INTER SOUNDTRACKS | The playlist of 1998 on Spotify

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— Feb 16th 2021

6 MIN READING

25 hits from that year to take you back to the UEFA Cup, Ronaldo and more...

You all have a penchant for nostalgia; you love to take a trip down musical memory lane, associating music with more or less happy memories. So, from today, we’re kicking things off with the first instalment of Inter Soundtracks, a series of playlists on the official Nerazzurri Spotify profile. What type of playlist? Simple: we are pairing past episodes of Inter Podcast – 10 number 10’s with various musical hits from the years, in which the Nerazzurri reached great heights. We’re starting with 1998: in the playlist you’ll find the podcast episodes on Ronaldo and Djorkaeff and the songs that rocked the airwaves that year.

INTER SOUNDTRACKS 1998: LISTEN TO THE SPOTIFY PLAYLIST -> https://spoti.fi/3be1wJk

Tú y yo, ale, ale, ale Go, go, go, ale, ale, ale Arriba va, el mundo está de pie Go, go, go, ale, ale, ale

It’s still stuck in our heads: that catchy chorus, a bit in English, a bit in Spanish, a bit in French. Ricky Martin defined the summer of 1998 with “La Copa de la Vida”, the official song of the France ’98 World Cup. Everyone as singing it, everyone was dreaming about it: Italy ended up getting knocked out on penalties to the eventual world champions, Di Biagio’s spot-kick crashing against the crossbar is etched in our memories.

What a year 1998 was, though. Gigi Simoni’s Inter were fighting hard in the league, before winning the UEFA Cup on that magical night on 6 May in Paris: Zamorano, Zanetti, Ronaldo. Who could forget Ronaldo in the number 10 shirt? O Fenomeno’s summer did come to a bitter end though, in stark contrast to Inter teammate and world champion Djorkaeff: France 3-0 Brazil.

It wasn’t just the dulcet tones of Puerto Rican pop legend Ricky Martin that defined that year. It was a huge summer for music, especially in Italy where one of the biggest and most incredible events of all time took place: 130,000 people flocked to Imola to see Vasco Rossi in concert. Rossi won that year’s Festivalbar (hosted by Alessia Marcuzzi and Fiorello), while the piazzas in Italy danced to Life (Des’ree), Torn (Natalie Imbruglia), No Tengo Dinero (Los Umbrellos), Nobody’s Wife (Anouk) and Gimme Love (Alexia). The Sanremo Festival, meanwhile, had crowned Annalisa Minetti with “Senza te o con te”.

For students, one of the sounds of the year was Celine Dion’s “My heart will go on”, the iconic song from the film Titanic, which came out in 1997 and won a staggering 11 academy awards, equalling the haul of Ben Hur. Speaking of the Academy, just reading the list of winners of actors and actresses sends a chill down your spine: Jack Nicholson (best actor, As Good as It Gets), Helen Hunt (best actress, As Good as It Gets), Robin Williams (best supporting actor, Good Will Hunting), Kim Basinger (best supporting actress, L.A. Confidential).

That year also saw the release of various cult movies: The Truman Show, Saving Private Ryan and The Big Lebowski, for example. Or Armageddon with “I don’t want to miss a thing" by Aerosmith, which had to make an appearance in our playlist. Luciano Ligabue’s Radiofreccia was also incredibly popular in Italy.

Back to music: 1998 saw two icons leave us, Frank Sinatra and Lucio Battisti. It was also the year in which Madonna sang Frozen and Oasis were make more wave with their third studio album Be Here Now, which came out the year before. But the Spice Girls, now global icons, were the real hit of the year.

Information was transferred via analogue TV sets and low-speed internet: those were the days of the 56K modem, of Internet Relay Chat and, obviously, no social media. That was also the year, in which two boys, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, founded Google. Times were changing and we were heading to a previously unimaginable future: in May 1998, Apple presented the very first Mac. And bit by bit, news was spreading via the internet, thanks to new search engines.

1998 began with a tragedy for Italy: the Cavalese cable car disaster on 3 February. But, for many months, the news was almost entirely dedicated to the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal. In January, however, the most historical event of the year took place; Pope John Paul II visited Cuba and met with Fidel Castro.

These are pieces of history, which are forever linked with the sporting endeavours of the year. If Inter were the team to bring an international trophy back to Italy, Juventus were the ones to miss out after being beaten in the Champions League final in Amsterdam by Real Madrid: 1-0, Mijatovic with the goal. 1998 was also the year of the Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan. Italy came home with ten medals, two of which were gold. One of which belonged to Deborah Compagnoni in the Giant Slalom, in which the Italian alpine skier was dominant – she also won silver in the Slalom. The other gold medal for Italy that year was won by Huber and Tartaglia in the two-man bobsleigh.

For cycling fans, 1998 was, above all, the year of Marco Pantani, who won both the Giro d’Italia and the Tour de France. One of the most incredible sporting feats in recent memory: his bandana, his photos, the almost timid smile on his face on the podium on the Champs Élysées after having won in Italy too. What nostalgia!

It was a good year for the Azzurri colours; Italy were volleyball world champions, beaten only in the final of the Davis Cup by Sweden and Virtus Bologna won the Basketball Euroleague. High-speed motorsport was dominated by two men: Mika Hakkinen in F1 with McLaren and Mick Doohan in Moto GP with Honda.

Yes, what a year 1998 was. These are the songs we have to selected for our playlist, which will take you back to that season with Ronaldo wearing number 10, with Gigi Simoni in charge of a fantastic group and with Paris becoming an extension of Milan.