Colin Hay
American Sunshine

Those who read me know how much of an incurable and extremely nostalgic eighties boy I am.

And, as I get older, objectively, I get worse.

"One shot 80", CD version with all the mp3s inside, has been permanently and effectively residing in my stereo on the veranda for a short while now.

By now, the emotion has even surpassed and the fun of those days has returned. In my nostalgic and sick mind, I don't remember the eighties with a tear in my eye, like I did some years ago, but I'm in it up to my neck. Last night, for instance, we were having a sumptuous barbecue and shaking our hips to the rhythm of "Easy Lady" by Spagna, still the one with the big hair, not the plasticized one roaming around at PDL parties (back then, or rather today - because we're in the eighties... - the PDL didn't exist and we lived happily complaining about our splendid five-party government and the coexisting and happily complicit opposing PC).

So every time one of my heroes releases a new album, it's not nostalgia: it's simply the new stage of the same adventure.

And it's like that for the greats of the eighties (U2, Knopfler, Prince, in their way even the Boss and Bowie, although on these the "temporal objection" is at least obvious), as much as for the lesser-known, the meteors, or those who have become meteors or pleasant memories of the past for the dominant opinion (we know that even Tears4Fears have recently released a beautiful album, but how many of us have enjoyed it?).

And so (but only partly) it may be considered the case for Colin Hay, known to us nostalgics and only to them, as the singer of Men At Work. As the voice of "Who Can It Be Now". Or as the brilliant cameo on Scrubs, with that acoustic "Overkill", finished in complete nudity, guitar-clad, in the hospital mortuary.

A man who does not lack a voice, a guitar, a "sense of song" and, in a word, Art.

Obviously a man dignifiedly forgotten in this little Italy of X-Factor, where Morgan passes for an artist while true artists pass by far.

And among the true artists, fully, I include Colin Hay, the Australian. One who has dedicated his life to music, to a very honest pop-singer-songwriter style, crafting very unknown and (some) beautiful albums. Occasionally returning to the old scores of Men At Work, either acoustically, with electric reloads, or with a real mid-nineties reunion (a nice live show). Maybe we'll talk about it.

Every now and then I browse his official website: the only way, here, to know what he's up to. And every now and then, about annually, it's a pleasure to discover a new release.

This album is very homely, soft, predominantly acoustic. Essentially well-written although, alas, lacking true masterpieces. There's a rather high average, but unfortunately nothing soars. There's no longer the raspy scream of the past, but a soft, hoarse, splendid voice. An album that caresses and never scratches, that accompanies and doesn't irritate.

It's a nice backdrop of an eighties giant and a good subsequent singer-songwriter. Pleasant stuff.

Today I believe that's already a lot.