Around 1968 he composed the
Annabel Lee musical suite, based on a poem by
Edgar Allan Poe. In 1969, he released his first single and recorded the single
Signora Lia; a comic song that tells of a lady's marital infidelity. Over time the song became a cult song of Italian pop music despite its poor initial success. He collaborated with Italian singer
Mia Martini for her debut album. Success came only in 1972, with the album
Questo piccolo grande amore; the title track was awarded as the Italian song of the century in 1985. In 1974, he recorded the album
E tu ... with
Vangelis. In 1975, it comes out
Sabato pomeriggio; a concept album about waiting, based on
Giacomo Leopardi's poems. In 1977, the album
Solo; was the first in which he made lyrics, music and production on his own. In 1978, Baglioni released the album
E tu come stai?. In 1981, he produced the hugely successful album
Strada facendo the first Italian album to reach one million copies. The following year the
Alé Oó tour starts, the first tour of an Italian singer in large stadiums. The name of the tour in fact takes its cue from a typical chorus of football matches. In June of the same year (1982) Baglioni at the age of 31 became a father and in one day wrote the worldwide hit song
Avrai dedicated to his son. In 1985, Baglioni released the album
La vita è adesso, the best-selling album of all time in Italy with almost 4 million copies sold, immediately after the release of the album, Baglioni embarked on the 1985 stadium tour which totalled over 1.5 million spectators with the final concert in Rome, which was the first concert in the history of Italian music to be broadcast live on TV. The overwhelming success of the album called for another big tour the following year;
Assolo a sensational tour consisting of over 30 concerts in major stadiums across Italy where Claudio Baglioni performs completely alone, without a band, with the help of
classical and
electric guitar,
pianola,
piano,
synthesizer and
MIDI, a technology never tested at the time. The live album
Assolo was recorded in
Milan and became a commercial success in
Europe. The success of Claudio in this decade was so high that around the end of 1985 the first collection for the European market was released, entitled
Claudio Baglioni, containing ten of Baglioni's songs from the decade so far. In 1988, he participated in a concert of the
Human Right Now! tour with
Peter Gabriel,
Sting and
Bruce Springsteen. In 1990, after 3 years of work he released the double album
Oltre, an ambitious project with 20 songs that contains experiments with
world music. The concert of 1991 was reviewed positively by
Billboard magazine as the best concert of the year in the world, thanks to the stage that is located in the center of the stadium with the public surrounding it in the round. In the same year the European version of the record
Oltre is marketed. In 1992 the tour
Oltre il concerto began, held in indoor arenas with the stage in the centre, marking the return of Baglioni throughout Italy, with over 50 dates it was a huge success. In 1995, the album
Io sono qui was released, which marks Claudio's return to the scene, the album deals with the theme of comedy, everyday life is in fact a bit of a comedy for everyone where everyone wears a mask without knowing if he is an actor or a spectator of life. The album is structured as if it were a film with a beginning, an end, the interlude and then the first, second, third and fourth time which anticipate the subsequent songs by describing them as cinematic scenes. The album has sold 1.5 million copies to date. Baglioni initially presents the album with a series of surprise concerts held on a yellow truck which once opened became a stage, the concert tour is called
Tour Giallo. Subsequently, the 1996 tour called
Tour Rosso began in arenas with the stage in the center without barriers between the public and the artist with the band, with over 51 dates it became an incredible success. On 6 June 1998, he held the concert event of the year at the
Olympic stadium in Rome, the concert totaled over 100,000 spectators thanks to the stage in the center and the spectators who filled the stadium, still this record remains undefeated by any event. In the summer of 1998 he performed a one-hour concert on the ship
Amerigo Vespucci at the port of Lisbon for
Expo 1998. And in 1999, the album
Viaggiatore sulla coda del tempo, with the imminent arrival of the new millennium, considered one of the most ambitious, complex and cultured projects of Baglioni's entire recording work, it marks the passage of the millennium through a traveler's journey between space and time. The album sells half a million copies in a month
. Baglioni subsequently declared that the three albums (
Oltre,
Io sono qui and
Viaggiatore sulla coda del tempo) make up a trilogy of time where each represents the past, present and future respectively. The tour that followed this album took place between January and March 2000, called
Tour Blu, it is characterized by a futuristic cut like the 1999 album with projection screens and laser lights, the concerts began with a sort of three-dimensional hologram that had the appearance of a robotic face named
Claud; an alter ego of the artist who announced that he came from the future and appeared between one song and another to tell his story accompanied by thoughts and messages from the future, the virtual image mentions that as long as his music is listened to the traveler will not he will have left in vain. On 31 December 1999, for New Year's Eve, he performed in the last concert of the millennium in
St. Peter’s Square, in the
Vatican, in the presence of approximately 380,000 spectators including the Pope and on live national TV, he is the first and only artist in history to have held a concert in Vatican Square. In the summer of 2000, he brought the tour
Acustico. Sogno di una notte di note to
amphitheatres, rearranging all his most famous songs in an acoustic key, in 2001 he was the first artist to bring pop music to traditional theaters with the tour
Incanto tra pianoforte e voce performing completely alone accompanied by just the piano. In 2003 the album
Sono io was released which sold 300,000 copies in just one month, followed by a stadium tour with the stage at the center. In 2005 his first official greatest hits album
Tutti qui was released, and was accompanied by a tour which lasted from 2006 to 2007, beginning in arenas. In 2009 he launched the ambitious
Q.P.G.A. project which includes a novel, an album, a film and a series of concerts. In 2010, he did a series of concerts around the world, the last concert at the
Royal Albert Hall in
London was recorded and broadcast on
Sky and transposed onto the live album
World Tour which was met with incredible success. On New Year's Eve 2011 he held a concert at the
Imperial fora in Rome which attracted over 300,000 people. In 2013 he released the album
Con voi. In 2019, to celebrate 50 years of career, he held an concert at the
Verona Arena which for the first time is open to the public in its entirety, with the stage in the center and the spectators filling the entire arena in the round. In 2020 the album
In questa storia, che è la mia was released. In the summer of 2022, he embarked on the
Tutti su! tour of amphitheaters and in the summer of 2023
aTuttoCuore tour with a concert at the Foro Italico in Rome, continuing in 2024 around Italy in indoor arenas and in the Arena of Verona with eight stages in September 2024. In 2025, the 40th anniversary edition of the album
La vita è adesso, the best-selling album of all time in Italy, will be released, and in 2026, the
Grand Tour of Italy's best outdoor spaces will begin. ==Discography==