Eros Ramazzotti
Dove c'è musica

You, dear Debaserians, are looking at a courageous man—actually, no, a reviewer with no fear of danger, a man who could throw himself off the roof of Niagara Falls and still find it less thrilling than what he is about to do. You, friends (?) of Debaser, are looking at a man who is about to write a review starring Eros Ramazzotti, and he’s doing it here, on this very site, and, as if that weren't enough bravery, he’s even going to speak well of him. You realize, apart from the insults I’ve already budgeted for, we are truly facing something extraordinarily exceptional here—so much so that rafting pales in comparison, just child’s play.

"Dove c’è musica", 1996. Two million copies sold. No but really, thinking about it, why am I even telling you this? You all know it. I mean, who doesn’t know "Più bella cosa"; "Stella gemella"; "L’aurora"; "Lei però"; and the title track? Out of 12 songs, at least half became so famous that even my dear late grandma, who was forever stuck on Nilla Pizzi and Gino Latilla, would hum along. So there you have it, if something is terrible, it’s terrible—this poor reviewer can’t expect to convince all of you otherwise. And, to be honest, I’m not even that crazy about Ramazzotti, but I listen to everything, without prejudice (except for this one guy I just can’t stand), and honestly I do like at least two or three Ramazzotti albums—this one, the one before, and "In ogni senso". He really hit it big, and I mean really big, in the ‘90s when I was a young kid, back when, in junior high, if you didn’t know "Com'è cominciata io non saprei..." you’d end up on the fringes of the group. I swear, back then that opening line was more famous than the one from the Divine Comedy. And really, how sweet is this: at the time, Eros wrote a song for his beloved Michelle (they were on every national and international tabloid) and told her that she was the most beautiful thing. Thing, you get it? Today, they’d shoot him for that.

Besides, this little record had never even been reviewed on the site before—maybe out of modesty, or for fear of being ridiculed, no one had ever dared. Do you want to know how the album sounds? It sounds just as it should—a good pop record with an eye to the international market, and in fact it sold tons abroad too. There’s nothing to be ashamed of in writing yet another song for yet another daughter of yet another celebrity who’s just become yet another father. Ever since Stevie Wonder (and even before), everyone has felt the urge to tell us how amazing it is to become a parent: do you want to shoot poor Eros? Let it be "L’aurora" then. But, is this better or is "Avrai"? ("Isn't she lovely" goes without saying, it’s out of competition.) Do you really want me to say that writing a song called "L’uragano Meri" (because he calls her Meri, like the names they give hurricanes—Jessica, Samantha, usually all names that sound like Brazilian trans women) is, today, cringe? Yes, it is, but it was 1996—come on, let’s have a little human understanding.

Even though, every now and then, like in the title track, he comes up with lines like "Hanno buttato giù l'Odeon, e ci faranno un discount" ("They’ve torn down the Odeon, and they’ll put up a supermarket") and you start thinking about the troubles of today’s Milan city council, with its investigatees and bribe-takers, teetering over to San Vittore one foot and then the other, constantly demolishing to build 120-story skyscrapers and new palaces. And then you think that right in the center, until ten years ago, there was a beautiful cinema, and now there’s an Apple Store—and damn, Ramazzotti was right too, let’s give him that ("Un altro sogno che uccidono, un’altra volgarità"—"Another dream they kill, another vulgarity").

Oh, for real, "Stella gemella"’s video was directed by Giuseppe Tornatore. But the next year Roman Polanski directed the one for Vasco Rossi’s "Gli angeli", so I’ll keep quiet, better that way. Still, Eros spent three years writing this record, and who knows if he spent as much on "Lettera al futuro". Haven’t heard of it? It’s the one about a prince who locks himself up in a castle because the world outside is wrapped up in a mysterious and deadly illness, until that illness comes into the castle where that idiot prince thought he was safe (seriously, at least close the windows), and he writes a letter to a little girl who isn’t born yet, hoping for a new Humanity. And then, just for good measure, at the end, he wishes us "Buona vita".

And so, while he pedals away happily on his bicycle in some kind of unknown desert (but doesn’t he live in Brianza?), I’ll keep listening to this record, while you, lucky you, will keep hating him and his voice. Yes, because you don’t know what it means to have chronic sinusitis—we’ll talk about that in due time.