coolermaster

The song of the Portuguese girl is perhaps the song with which I reconciled and rediscovered Guccini, a singer-songwriter I have always affectionately hated... That Moog intro and the hoarse, heavy voice "and then, and thennnnnnnn..." made me exclaim "miracle" in an era when I was searching for other missing pieces in the history of Italian song...
Radici is certainly a great testament of authorship and, in some instances, very progressive...

Baglioni wrote "this little great love" which (like it or not) is the supplementary textbook (along with Emozioni, umanamente uomo by Battisti) of the new Italian "canzonetta"... Aside from the title track of the following album, the other songs are really beautiful and some even winked at certain embryonic Progressive... When talking about songs sung, loved, lived by millions of young people for at least 2 generations, one cannot overlook "Signora Lia," "Questo piccolo grande amore," "E tu," "Amore bello," "Sabato pomeriggio," and "Io me ne andrei".... Emotions are not necessarily intellectual, and those of millions of young girls who dreamed and cried with his songs hold the same dignity as those felt by those who dreamed with Pink Floyd or King Crimson.... I'm sorry, but that's how it is.

The voice of the master was released during a disorienting and disoriented time in Italian music. The first private TV channels were changing Italian tastes and trends, and more and more music programs were winking at the UK’s new wave disco music free jazz punk, while in Italy the enormous burden of the past decade had left a huge void, into which the "great singer-songwriters" were now being swallowed. Only Vasco was breaking down the clichés of the Italian pop song on the rock side, but the "new" bourgeois and socialists, who were now reminiscing about Vecchioni, De Gregori, Baglioni, Battisti (who were also caught up in a thousand musical uncertainties), were searching for a guide, a rudder that would reconcile criticism with the public. Battiato arrived just in time… Battiato, whom no one cared about in the '70s, suddenly emerged with the first great example of "self-marketing" in the history of Italian song. An album that combined New Wave (so denied in the lyrics) with "dream Pop," which managed to unite Germany and the Arab world… creating a musical Koinè that brought together the young man who did not identify with Vasco’s highs or with the "happiness" of Albano & Romina… A disc that was either feigned intellectual or feigned commercial, depending on the perspective from which it was viewed; in reality, it was a masterpiece of cunning in an era where a little phrase in Arabic framed by a drunken Wagner making love to Klaus Schulze could make people cry "miracle"... forgetting that a decade earlier another Arabic phrase had been the prelude to the fierce destruction of rock and jazz canons by the International Popular Group par excellence: gli Area!
An album that made history: essential, beyond its artistic value…

"He now lives in the third ray, where he has learned not to ask questions like: do you happen to know a girl from Rome, whose face reminds one of the collapse of a dam..." (Atlantis)
One of the most beautiful Italian songs is the one that made me "make peace" once and for all with De Gregori, whom I had only listened to casually and had never impressed me much... Only the best Dylan or Cohen could use such a beautiful metaphor for this extraordinary song...
The second "masterpiece" of Francesco (who they say is also an extraordinary person in real life) is "Il cuoco di Salò"... in the sense that when political commitment (he too was on the left) doesn’t descend into crude dullness... A man, a singer-songwriter among the most intelligent in Italian music... A thousand lengths superior to De André...
Let’s not wait for him to die please (as always happens... see Gaber) before celebrating his career... and greatness!

Listen to "lo stambecco ferito" by Venditti, one of the most beautiful metaphors and genuinely angry and unsettling songs by Antonello... just like the generational anthem of "compagno di scuola"... a song that has managed to cross decades like few others... Venditti's peak was Cuore! After that, nothing... I'm sorry... but "Stella," "notte prima degli esami," "Piero e Cinzia" are myths, especially for my generation :-)) And I'm telling you this as someone from Milan... so let’s stop trying to "Romanize" Antonello at all costs....
As for whether in life he is "a piece of shit"... I don’t know, I’ve never met him, never had an Happy Hour with him (did any of you, by chance?) he’s certainly not more of a piece of shit than a Battiato, with his embarrassing arrogance, or a Baglioni who (my ex met him) is truly a son of a bitch behind the stage! I judge the artist, not the man....
PS Nor was Wagner a saint....

I believe that the big absentees, or rather two, are ALESSANDRA and OPERA PRIMA, perhaps the best from Pooh: then as Dave Gilmour says (if only I were the real one!! :-)) Tropico del Nord among the "modern" Poohs, and I would also include "Poohlover" and "rotolando respirando"... and to be generous "Forse è ancora poesia"...
To those who criticize and comment using foul language and insults, I suggest moving to other sites like "bastardi dentro," "W la parolaccia e/o la bestemmia"... and THAT'S IT!! You’ve broken my balls... but aren’t there MODS in here? No, I mean the MODS (not moderators, but modernists) who, as was done in England in '66, would bash your heads in with a wrench?
What does Zappa have to do with the Pooh??
What does John Martin have to do with John Lennon?
What does Rick Wakeman have to do with Rick Astley?
What does Klaus Schulze have to do with Klaus Barbie??
Here’s your evening assignment... find the differences, connect the dots, then get high (I hope it’s an overdose) and go die far away in a railway tunnel, covered in newspapers like Venditti's Lilly, so you won’t even disturb passersby. Thank you.

