analoguesound

Well, you won't even hear the records from which he copied XD

Great review, unfortunately, I arrived too late to comment on the stargazer review.. I mean, more than commenting.. What a wonder this album is.. a comment would be superfluous.

PS to the PS: Battisti didn't copy the trends from across the Channel; he sensed that there was something new over there and pushed to bring Italian musical culture towards those horizons that made many of his fans turn up their noses (just think of Amore E Non Amore, Anima Latina, Don Giovanni, and L'Apparenza). I mean, oh my God, I can't help but laugh when I think that Anima Latina was number one on the charts for thirteen consecutive weeks. Who do we have on the charts today? Vasco, Giggi, and Liga. Yuhu. I LOVE ITALI.

For many fascists, I swear, the mere fact that Lucio said "flame" proves a connection to the Fiamma Tricolore, MSI. Well. It is clear in the context that the flame, that of love, is now extinguished, as the history of the song says. So what is this? An anthem to right-wing ideology (but which ideology? Oh yes, the Madonna of the club..) or a clear resignation?
ps to coolermaster, regarding Vasco Rossi. Even if they were to keep that illiterate alive with machines for another century, he wouldn’t even begin to measure up to the smallest toenail of Lucio Battisti, for one simple reason: Vasco Rossi is someone who fills stadiums with ignorant people who don’t even remotely know what music is (because if they did, believe me, they wouldn’t be listening to Vasco Rossi), Lucio Battisti is a highly respected musician, as well as a pioneer of Italian Pop, despite all his artistic limitations, and he produced in five years (1971-1975) a repertoire that I would define immortal in the history of music, at the pace of two albums a year. Two albums a year of historic songs, not dead chatter!
If that’s not enough, let’s remember that unlike Rossi, Battisti understood music, and too well, believe me. He was an innovator; consider that he sniffed out the new trends from across the sea and anticipated them markedly in Italy, where, thanks to "great artists" such as Vasco Rossi, Ligabue, and Gigi d'Alessio, true musical culture, true musical ethics, are still too far away.
Vasco Rossi plays with the Maremma Wolf, there’s that idiot with the Hammond C3 from the Second Genesis, Alberto Rocchetti I think his name is, apart from everything, he was a terrible organist back in the days of Second Genesis and still is, and then there’s that obese American drummer who plays better than my grandmother. A true abortion of an instrumentalist. Battisti, on the other hand, surrounded himself with people who could actually play. Real musicians: Lavezzi, Radius, Baldan Bembo, Pascoli, Di Cioccio, Reverberi, Prudente, Callero, Dall'Aglio, Tempera, Lorenzi, Guglielminetti, Dede Lo Previte, Esposito, Tavolazzi, Potter, Graziani, Calloni... do I need to go on?

I preface this by saying that I speak as a communist sympathizer, but also as a militant with regard to communist ideals. I am deeply convinced that the right has always been too arid, crude, retrograde, and obtuse a ground to produce art in all its forms. And the history of music would also seem to confirm this. If not for some half-baked little tune so dear to the Sanremo music festival, and that's it. I will try to examine this matter on as realistic and arbitrary a level as possible, since I feel fairly disinterested at the moment.
Now, I think that if Battisti had been on the right, he would have been proud of it. Especially in the seventies, where being a right-wing militant (and from Lazio, no less) must have made much more sense. If Battisti had been on the left, he would have been proud of that too. Especially in the seventies, where being a left-wing militant must have made much more sense. The fact is that the poor guy didn’t know how to make it clear to people that he couldn’t care less about politics. Like every true Artist (note: true Artist, not the buzz), he had, above all, his own ideas, his way of living life, relating to other human beings, and viewing society. And then, as a good Artist, Lucio also had his head in the clouds. Lucio listened to music, ALL music. Always a keen discoverer of new trends, Lucio, as a good avant-garde artist, must have realized that simply being on the left meant being behind. IMAGINE being on the right; for him, it must have seriously meant being even further behind! Lucio was ahead, so far ahead that even Mogol couldn’t keep up with him in terms of ideas, which is why their partnership dissolved.
Now, I am absolutely convinced that both right-wing people trying to uplift the image of the right by hiding behind urban legends of Battisti as a "comrade," and left-wing extraparliamentarians who call him a fascist, not only know very little about music, but in my opinion haven’t even listened to a single Battisti album all the way through. Simply put, right-wing people must have been enchanted by some corridor gossip, having heard some ambiguous lines like "O mare nero... la fiamma è spenta o è accesa... planando tra boschi di braccia tese" and thus consider Battisti a priori as a myth. In the style of "don’t touch my comrade Battisti or there will be trouble."
I would like to ask everyone present (and even those absent), in strict logical terms: how can a Revolutionary, one who has subverted the form and conception of Italian song, be defined as "right-wing" aka "fascist" aka "conservative" aka "reactionary"? How can someone who sings about male fragility be a fascist? How can a comrade loudly declare, even if it's words put in his mouth by someone else (Mogol = fascist too?), phrases like "I dream of my country, finally dignified..."? How can a Northern League supporter iterate "I dream of not dreaming of New Zealand to escape from you, poisonous Brianza"? How can a fascist be enchanted by African cultures? How can a fascist produce masterpieces of tremendous irony like "Luci-ah" and "Il Nostro Caro Angelo," songs that have much to contest against the church and the well-meaning of the bigots? And then, don't even fascists prefer the company of a whore over that of the "people that count"? I don’t think so. They would have already slaughtered her, at the very least.
For those who see references to the rise of right-wing ideology in "La Canzone Del Sole," oh how sad, they haven’t realized that the "black sea" included in the context of a song shows how Lucio longs for a color that is more "clear and transparent," therefore we're either talking about an absolutely opportunist concept, or Lucio was, as is obvious, an anti-fascist. The same goes for the scene in which he pronounces "what remains at the bottom of your eyes? Is the flame extinguished or lit?" For many fascists, I swear, merely the fact that Lucio said "flame" proves a connection to the Tricolor Flame, MSI. Fine. It

