Franco Battiato
Juke Box

THE REVIEW

"Juke Box", from 1978, is the seventh album by Franco Battiato, the penultimate in the experimental series that began in 1971 with "Fetus", which mixed Mediterranean sounds with those of the high German electronic school (Tangerine Dream, Can, Stockhausen). Battiato later continued with this style in "Pollution", a year later, then "discovered" some classical instruments and blended them with previous albums: this mix gave rise to "Sulle Corde di Aries", in 1973. Subsequently, the Sicilian artist discovered sound collage and his records became even more experimental (as evidenced by "Clic" and "M.elle le Gladiator", from the '74-'75 period, a style that is also consolidated with "Battiato" in 1977).

"Juke Box" is thus the seventh piece in this innovative journey, unique in our country. It comprises six compositions for strings, piano, soprano, and choir, and they require a lot of patience to be carefully listened to, also because they are six "difficult" tracks. There are some good moments: positively noteworthy is "Hyver", the most brilliant track on the record, featuring an excellent intervention by the soprano Alide Maria Salvetta. The melody of "Agnus" will be revisited in "Stranizza d'amuri", a year later. "Juke Box" is a more or less unjudgeable album, also because it's unclear if Battiato, at the time, wanted to create a good contemporary music album (and if so, he didn't succeed) or an album of deliberately bad songs (and if so, he succeeded). It should also be said that the making of the record was somewhat "forced", as the tracks were composed to be the soundtrack for a television film, "Brunelleschi", but, apparently, the producers rejected Battiato's music because they found it unsuitable for the context.
A suggestion: do not stop at the first listen.