@primiballi. I only said that if we think of Vasco as the one who voiced the youth's discomfort, or as the figure of the "young rebel," we are in a bad place. In the rest of the world, musical currents in this sense have been enormous. Just think that in the 80s heavy metal was booming everywhere, influencing the ENTIRE world except for Italy. That in ITALY Vasco was the first to capitalize on this image to break through is another matter. He did it, but within certain limits. The serious issue is that Vasco is often regarded as a rock or heavy metal musician, and just the thought of it terrifies me. I'm not a metal fanatic, but, for the sake of truth, things need to be said clearly. When I think of youth rebellion in the 80s, I think of the Metallica from Kill 'em All, not Vasco, and placing Metallica on the same level as Vasco just makes me laugh in frustration. What do I want to say? That what we take for gold here in Italy, when compared to what has happened in the rest of the world, is most often crap, only that it is sold to us as the non-plus-ultra and we buy it. It's the same thing that happens when they tell us that Mondo Marcio is a valid representative of Italian hip-hop or that Afterhours or Verdena do grunge. It's something I can't stand. Also, the fact are there are thousands of metal, hip-hop, grunge representatives, and more in Italy, all relegated to the underground, crushed by these simpletons who, more than musicians, seem like certified businessmen, whores of the music industry, with a keen nose for business and zero for music. It should also be noted that this situation is encouraged by the Italians themselves, who are an ignorant people when it comes to music, and I say this with great bitterness. They like the star, not the music. New bands struggle to make a name for themselves because it doesn't matter what kind of music they propose, nor if they are good musicians: people start to notice you only after you've been on MTV; before that, you're nobody. The Italian public's critical sense in music is absent: they don't judge a musician based on their musical skills, but only on their image and fame. If you've been on TV, it means you're good, even if your music actually sucks; otherwise, who the hell knows you?... Music is just a pretext to be in the spotlight, and it can't be any other way, because otherwise I can't explain the success of certain musical abominations that are currently popular. And Vasco, I'm sorry to say, embodies this logic 100%. Vasco represents the failure of rock in Italy. In another context, he would have been crushed by surely more valid artists; in Italy, however, a country where even "Led Zeppelin" is an unknown name to most, where Cobain is "the guy who got high and then shot himself," where people believe that "The Wall" by Pink Floyd talks about the Berlin Wall, where "Smoke On The Water" can't even be pronounced correctly, is liked because radio and TV said it is. He is a fake icon built on nothing, who appropriated a symbolism and a new language for Italy at the time and adapted it to the delicate ears of the average Italian used to decades of Sanremo. In short, to keep it brief, I'm just saying that Vasco can be innovative and original only for those who have never even heard of rock, that is, in Italy, millions of people. These things only make one seriously think about how we are still small, ignorant, and narrow-minded, and how the market logic here is, to the detriment of art, extremely more limiting than it is in other countries. I hope my thoughts are now clear.
