Fabio Concato
Blu

Blu. Or rather, "a white dot amidst all the blue." Fabio Concato, after placing a full stop (...) on the first part of his career with Scomporre e ricomporre, returned in 1996 with a new album of original songs, with a short and simple title. The lead single will be the one that explains the cover, where a child dreams of a ship taking him away. It's beautiful, but not as much as the next one, a song destined to become a Fabio evergreen: "O bella bionda" is truly a delight, it doesn't tire even on the twentieth listen. It must be said that this is the first Fabio album experienced by the writer. I was 9 in the first part of '97, and singing in my mind "sei così bella com'è bella la vita/ per me che sono così innamorato" I would approach the corridor mirror imagining I was an actor in a TV show, and on "innamorato" the image would freeze and my name would appear in a text overlay! 25 years later, Fabio opens concerts with this song, and finally five years ago I realized that Italian has the adjective "invornito"... When the song was released, I sang "così felice e positivo non mi hai visto mai"! "Ciao amore" is a jibe at military life, a great song, it must be said, in which the soldier writes to his beloved, first saying that everything is fine, but in the end revealing the bitterness and disappointment of the naja, including the classic scene where a soldier is locked in a locker and made to sing: "Chiuso dentro un armadietto/ mi han detto canta/ cosa vuoi che sia/ non so se ridere/ o se disperarmi/ in questa parodia/ Ciao amore/ non lo so a cosa serve/ è solo un po' della mia vita che si perde." Great song, an outsider discovered only a few years ago. The fourth track is the only one remembered in collective memory alongside the second song: "Bell'Italia" is a portrait perfectly aligned with the times, among paradoxical climate changes (it's raining in Catania and snowing on the Sila) and references to corruption (Tangentopoli) and bigotry ("così il sesso è un peccato/ quando il cuore non è impegnato"). Having lived through this album, I associate this song with the show "Complotto di famiglia" hosted by Alberto Castagna (who had a mustache like Fabio, maybe that's why!) when he sings about the "matrimonio riparatore." How songs become inseparably tied to our lives. "Angiolina" is a romantic episode, but it essentially acts as filler; at least, it doesn't say much to the writer. "Un fiore e una stella" I already like better, it's more heartfelt, in both senses, between sentiment and introspection. "Solo" is dedicated to the process of creating a song, dealing with a "Japanese monster", but in the end, it's not important to understand, it's already a joy just to sing... "Invece ciccia" uses more colloquial expressions like the title and "sola", understood as a "scam". Fabio leaves his beloved and tells her, calling her "stellina," that it's better she remains alone. "Solo una carezza" sees the return of both Nina from "Sexy tango" and the "valzerone" present in the 1990 album. A good track, easy to listen to. The work is concluded by the brief but intense "E a quanti amori", a poem in which the invention of love is revealed in the finale, valid for who knows "for how many loves yet". Concato has revived it in a beautiful and clear acoustic version, first in the "Mp3xte" project of 2013 to save trees, then in his latest album released in 2021, the collection "Musico ambulante".

Blu maintains on distinct levels, however, having something less than the previous ones. It was the first record done solely with Mercury, without Polygram, and the first album arranged with Flavio Premoli from PFM and featuring the guitars of Phil Palmer, famous for performing the solo in "Con il nastro rosa". Rating: 3.5 stars.