in Italy. In 2018, Mina's new album MAEBA in 2018 debuted again at the Number 1 spot of the Italian albums and vinyls hitparade. Musical style and public image Voice Mina is a soprano with great agility and a range of three octaves. Swingy and anti-melodic in her early years ("Tintarella di luna", 1959), her singing later acquired high dramatic tones. Louis Armstrong famously declared her to be "the greatest white singer in the world". Queen of Screamers Caught up in the wave of rock and roll sweeping across Italy in 1958, Mina listened to American records, and she was a frequent visitor at the Derby Club, the Santa Tecla, and the Taverna Messicana clubs of Milan, which promoted rock and roll music. Mina's repertoire at the beginning of her career included clumsy imitations of British and American rock and jazz songs, while her extra-loud and syncopated version of the song "Nessuno" showcased her excellent sense of rhythm. Earlier in 1958, Domenico Modugno had caused astonishment by raising his hands in the air during his performance of "Nel blu dipinto di blu" ("Volare"). In Mina's first TV appearances she further broke with tradition by shaking her head, hands, and hips to the rhythm. The writer Edoardo Sanguineti recalled the Italian public's first encounter with the enthusiastic singer as "for many people a memorable experience, ... a revelation." TV host Mario Riva named her one of the ("screamers"), for her distinctive timbre and power. Later, the public called Mina "the Queen of Screamers". Her extravagant gestures earned her another nickname – "the Tigress of Cremona" (). Grown up Mina introduced her new sensual manner in her presentation of the ballad "Il cielo in una stanza" in 1960. Three years later, her love affair with Corrado Pani challenged the moral foundations of Italy, a country where divorce was illegal and single motherhood was considered shameful. Thus, her non-conformist choices represented the emancipation of women in Italy, which did not accord with the dominant Catholic and bourgeois virtues prevalent at the time. The subsequent ban from performing on Italian TV and radio channels further developed Mina's image as an independent bad girl, which she emphasized with her choice of song themes. An example was her performance of "Sacumdì Sacumdà" on air after RAI had expressed their displeasure with the song's lyrics about a girl's encounter with the Devil. Other songs that RAI initially