Antonello Venditti
Benvenuti in paradiso

1991, one year after the Tangentopoli scandal and in the midst of the Gulf War. Three years after "In questo mondo di ladri," where the political and social climate we would face was already foreseen, "Benvenuti in paradiso," the last album of Antonello Venditti's original works, was released in stores, coming out less than four years after the previous one and the last album to also be released in LP. From 1995 onwards, it would only be CD or cassette, another great casualty of musical technology, and for which, like with Long Playing records, a return is hoped for.

The album in question is the fourth chapter of the sentimental Venditti tetralogy, following "Cuore" from 1984, "Venditti e segreti" from 1986, and "In questo mondo di ladri" from 1988. It will also be the last of this group of albums, as starting with the next one, "Prendilo tu questo frutto amaro," that compositional and musical vein that characterized the previous works will no longer be present when analyzing the works in their entirety. "Benvenuti in paradiso" is an album that still echoes the recently concluded '80s, between romance and civil commitment. However, starting from "Cuore," Antonello seems to adopt the same formula, which until a certain point, held up the comparison, but no longer. If you try to analyze Antonello's works over the last thirty years, you can see that there is always the same compositional model at the base of each album. The great sentimental song, the committed song, the satirical song, the song about Rome.

Thus, "Benvenuti in paradiso," understood as the opening and title track, retrieves both musically and thematically "In questo mondo di ladri," meant obviously as a song. But unlike the previous hit, there is less inventiveness and an increasingly diminished passion in the messages. "Alta marea," a cover of "Don't Dream it's Over" by Crowded House, highlights Venditti's ability to work with covers but also the unequivocal drop in musical composition inspiration, which will be confirmed in 1995 with "Prendilo tu questo frutto amaro," a cover of "Bitter Fruit" by Steven Van Zandt. As with other albums, the best episodes turn out to be the least publicized, and so Side A of the album closes with two beautiful episodes, "Noi," a sincere depiction of the generation of '68 and civil commitment (in fact it says "Noi sotto il segno dei pesci, noi"...), and "Dolce Enrico," a touching tribute to the late PCI leader Enrico Berlinguer. Side B, because we are talking about LP (and the medium is also a way to understand the setlist, where the song that opens Side B is the second most important, after the one that opens Side A), and there we find "Amici mai," splendid and just slightly inferior to the previous "Ricordati di me," the absolute masterpiece of the sentimental Venditti. From 1984 to today, there has always been a great sentimental song: "Ci vorrebbe un amico," "Segreti," "Ricordati di me," "Amici mai," "Ogni volta," "Che tesoro che sei," "Con che cuore" (here the correspondence is less exact), "Dalla pelle al cuore," "Unica." It continues with "Dimmi che credi," a pleasant episode of the committed but more hopeful Venditti, which also has correspondences like "Stella," "Peppino," "21 modi per dirti ti amo." Closing with the beautiful "In qualche parte del mondo," a bit like the "Mitico amore" of this album, and "Raggio di luna," with a very long introduction that increases the value of a song still not among the best of Our artist's production, rather banal, especially in the lyrics.

This album closes the second, and for some, the third phase of Antonello Venditti's career. The subsequent albums will have something in common with this era, but will be more bland, less inspired, and children of the historical period, increasingly standardized and less biting and critical.