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Rating: In short, “it’s pop music.” You said it well. “It’s not second-rate music.”
In short, with great fanfare, the second volume of “Duets”, “Duets Forever”, has been released, where partisan idols and real idols meet. The big names of Italian songs, from Patty Pravo to the X (Factor) Generation, pay tribute to the Bolognese vocalist. Sixteen collaborations true to the line. Loyal to the originals, respectful. As punctual as Swiss Emmental.
Cristina's voice isn’t exactly hoarse, but the weight of the years is felt, though the class that distinguished her is not lacking. The mischievous greenness of the beginnings is lacking (see “Pi-no and then winks the eye…”, see “Oh-oh-oh cat’s eyes”; in short, it’s evident. It’s obvious!). However, self-awareness grows: “I am a woman with all her responsibilities. I am a princess, also quite tough, with a soul tied to childhood”.
Musically, her authors, Alessandra Valeri Manera (lyricist and Mediaset counselor) and Ninni Carucci (composer until 1995), didn’t survive the ‘80s but simply exploited it.
I’m a bit upset with you, Cri Cri. You monopolized the cartoon theme song sector, where in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s we had a variety of exceptional interpreters and groups: Georgia Lepore (Geo, I have loved you uninterruptedly since Conan!), the Micronauti/Condors, the Re’s Knights, the Rocking Horse/Superobots/Megalosingers/Superband/Sarah & Co./I Drago, Actarus (Alberto Tadini), La Banda dei Bucanieri by Vince Tempera (with Alberto Tadini and Paola Orlandi), Roberto Fogu (Jeeg, steel robot), Katia Svizzero, Alessandra Maldifassi (Pat, the baseball girl!), Irene Vioni (Lupin. Accordion), as well as Nico Fidenco and Oliver Onions!
Sure, sure! You’ve made some theme songs, eh? And really beautiful ones too! The imaginative Piccolo Pinocchio, the psychedelic Nana Supergirl, the delightful The Enchanting Creamy and the magical Magica, magica Emi. Even the romantic anxiety of Mila and Shiro, two hearts of volleyball and the sexy cries of Cat’s Eyes. But, mainly due to your author, over a long time, you delivered one-dimensional theme songs. The decline became apparent approaching the ’90s. Ok, Here’s How We Are - Exploring the Human Body. Ok, (Kiss Me) Licia Persona. Yes. You gave Licia a human face. Then you narrated your life in the sitcom "Arriva Cristina". Your dream of becoming a doctor, studying, interning by playing doctor. Ok!
Everything is beautiful in the world of kinders and cereals. Beautiful for your father, Fiocco. And you are energy. Like the miraculous cereal you are named after.
There’s a note. The songs, upon listening today, are heavily littered with phallic symbols. The Smurfs are the little blue men most endowed with the least apparent and most indecent virtue. Then in the whole village there is only one Smurfette. Must you have wondered? Are they all children of Smurfedom? Denver “has glasses and a big nose above”. A blatant reference to the stylized form of the male sexual organ. Alvin “sweater the color of a pepper” casually anagrams the words “pene, mona, glycerol, moreover, the aulic decasyllable “pigs in honor twin penis”! Daddy Long-Legs? Let’s leave this obscene allusion alone. But, come on! Doraemon “goes up with his bamboo copter”?! “Fly my Mini Pony, how many adventures you will have. Stallion’s mimicry! Praise of promiscuity and phallocentrism (also typical of Mediaset’s middle thought). But who are you trying... to fool? “Mentula moechatur”! Catullus, Manera has it tattooed. On the coin purse. Yes, yes. But come on! Wow, by golly, what the heck! In cartoons? No.
Apart from these style flaws, there’s a heritage of little songs. But why retouch them? Why throw pearls to (one’s own) swine? The restoration operation wasn’t particularly successful. The nostalgia operation partly.
Cristina and Alessandra gathered around them (and for themselves) a real Hegelian band. All the big names. Big shots like Pezzali. There’s not (Pino) Silvestre, okay. But everyone who is there (or pretends to be) beautifully puts their forehead on it. In a zoomorphic album in some respects. Here’s who, here’s how.
Singing is a dirty job for Il Volo. Never as much as washing your underwear.
Nek the necrophiliac flirts with Cristina. Quite openly. With a faint hand. Or rather, dead.
Second scene. Othello finds Desdemona’s handkerchief. Third scene. Cassio finds the Kleenex handkerchief. Fourth scene. Onan doesn't find the handkerchief. These are the figures of Lo Stato Sociale wandering around the recording studio.
Blood cannot be squeezed from a turnip. Yet The Kolors were also invited.
Le Vibrazioni oscillate mechanically around a point of balance.
On paper, the apotheosis is Federica Carta.
Elisa does the (differentiated) collection.
Alessandra Amoroso, known as Trottolino, absolutely wanted to be there. Or not to be there. That is the question.
One cannot get comfortable on a Turkish toilet. On Elodie Cri’s voice was laid.
Dolcenera? Great. Despite the gonorrhea.
Malika Ayane stands out for her velvet-like vocals (of leek and potato). Academy stuff! Patty Pravo is anthology material. An anthology like this. Precisely.
Moro does not flaunt his worn vocal cords this time. In the recording studio, during the first and last take, he just gets his tonsils cut.
The plump and grayed Max Pezzali enlightens us humbly, with his main teaching (the rule of the friend in good standing): he who finds a friend finds a testosterone.
The voice of Carmen Consoli trembles. It evaporates as it seems to tell you “boiled carrots, today.” Then it sizzles. Because it seems to tell you buttery words.
Shade drops like a pillowcase on the pillow. Only, we’re at the food and wine counter. So the album closes well. Like the roast-beef’s bottom.
Cristina, is this what we are? Don’t ask us who we are. What we want. You’re so cute! Fatal, isn’t it, the breadstick? Ok, you didn't invite the Residents, nor David Thomas. Were you waiting for Tommaso? The Macca feared the humiliation of a close comparison. This album, like the 2017 “Duets”, is beautiful because you’re in it, weighted down but you. The album is a lot of stuff. Just a little trash. Nonetheless, it originates from a brilliant idea: driving from Milan to Brianza. By car.
And your audience, although diverse, always appreciates it unanimously. You know it: “My audience is particular. I have grandparents who have followed me since I was three years old, then there are the very young ones who are more curious. Then there are the thirty and forty-year-olds who have always known me and have watched me grow. When I wear some special dress, they tell me all sorts of things. I enjoy it up to a certain point. When they go beyond I scold them. But in the end, it’s a game. And then I have to say that a compliment to a woman is always pleasurable”.
“Duets Forever” is, ultimately, a moment of mutilation, a makeshift “The Italian Metaphysical Circus”, a supposed “The Great Pop’n’Roll Swindle”. But an hour of cartoon theme songs is worth a lot in this world! It's a stand against prejudice, against hate. Partly against the idolatry of the market. Towards the utopian ideal of a world without inequalities, without misery, without hunger, without stupidity. Possible because“The crystals of love are always three”.
Moonbeam that lights up the night
Then where do you go?
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