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Rating: Besides being close in release date, I consider both of these albums 'prehistoric,' not so much in the chronology of Italian music, but in Guccini's production. Once he leaves behind these approximately 20 tracks, sometimes a bit repetitive and not always very inspired, he will begin a period of masterpieces that is much longer, moreover, than those known by his colleagues. After these two works, which I combine, considering them almost complementary, the 'Maestrone' will hardly make any mistakes, from 'L'Isola non trovata' to 'Parnassius Guccinii'.
In the debut album, we find, with a bit of imagination, the theme divided into two parts: collective tragedy and individual tragedy. "Allegria!" (quote). Try indeed to put on one side 'Noi non ci saremo'; 'L'atomica cinese'; 'Auschwitz'; 'La ballata degli annegati' (collective tragedies), and on the other 'In morte di S.F.' and 'Venerdì Santo'. Among these, I highlight two episodes perhaps better achieved than the rest: the first is '3 Dicembre '39', which wins for originality. It tells the biography of an ambitious Italian who manages to make it despite having origins that the text seems to suggest are humble. The other is quite the opposite, 'La ballata degli annegati', here there’s little original, the theme of suicide is traditional and almost obsessive in Italian songwriting, yet the song is no less touching and evocative.
Not too different (indeed, perhaps so close that they can be considered complementary) is the second LP. Here, human or historical tragedies, intimate or shared, are framed. Unfortunately, it is somewhat disorganized, Guccini spreads his melancholies, still raw but already jarring, a bit everywhere. Interesting tracks are not lacking, among which I like to recall an early and modest Guccini manifesto, 'Il compleanno', a waltz on the theorem that if something can go wrong, and the context is a song by the gloomy Maestrone, it will probably go worse than our predictions. Humanity might not yet be framed with the lapidary and ruthlessly pessimistic poetry that we will find later, but its anxieties, fears, and alienations are nonetheless interpreted. Relationships are not denied, but as Gaber will often do, told in their difficulties, in the indispensable ambiguity that the relationship with others entails ('Lui e lei'; 'Vedi cara'), loneliness is that of 'Ophelia' from 'L'ubriaco', a pinch of introspection can be found in 'La verità' and in 'Due anni dopo'.
We find several interesting episodes in both LPs, beautiful tracks that will sometimes be overwhelmed by the masterpieces written, often precisely on the same themes, in the seventies and eighties.
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