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Rating: I have here in my hands "Il Dizionario del Pop-Rock 2016" by Enzo Gentile and Alberto Tonti, Ligabue on the cover, preface by Gene Gnocchi. You may rightfully wonder, couldn't he review the 2023 version? Exactly, too bad it doesn't exist, and the 2016 version is the last, the last in a long series of updates, released in bookstores and online.
The work is substantial (1900 pages) and contains everything, from Pink Floyd to Renato Carosone, from Kraftwerk to Peppino Di Capri. And it would also be a well-curated dictionary if it weren't for the fact that the ratings seem random. A dictionary like this should require a minimum of professionalism (as was the case for the excellent "24.000 dischi" by Bertoncelli & Co., unfortunately halted in 2006, but that was truly a remarkable dictionary).
The two authors, Gentile and Tonti, assisted by other unknown contributors (Giordano Casiraghi, Ivo Franchi, Luca Garrò, Claudio Todesco), seem to love making a mockery of it. There would be many, too many examples, and I wouldn't want to write a review as eternal as it is boring, but some examples must be made. Dividing them into Italian and international music.
Italian music.
Our heroes really like De André (and that's fair) and give 5 stars to almost all of his albums (except "Vol. 8" and "Rimini"); and they love Battiato even more. And till here, everything's fine. It's just that they have the audacity to give the highest ratings to 4 Jovanotti albums ("L'albero", "Buon sangue", "Ora", "Lorenzo 2015") and, believe it or not, the highest possible to that half-baked "Mondovisione" by Ligabue. Not to mention that the best Pino Daniele would be the last one (3 stars to "Terra mia" and 5 to "Non calpestare i fiori nel deserto", madness); glorifying the Gaber of the last two studio albums (and the theater-song, magnificent, fundamental, is ignored); considering "Viva l'Italia" the best album of De Gregori (oh please) and devastating, terribly, the poor Lucio Battisti, who has earned 5 stars ("Emozioni", "Il mio canto libero") but all the white albums of the Panella period are shockingly rejected (1 star to "L'apparenza", 1 even to "Hegel"). Baustelle and Bennato are rejected too, in short, very good until 1977, then a disaster (but was "Sono solo canzonette", which is from 1980, really that bad?). Vasco gets the highest possible with the live "Rewind" (hmm); Mina is missing.
International music.
5 stars for all the Beatles (whom I love, but objectively not all of them are on the same level); the Rolling Stones, poor guys, only 3 albums deserve the highest ratings, and among these are neither "Sticky Fingers" nor "Exile on Main Street", but the anthology "Forty Licks" (what's the point?); Frank Sinatra towers, but they are all anthologies; there is a lot of Van Morrison, but it's curious how the Creedence Clearwater Revival do not even have a 5-star, the same fate for the Grateful Dead. Dylan's albums' ratings are extremely exaggerated (a full 15 albums with top ratings), the space left for hard-rock is minimal, which evidently does not appeal to the two authors, to the extent that both Deep Purple and Black Sabbath are treated with undeserved indifference. Let's conclude with two gems, obviously, there would be more but I'll stop here: Frank Zappa is considered a genius from 1966 until 1969, after which his albums are judged coldly and with few stars (I mean, after that there would be gems like "Joe's Garage" and "Sheik Yerbouti", both with a mere 3 stars); Eric Clapton not only doesn't have a single 5-star, but not even a 4-star, in short, trifles according to Gentile and Tonti.
Thank goodness they no longer updated it.
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