Only a smart person names their band The Stupid Set. Right? The Stupid Set, active from 1979 to 1983, were from Bologna, Italy, which is Italy’s oldest student center—also a city famous for its red-tiled roofs, its red pasta sauce, and its red politics.
The Stupid Set’s best-known song was this 1980 deconstruction of the Doors’ “Hello, I Love You,” which bears a very strong similarity to DEVO’s approach in their 1977 cover of the Rolling Stones’ “Satisfaction.”
I can’t read Italian, and the Google Translate rendition of the band’s Wikipedia page is not the clearest, but I have to say I’m enjoying the list of related bands that were connected to The Stupid Set: The Center for Metropolitan Scream, the Hi-Fi Bros, Tide Toast, the Marconi Connection, Astro Vitelli and the Cosmos, and so on. I also like that the Smart Set’s label was called Italian Records.
The Stupid Set: “Don’t Be Cold (In The Summer Of Love)”
“Hear the Rumble”
The video and song for their “Hello, I Love You” do not go where you think they are going to go…
Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Stryx: Italian TV Disco madness with Amanda Lear, Grace Jones, Patty Pravo & more
Sound of SIlver(heads): Rockets on Italian TV 1978
Vee and Simonetti: Italian disco so mysterioso