Franco Battiato
Gommalacca

THE REVIEW

Since this album remains indescribable for me even after countless listens, I'll leave you with a past conversation with a girl who viscerally hated this record (to show how high school girls don't understand anything about music and how I couldn't manage to impress anyone).

-What are you listening to, Marte?

-Battiato

-But Battiato is crap, you know that right? He's just another idiot floating in the music scene, he doesn’t matter at all.

-Ooooh, look, at least he writes fantastic music, listen to this

-What the hell is he saying? "You move to the right, then to the left, stay still, spin around"...how can that be serious, it sounds like the Macarena, for Christ's sake

-Well, it's not even his lyrics...and anyway, you didn't understand anything

-Well, it's still a crappy song. Go listen to Gigi D'Alessio, he writes beautiful lyrics

-Damn it, do you really pick all the crap out there?

-Battiato doesn't matter at all, who listens to Battiato, only you

-Ok, let's do one thing. At break time you listen to his whole album Gommalacca

-What?

-It's called Gommalacca

-What a crappy name

-Just shut up for a while. Listen to Gommalacca and then we'll talk

An hour later

-I understood nothing. Who are the Velvet Underground? What is an autodafé? Why do the swan's necks shine in the light? Marte, I tried, but this album sucks.

-Maybe because you didn't really understand what it's about...but tell me, did you at least like one song?

-Well, actually I really appreciated Casta diva, you know...the Callas

-See, at least something stuck with you

-Yes, but the rest is really awful. Apart from the music which is too harsh for me, but the lyrics, I don't understand them

-Eh, Battiato is like that. Or at least, Sgalambro is like that

-Sgalachi? Who's that?

-The one who writes the lyrics for Battiato. Sgalambro writes lyrics that can mean everything and nothing. For example, Shock in my town, with references to V.U., to mescaline, can mean anything and everything or, quite simply, it might mean absolutely nothing.

-For me, that’s a text that means nothing at all. Period.

-And probably other tracks are like that too, like Il mantello e la spiga or Quello che fu?

-Exactly. It's music that's really too cerebral for my ears

-To each their own. I can't force you to like something.

-True. See you tomorrow, Marte. Go live your parallel lives

-See you

This dialogue that came back to my mind makes me think about many things: Gommalacca is a unique album in Battiato’s production, with excellent arrangements by Battiato and the superhuman lyrics of Sgalambro—an album where if you venture inside, you'll discover that those words, those melodies can mean everything or nothing at all. Listening to it again in 2020, it hasn’t aged at all; in fact, it seems like an album released just a few days ago. Personally, I consider it now as then Battiato’s masterpiece (and I know he has produced albums many consider better, like La voce del padrone or Fisiognomica, which I consider two exceptional albums but don’t reach, in my opinion, Gommalacca). I’d say I’ve already said everything I needed and could say, I hope to be able to do more autodafés like this in the future.