Francesco De Gregori
Per brevità chiamato artista

Closes, for now, what I define as the "quadrilogy of honesty".

"Love in the Afternoon", "Pieces", "Calypsos", and this latest one, in fact, are albums by a gigantic singer-songwriter, one whom Faber himself described as "the university," humbly describing himself as "the high school"...: probably an "excess of compliment," but undoubtedly we are in the presence of one of the few great survivors of the best Italian song, that singer-songwriter style that has managed to mix external influences (particularly the usual Cohen and Dylan) with our tradition. These survivors, whom I struggle to identify beyond Battiato, Conte, Fossati, Guccini, and De Gregori himself (with a second-line mention for Vecchioni), scrape by more or less well, churning out albums, truly increasingly rarely, often identical to themselves, monuments to their own "past self" with little or nothing original inside.

But the criterion of originality, now, as the criterion of utility for some time now, is ontologically wrong to define "art," especially in the musical field. Today the market sells masses plagiarized and soulless music, making totally uncritical teenagers believe that pimpled, eunuch-warbled youngsters are geniuses, only to make them disappear after two months, replacing them with new pimpled, eunuch-warbled ones, obviously a bit more genius than the previous ones.

Very rare, and moreover unknown to us, are the truly valuable signatures, especially American. Amen: let's look at what we have, and think about it a bit.

In this case, we are dealing with a singer-songwriter who was gigantic and who today keeps his name alive and vibrant with a record-concert activity that is frenetic, to say the least, especially when compared to that of his peers. He is famous for releasing too many "live" albums, in my opinion, none of which are truly useless but all contain something interesting, and today, for recording and releasing songs that are very similar to each other, written excellently, in perfect style (and how could it be otherwise...?), a true monument to honesty.

Yes, because the honesty of a singer-songwriter today, having survived others and himself, is inevitably about repeating oneself at best, about still saying something. Especially about wanting and being able to say it.

In this latest chapter of the quadrilogy, De Gregori opens with the "title-track" that sounds like an unreleased track from the golden years (his..."Rimmel"...or Leonard Cohen's, listen to the backing vocals...) and then continues with a very Dylan-esque "swing blues," certainly adorned with one of the best lyrics of the album.

Then there are a couple of ballads very much "in the style of De Gregori", the single "Celebration", another excellent lyric centered on a past environment for which the protagonist has no regret or nostalgia, a reggae experiment ("Human Flesh for Breakfast") many years after "Dr. Dobermann," and two piano ballads: the first "Volavola" returns to the love shown many times for traditional harmonies, post-war, Alpine... some kind of choir feel, in short (seems like a sort of brilliant "fake original"), and the final "Infinity", definitely splendid in having absolutely nothing particularly original.

There is room, in between, for a cover, translated by the very talented and semi-unknown brother Luigi Grechi, which, as a whole, seems like a finished and completed Francesco song.

All for a truly beautifully short time span (how toothachingly baroque are the "forced" 78-minute albums...?). An album of today and simultaneously "from another time", with the flavor of an affectionate and delicate autobiography, with nothing self-praising.

A timeless album.