Francesco Baccini
Nudo

It is said that comedians know how to make people cry like no other actor can, it is said that it is much more difficult to make someone smile or laugh than to sadden and make them cry. Yes, all right, but that's cinema, that's theater. In music, however, it is said that making good records is more difficult than making crappy records: no pleasantries, no punchy phrases, no beating around the bush, no frills.

But what happens when music lands in theatricality? What is it? Music or acting?

We're in 1993, and Francesco Baccini is a thirty-something Ligurian who has managed to gain applause from critics (Tenco award for his debut) and affection (and money) from the masses. After the successes of "Il Pianoforte Non È Il Mio Forte" and especially "Nomi E Cognomi," he has by now proven to be a valid chansonnettier of the end of the first republic, capable, in the span of a four-minute song, of desecrating and then reconciling (or vice versa) with everything and everyone: are the women of Modena, Padova, etc., wonderful? Yet I'm unlucky with all of them, and from all cities. Do I find it stupid to keep blaming Andreotti for every evil of the peninsula? Then why, in the end, do I act like I want to strangle him with my hands? With this beautiful sun, wouldn't it be nice to go for a nice bike ride? Yes, but it would make you sweat...

Like everything that is the first republic, "it sucks but I like it, I don't agree with it but I subscribe to it, I don't subscribe to it but I agree with it, I like it but it sucks"... And again "I disagree but I defend it, I love it even if it doesn't correspond to me, I correspond to it even if it doesn't love me, I vote for it even if it ignores me, I don't vote for it because it takes an interest in me"...

There is nothing to understand about Baccini Francesco, and that's the beauty of it. The formula could repeat itself indefinitely, and the true face of this parody of a singer might never have revealed itself. Yet in 1993 Baccini changes register: in "Nudo" his quintessence as an average loser surfaces (today he would say "fra-gi-le"), and he fully exposes his true identity, that thing he probably always feared to expose, and that perhaps, if all that success hadn't come, he might never have had the courage to put into rhyme.

Listening to a track like the single "Ho Voglia D'Innamorarmi" is disorienting for how melancholic and somber this clown has become, in his apparent calm of a shabby and solitary daily life. The artistic and especially thematic evolution seems physiological, after all the past irony, but there is also a trace of an "inevitable" process of maturation: this is evident in tracks like "Portugal", in which he is on the trail of the maestro DeAndré (with whom he had already duetted), or again in the excellent "Mauro E Cinzia", where he proves (or can prove) to be up to the best national songwriting, with one of those typical local snapshots of everyday adolescent despair, where dying is almost better than riding around on a Vespa Special.

Unfortunately, he completely falters when, in an attempt to be taken seriously, he chooses to go beyond the existential theme, opting for something too big for him: "Rifacciamo Il Muro Di Berlino", despite his father having been deported to Auschwitz in his time, is a song that sucks in both music and lyrics (only the bells in the initial verses are saved), and the final "Wheels In Motion", with the terrifying spoken English intro, I believe by his neighbor given the pronunciation, is a sort of half "We Are The World", suitable for Canale 5 when they make Christmas greetings with a roundup of their famous characters.

He succeeds again by revisiting/teasing the 1960s (he was the one who re-sang "Ma qua qua qua quando t'innamorerai di me..."), this time proposing "Lei Sta Con Te" (sung by Gino Paoli, and if I'm not mistaken, a 1960s cover/theft of a Connie Francis song), this time marinated in a reggae rhythm. After all, he is like that: you never know if he is joking, if he is teasing with the songs, or not: maybe he enjoys mocking those neat-and-tidy songs, and mocking you who are enjoying them again decades later...

There remains the passable pop-rock of the title track and a handful of pieces in Baccini-style piano. A waltz for "Venticinque Dicembre" in which he is sadly aware that Christmas is a holiday, and after the holiday, each one goes back to their usual life; a waltz for "Mani Di Forbice", initially somewhat medieval, and which thus becomes American gothic as Burton would like it; a waltz for "Non Solo A Roma", in which Baccini is as always, desecrating the capital and then declaring himself lovingly smitten... Beautiful and unconventional "Il Superpentito", a track born standard but veered towards the dark, and the evocative two minutes of "E La Sera Scende Giù", among the cries of children who, in the summer, when the sun is slow to set, have forgotten that it's already time to go home and have dinner.

Despite this work being full of imperfections and naivety, "Nudo" contains several good songs and some beautiful, melancholy, and painfully smiling atmospheres... Naive feelings, indeed, and not very deep, but perhaps this is a good thing because it serves to convey the genuineness of true urgencies, not to be confused with the poses of a "melodic singer-songwriter of caliber." The audience did not appreciate it as much as the previous records; they liked the singles but did not understand the album, nor the eponymous book, published by Bompiani.

As if to say: people loved him because he made them laugh. After all, all clowns have a tear painted under their eye.