after the second syllable of "Figaro" (the name of the Barber himself) Elio managed to sing a very common slang word for a lady's private parts on stage during the most popular music Festival in Italy, which is broadcasted live in prime time. Repeatedly.

* SomethingSomethingLeonardBernstein: Done deliberately in "Unanimi" ("Unanimously"). The second stanza has each component of the band singing different lyrics at the same time but ends with "Unanimi" sung in unison. It is the only intelligible word of the stanza. Inverted in the first stanza (same lyrics for everyone apart from the last word). Bonus point for invoking GettingCrapPastTheRadar, as the unintelligible last word is everyone singing a different swear word. ItMakesSenseInContext [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCl9C93Fq-U]]:

-->Here come's a little friend... "Let me introduce myself, I'm the faggot teddy bear, and as you can tell [[spoiler: I'm going to bugger you.]]"