This is just the English translation of my last discussion: http://www.italki.com/discussion/87341

In the golden age of pop music, in Italy, only mainstream bands (and a few exceptions) could earn their living by playing. That is to say, who didn't use to play "canzonette all'italiana" was doomed.
How could all those hard-rock, prog-rock, psychedelic rock and new wave bands earn their meal?
Italian society wanted them grinding in our factories as unqualified workers, bringing a crowbar (do you want to make noise, rocker? Be my guest...), or maybe locked in some public office, loosing their sanity because of boredom and mobbing (and then if they happened to really become crazy, the blame was of that "foreign music").
However, sometimes they could earn some extra money by composing and recording cartoon jingles.

Here I should add that in Italy we have never understood that Japanese cartoons are not children's stuff, but they are meant for teenagers. Those like me who were raised in the 80s by inattentive parents, were usually parked in front of the "Children's TV" without any filter.
I remember sleepless nights thinking about the tortures suffered by "Bum Bum" (and I'd like to tell a thing or two to the pervert who invented that obscenity); I remember watching Lupin III looking for Margot's breast before I could understand why (I thought it was just a prank like any other), and, moreover, I remember trembling with fear in front of the great DevilMan, his excellency, the "Son Of The Demon".
The result of this meeting between misunderstood cartoons and misunderstood musicians is a collection of pop music masterpieces which, at that time, were "used as surprises for Easter Eggs" (that means they were downgraded), but which Italians, nostalgically, still sing under their breath and search on youtube.

You would say: "Yes, but in my country too...".

No, not really.

A band like the Rockets could emerge in a country like France; in Germany, Kraftwerk invented the electronic music when the British and Americans were still busy understanding how to turn a synthesizer on.
In Italy a band like the Rockets or Kraftwerk, if kissed by fortune, could end up in making a jingle for Mazinga.
Here are some admirable examples:

Lupin III:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZy8ydPxpeY

Lamù:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvzPLp9Y_yU

My favourite one, DevilMan:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xn4hwB6r4Yo