Bluvertigo
Pop Tools

THE REVIEW

"Pop Tools": or "pop gadgets", like toys or ornaments by not literally translating the title of this collection. Which in fact marks the end of a band's career, the Bluvertigo, documenting their evolution through the collection of singles, from the beginning with (track No 1) to the "present day", with participation in the San Remo Festival 2001 and related song. Not a "treatise-encyclopedic" title like "Pop" by U2, nor a manifesto-title like "Music" by Madonna. Neither (being Bluvertigo "the band that sings in Italian and plays in English" according to the definition of F. De Luca) a monumental "Platinum Collection" or an erudite anthòs-λογοσ of exquisite "Fleurs" à la Battiato... more akin to the oxymoron "Beautiful Garbage" by Shirley Manson's band (echoing the Buzzcocks-like aesthetic of the "Flower in the Garbage"): in other words, the self-irony that characterizes the attitude of anti-stars who, starting their careers somewhat as a joke (like countless other bands of the genre) managed not to fall into the frequent "error" of ending up taking themselves too seriously.

These are Bluvertigo, between the melodic synth-pop of the Pet Shop Boys and the New Romantics wave of Duran Duran, but with a more "in-depth" stylistic profile modeled on certain new wave à la Japan-Bowie, without overlooking references to the refined diversions of "Up Patriots To Arms" or "Centro di Gravità Permanente", as well as the 70s Berlin electronics (Kraftwerk in primis). More unfortunate than their colleagues Subsonica (also at the last position in the previous year's San Remo edition with the amazing "Tutti i Miei Sbagli", but probably superior in compositional quality to Bluvertigo), Morgan, Andy (Warhol?) and Co. create tracks centered on the guitar-(sequencers-sampler)-keyboards-bass-drums model, with catchy rhythms and harmonic textures that find life in seemingly simple but rather valuable frameworks perhaps precisely for this reason. The melodic lines may indeed be the true creative center of this music, or rather of these Music (big M), dignified as Pop is, at every geographical and cultural latitude ("the popular song is a mobile and noble container” asserted Ivano Fossati several years ago, referring to himself). The tracks here included, which gather various hits from "Sono=Sono" to "Altre Forme di Vita", are perhaps important, even more than for their obvious intrinsic value, also for the portrait they deliver of their authors: that is to say intelligent and aware musicians and performers of their potential and their limits, who can distinguish without making it explicit between what is more "refined" or "cultured" and that whose value resides in other (no less important) aspects. All with irony and (at the risk of falling into unpleasant misunderstandings) I'd say "humility" and "respect": qualities quite rare in the so-called "Show-Biz" (a lot of Biz and little Show or vice versa doesn’t make much difference).

"Not just music", therefore, but also that is (indeed) noteworthy: "Fuori dal Tempo" perhaps their most precious track, at the same time describes the stylistic identity profile and outlines the aesthetic grammar of Morgan's band's language, which in this collection of simple-but-precious pop-songs, closes with another "little gem": "L'Assenzio", a catchy yet subtly cultured melody, a bit like Depeche Mode (\"Violator\" period) a bit like Battiato (\"Voce del Padrone\" period), a bit like... Bluvertigo, a truly original text ("the day before yesterday if I'm not mistaken was 1804...") as if to say "to Depeche Man in Paris" (the effect of listening to "Free Love" while reading Paul Verlaine's collection, as it’s impossible the other way around, i.e., to meet the Accursed Poets in the Paris metro with Dave Gahan's music on headphones...) encloses and summarizes the meaning of a Music, Pop, of a culture, that of resorting to played instruments and recorded sounds without any distinction, and of a poetics: that of "Listen Without Prejudice. Of this group, beyond my point of view, fans will certainly have a rather beautiful memory and perhaps a sense of melancholic emptiness, for others it will remain Beauty (which one can, if they wish, try to capture), which is nothing more than the reflection of what is already in us and in which we recognize ourselves, and not as believed, something that from outside its sculptural perfection, points us to another place to seek and/or find. That place will long remain unobtainable until we realize that we are ourselves.