Franco Battiato
Il Vuoto

I have clear ideas about Franco Battiato. And, like all my ideas in particular and those about Battiato in general, they are highly debatable. Just as those about other greats like Battisti, Dylan, or De André are inherently debatable. They are long, tribulated careers, with very high peaks and disputable works. With blue phases, sunny phases, phases seemingly commercial, and others decidedly "not for beginners" (as the title of that beautiful and symbolic Ron Wood album said).

Franco Battiato has said everything, or it would seem he has already said it all. He experimented like perhaps no one else in Italy, conquered the charts with very catchy and never stupid songs, fell in love, one after the other, with America, classical music, Arabic music, Arabic culture, the word, the keyboard, the guitar, opera, etc... The only love he never experienced, by his own admission, is the one for jazz, which was, on the other hand, so dear to Sgalambro, his "songs" alter ego of recent times.
With Mario Sgalambro, a much-discussed and perhaps highly debatable lyricist of the post "Café de la paix" period, he crafted very high-level albums ("L'Imboscata"), other definitely beautiful ones ("Ferrobattuto"), and others more modest ("Dieci Stratagemmi"), always understanding modesty not according to absolute standards, but decidedly in relation to Battiato's -very high- level. Recently, the two write the lyrics together, and this is, in itself, a good thing.

Today, he surprises us once again. And for this alone, he probably deserves praise.

Already just seeing it in the small showcase of the only record shop in my small town, it made a good impression. That sparse, austere, almost Battisti-like and surely very sad graphic: facades of Cinecittà houses, facades without a house, facades overlooking, indeed, the void.
There was no doubt about the purchase: Battiato is bought, in original, always. Since that very distant 1981 when I bought my first cassette of his.
The second thing you notice with curiosity (after the chilly and beautiful cover) is the album's duration: 33:33, for 9 tracks. It surely means something, considering we are talking about Franco Battiato, but even I, to be honest, wouldn't dare make any certain guesses. Surely the number 3 holds many meanings in religious traditions. It would be nice to ask him... and be sure of the answer.

The songs then fly by, at first listen seemingly tough, very difficult, some almost indigestible. It's hard to state outright that it's a work that strikes immediately. But, incredibly, it's also not a work that "sits there," on the shelf, resting uselessly alongside other past purchase mistakes.
Indeed: the desire to listen to it again grows, as it once did, and as it hadn't for quite some time.
And, on re-listening, one finds many interesting things. Always increasing and always more confusing, ultimately making it, to put it briefly, a grand album. Exceptional. A masterpiece of genre comparable, in my opinion, to the epic of the "big whites" in the Battistian-Panellian tradition.

Let me explain: the masterpiece of this album lies in the "non-being," the beauty of its songs lies in being "non-songs". Here, Battiato splendidly parodies himself, rewrites already written songs, returns to themes tackled a thousand times... in short... he does Battiato. But he does so neither in a (self)trashy manner nor with camp. He simply does an incredibly austere, melancholic, and, in one word, very sad version of what he has already done. This album is cold disenchantment. Perfect and pure solitude.

It is pointless (in any case, I never do...) to delve into the analysis of individual tracks. Because there is nothing to explain. There is, as the best Dalla used to say, to "sit and listen." Listen to this acid, very cold group playing with him (every time Battiato returns to guitars, in my view, beautiful albums come out), listen to this voice that seems to come from a very distant, and very cold, crypt.
Listen to this work that closes the third (for others fourth) period of Franco Battiato's career, and seems to close it definitively. It seems very hard, indeed, to think about what he could do next. Ideally, it would be (not to "offend" anyone, for heaven's sake...) a healthy retreat.

In sophisticated songwriting, he has said a lot, in pure songwriting, he has said not only a lot but in an absolutely unique and unprecedented way. Now, we are at disenchanted self-celebration, mournful self-exaltation. At the definitive construction and deconstruction of his own legend.

This album is a masterpiece. Not the swan song of Italian songwriting (for me, "Don Giovanni" by Battisti/Panella from 1986) nor the definitive tail flick (again, for me, "Anime Salve" by De André, 1996), but rather the ingenious zombie that rises from the grave, suddenly terrifying and surprising you, and then quickly disappearing.