@BEATBOY
Hi, beautiful review, congratulations! I would add the underrated (to put it mildly) MEMORIE from 1969 to the early period of the Pooh. It's a transitional album where the original Beat made way for baroque symphonism (even though some flashes of old beat reappear in the stunning Mary Ann, for me one of the Pooh's little gems) that would later lead to the transformation with the subsequent "Opera PRima," which marks the Year Zero of the Pooh that everyone knows... but Memorie, with the aforementioned Mary Ann, the last biting Waterloo 70, the sweet "Fata della Luna," and the nihilistic "Addio in febbraio" and "Solo Nel Mondo" are truly touching and sincere...
I’d say it's time to reevaluate a group like the Pooh, the only Beat group that has been around since 1965 and is vying for the title with the Rolling Stones... A band that has gone through trends, musical styles, emotions, and has gathered four generations of young people... Like with the greats, I hope that one day Riccardo Fogli can return and that they make another great album together... I don't know, maybe an Opera Seconda :-)))

I discovered Pooh many years ago thanks to my mother: one day she simply told me to listen to "Alessandra" and "Parsifal"... I almost laughed in her face, and with some effort, I replied, "You know, Mom, I like progressive rock, E.L.P., Pink Floyd, King Crimson... that kind of stuff, you know"... She simply responded, "Exactly for that reason"... I thought my mother (who, by the way, is young) was losing her mind... but then I remembered that back then (she was 20 and I was a child) she listened to "Great Music", great Rock... including progressive, but also a lot of Italian music... Anyway, the fact is that the next day I went into my local record store and under the Pooh section, I immediately noticed the mentioned "Alessandra" and "Parsifal"... then my eyes scanned a somewhat enigmatic cover depicting an angel, like those painted by Raphael... it said "Opera Prima" as the title and I quickly read "Pensiero" and "Tanta Voglia di Lei"... the only Pooh songs I knew, which I associated with all the Italian garbage like "Ricchi e Poveri" and their ilk... Ah yes, the prejudices born especially in that era (the '70s) were hard to die. I decided to buy all three... well, I told myself, after all, "Tanta Voglia di Lei" is a classic, you have to have it... and then let's hear this Parsifal that Mom raved about...
Well, perhaps it was one of those discoveries that disturbed me the most and led me to a series of reflections that I still hold as a Totem today: never base judgment on common sentiment...
Parsifal is a Prog Rock album... and what Prog!!! It’s as if the Moody Blues had met Genesis: the title track is stunning, along with the opener "L'anno, il posto, l'ora".....
But at the risk of going OT, for me the real masterpiece is "Alessandra", which contains one of the pearls of Italian music of all time, "Noi 2 nel mondo e nell'anima", with that Moog weaving baroque arabesques and Stefano D'Orazio, just arrived, showing undeniable stage presence... Who said he’s not a good drummer? He’s good at doing what he has to do... the Pooh are not Steely Dan or Weather Report, come on... let’s stop with absurd comparisons... Better than Franz Di Cioccio, an old friend of my father's who used to destroy drum kits left and right...
For me, "Parsifal" and "Alessandra" are the pinnacle of Pooh, even though driven by curiosity towards this underrated group, I could also appreciate "Poohlover" and "Rotolando Respirando," with that damn seventies sound that I adore....

A fascist (at least a true fascist) would never have sung "Il mio canto libero," "Emozioni," "Le 3 verità," and I could go on... he would never have dared to sing even about marginalization and discomfort, even though some themes (ecology, rural life) belonged to a certain non-parliamentary "right" and were not necessarily politicized. In the 1980s, I was a "fascist" (albeit not dogmatic) and I (re)discovered Italian music (which I had hardly ever listened to) with Battisti... What I don’t understand is the point. Was Battisti right-wing? So what? Some placed De André on the extreme right, worse than Battisti, others in anarchy, and others still in communism, which did just as much harm as fascism... Art should not be political! Art for Art's Sake was said centuries ago... INCL is one of the cornerstones of Italian music, along with a few others... I think of a couple more Battisti, a couple of De Gregori, and someone from Vasco... No, I'm sorry, I can’t stand De André... musically, up until Creuza De Ma', by the way, from former PFM Mauro Pagani, he did nothing but steal music from Brassens, Dylan, Simon & Garfunkel, and Leonard Cohen... and if you allow me, all the mentioned were a tad better :-)) As for the lyrics, let’s not even go there... "if someone wants to be disturbed by 'the north winds that lift skirts,' by 'smiling dead fishermen,' or 'by whores who stirred the anger of local gossips,' let them do it... I prefer the aesthetics of Mogol's verses, accompanied by the sublime notes and the 'ungainly,' 'hoarse,' and terribly 'unrefined' voice of Lucio Battisti... To each his own...

You really are an incredible, immeasurable idiot. The serious problem is that Italy is mostly made up of idiots like you... Go back to listening to that garbage from CSI and stop bothering me.