Franco Battiato
Fleurs

What the hell got into Battiato’s mind at the end of the last century, nobody knows, except him, but he can no longer tell us. The previous album (which had actually sold quite well) was the interesting "Gommalacca" (not a masterpiece, mind you, but definitely better than what he was doing in the early 90s), and in 1999, that is, the following year, he comes out with an album of covers of Italian, English, and French songs—some very famous, some very beautiful, others forgotten in memory. The concept looks interesting, at least on paper, but much less so in execution, which Battiato tackles over the course of two days (August 12 and 13) in Milo.

The idea is simple (all too much so): pare everything down to the bone, skillfully strip away the excess (thus removing some inevitable rhetoric but, also, pathos) from a handful of songs everyone remembers a certain way, and instead Battiato seems to be telling us "look, they’re actually better as I’ve redone them," and in some cases the trick works. Take for example " Ruby Tuesday " by the Rolling Stones and make it almost monotone and lugubrious: what emerges is a track very different from the original, but perhaps even improved upon it (I know it may sound like blasphemy, but that’s how I see—and hear—it). And certainly some songs lend themselves to Battiato’s little game: " Era de maggio ", a classic of Neapolitan song, takes on a mystical force I’d almost call spiritual, which the original—heard for decades in every possible version—never had, and even the salvage of two utterly forgotten Endrigo tracks (" Aria di neve ", " Te lo leggo negli occhi ") are risky but successful experiments. However, these are already melancholic songs in themselves, to which Battiato gives an even more melancholy character: the trick works, but it’s also a simple one—the musical equivalent of an easy win.

"Fleurs" musically sounds almost all the same, with a little organ playing from start to finish, and a deliberately suffocated orchestral arrangement. Often, Battiato’s voice (which has never been Luciano Pavarotti, of course) overwhelms the music, rendering it almost superfluous, though this is all part of the little scheme that underpins the whole album. Still, some things simply don’t work, and unfortunately, they’re the majority. The two De André reinterpretations ("La canzone dell’amore perduto" and "Amore che vieni, amore che vai") seem like parodies of the originals, and here, rather than drying things up, Battiato pours in a suffering and a pain certainly in keeping with the lyrics of the two songs but exaggeratedly desperate, emotionally speaking. To De André’s melancholy, Battiato opposes an orchestral pain he seems unable to resist. Let’s not even talk about the French songs: the Italian translation of "Que reste-t-il de nos amours?" is almost criminal, and better left unmentioned is the reimagining of "E io tra di voi" by poor Aznavour, reduced here to a chronic sufferer rather than the decadently melancholic figure he really was.

There’s also room for one Jacques Brel, "La canzone dei vecchi amanti", with lyrics by Duilio Del Prete. I have to admit, the lyrics are remarkable (especially the line "é triste diventare adulti senza essere cresciuti") but, again, an unspeakable pain overshadows the whole track.

The point is this: the operation, born curiously from Battiato’s mind, was meant to be a sort of "cleansing" of melancholic and painful songs (after all, there’s no cheerfulness in the playlist chosen by the Sicilian singer-songwriter). Only, with some exceptions, Battiato has amplified that melancholy and pain to an exaggerated degree, partly due to a series of rather classic and monotonous (and a bit boring) arrangements, and it’s unclear if the intent was to bury the past of some historic songs by erasing the mythical aura around them, or if Battiato wanted to bury his intellectual songwriter persona in favor of a more popular and therefore pop figure. The doubt remains, right up to the last two songs, both unreleased. One is "Medievale", the other is "Invito al viaggio", 7 minutes flat (with an opening delivered by Manlio Sgalambro’s solemn voice), in which Battiato becomes Battiato again—the late Battiato of "Cammello sulla grondaia" or thereabouts (which is my least favorite).

In the end, "Fleurs" (which was followed years later by two sequels) is just a game to gratify his own ego, his urge to play with music, make it his own, chew it up, spit it out and serve it to listeners ready to play along and be played with. As for me, I don’t much like games (unlike Battiato, whom I’ve almost always liked a lot). Or perhaps it's simply the antechamber to new experiences; it's no coincidence that within a few years Battiato would throw himself into the world of cinema, as director and screenwriter (with modest results). So yes, let’s just say that at a certain point, the urge to experiment with new avenues arises.