NTS aired an episode dedicated to the music of Franco Battiato on 13 June 2021. Franco Battiato has been played over 150 times on NTS, first on 23 June 2014. Franco Battiato's music has been featured on 102 episodes.

Franco Battiato (born 1945 in Sicily, Italy – Milo, 18 May 2021) was an Italian singer-songwriter, composer, filmmaker and painter. He is considered one of the most original personalities in Italian music from the 1970s to now. Battiato's songs are dreamy, controversial collages of images and sensations, very experimental and convoluted, rich of esoteric, philosophical and East Asian religious themes.

His collaborations (from 1994 onward) with the nihilistic-cynical philosopher Manlio Sgalambro have added further depth to his apparently nonsensical lyrics, with references to Emil Cioran, Friedrich Nietzsche and other anarchistic and problematic thinkers.