Ah, sorry then, I thought so. However, I eagerly await your vote and your comment on the aforementioned album. Regards.

Well, I guess prog groups from the mainstream will always be better, we got it. The cheap ones, the ones you find compilations of even at Carrefour, Auchan, and Ipercoop. Long live PFM, Banco, and Orme. Groups that are obviously the blatant imitation of English prog, Genesis, King Crimson, Yes, ELP, and Gentle Giant. Just like all Italian prog, an imitation of the English one. All the other groups are even more derivative than these, and even less relevant, which is why they couldn't carve out a place for themselves. Barotto thinks more or less this way, a guy who is considered a great expert on progressive music for being a record collector and having written a book with photos of the Italian groups of the era. And this is also how everyone else thinks who "doesn't have the gift of Supreme Truth," which I call simply realistic criticism of a situation where the entire world knows and praises ONLY the most mainstream and popular groups, the ones that imposed themselves on the market because they had major labels behind them; the best, instead, still remains buried under the ashes. Until some jerk digs them out. But not for the niche (like specialized magazines and their bullshit). For the general public. Yeah, until the world knows only PFM, Banco, and Orme—good luck with that!

Thank you so much.. I just found out that someone likes my thoughts :D

OleEinar, have you heard the album? Since you didn't vote for it. Anyway, I feel entitled to leave a comment like this because I can say I've listened to and appreciated (long before the aforementioned album) the entire discography of the copycats of PFM, who may receive a vaguely "nice" critical response, but whose pinnacle - even - can't be compared in the slightest to a production like this. One-shoot like Il Paese Dei Balocchi vs. the tons of albums by PFM? Perfect. In just one album, the former has proposed much more original and engaging material than the latter have managed to produce. The same goes for Banco, a band with remarkable energy at least at the start, but which has always had a flaw unfortunately, too much mechanicality to create music with genuine spontaneity. Too much revenge against English bands. Le Orme made two cute pop albums (at the beginning), nothing too ambitious, and one great album, Felona e Sorona, to conclude, which would inevitably correspond to a medley of unmemorable songs that ends up demanding from the listener the forced listening of the entire work to be appreciated in its entirety: with the result that you listen to the album once, twice, or three times and then find it too heavy and too little engaging to listen to it again; a similar thing unfortunately happens when listening to the far more creative YS by Balletto di Bronzo. All this with the emphasis that Le Orme are known to be yet another Italian answer to Emerson Lake & Palmer. Biglietto Per L'inferno? A good album, certainly far from the Anglo-Saxon models that all of you consider absolutely necessary for any comparison, but which in my humble opinion is irrelevant. Not only that, but my humble opinion assumes that if instead of basing it on English prog you had laid the foundations on universal criteria of musical and artistic ethics, namely creativity, originality, spontaneity, flair, etc., you would certainly have a more balanced opinion not only of prog but of music in general. You could also say that bands like Locanda Delle Fate and Rovescio di "Contaminazione" were very technical groups and nothing more, that copied everything from everyone (including other Italians, including the obscure Paese Dei Balocchi in the case of the latter) and wrote silly lyrics, childish poetry along the lines of Peter Sinfield, and all this without having to be inexorably crucified by the emotional bond that keeps you clinging to them. Because if we cling to memories, we must admit that the value assigned to the album is purely emotional and not critical, and that "Contaminazione" is not the album of the century while "Il Paese Dei Balocchi" is a little turd.

Always open to debate. Ys is a very avant-garde work, I like it a lot, even though it can become monotonous over time. The Area are absolutely positive role models. Uomo Di Pezza is a nice album. Sure, it’s just a collection of songs, but it’s a nice album of songs. It’s well made. Luis Bacalov will always be the one from the soundtracks for me :) Nice for paloz, always open to the debate.