Franco Battiato
La voce del padrone

THE REVIEW

LA VOCE DEL PADRONE (1981) 10/10

For the writer, the most beautiful album in Italian music. So let's make things clear right from the start.

But how many reviews have already been written about it? Too many. And you all already know everything. So it's better to do something different, a sort of grand collection of opinions. What have artists, music critics, journalists, actors, actresses, even politicians said over the years about “La voce del padrone”? Here is a thorough (I hope) “zibaldone”.

“...With “Patriots” you saved me during my year in the Artillery. With “La voce del padrone” you changed the mainstream in Italy” (X, Ligabue, 18/05/2021)

“The seven tracks of that record have entered the history of our country and the lives of each of us as effortlessly as, years earlier, Battisti and Mogol had” (Agi, Gabriele Fazio, 18/05/2021)

“An album like “La voce del padrone” […] with such a sophisticated and modern sound […] had never been heard in Italy before” (La Repubblica, Luigi Bolognini, 19/03/2021)

“When Franco Battiato decided to make himself known and to become popular, he gifted us that masterpiece that is still “La voce del padrone” today […] with esoteric and philosophical themes: the voice of conscience, which guides the individual through life, with reflections on identity and on the relationship between man and his inner self” (Il Fatto Quotidiano, Francesca Sammarco, 10/08/2025)

“I used to go to Alberto Radius' studio (guitar) and there were him, Titti Denna the sound engineer, Giusto Pio, and Filippo Destrieri. Destrieri was working on the sounds for I don't know what phrase, and they were looking for the ugliest sound. I was shocked. He would play and the others would say, 'No, it needs to be uglier,' he'd try again, 'No, even uglier.' And in the end, everyone was excited: 'Yes, this is horribly ugly!' I was dumbfounded. Then the lyric choir would come in... At that moment I didn't understand what they were doing, but I was witnessing the future, the coming 80s.” (Docufilm “La voce del padrone”, Eugenio Finardi, 10/08/2025)

“There were 4,000 copies missing to reach one million of Voce del padrone, Franco bought them. He sent a hundred people to buy the records” (Docufilm “La voce del padrone”, Alberto Radius, 10/08/2025)

“...”La voce del padrone” is the absolute turning point of Italian music” (Docufilm “La voce del padrone”, Alice, 10/08/2025)

“Irreplicable album, with devastating impact […] Ironically weaving the nostalgic 60's earworms into his exotic-historical photographs, combining classical phrasing […] with electronic riffs as simple as they are catchy […] Rarely in Italy have the tastes of the elite and those of the so-called masses been so in agreement over a work that, moreover, ridiculed the behaviors of both” (24.000 Dischi, Paolo Madeddu, 2004)

“...Battiato was one of the freest intellectuals in Italian culture […] He showed it, in particular, with “La voce del padrone” (Corriere della Sera, Walter Veltroni, 18/05/2021)

“...With the language of Pop, the artist ironically tells fragments of his personal evolution” (Il Dizionario del Pop-Rock, Enzo Gentile, Alberto Tonti, 2013)

“...With “La voce del padrone” everything changed” (Corriere della Sera, Carlo Verdone, 21/09/2021)

“...La voce del padrone taught us that one could be cultured and popular at the same time” (Rai 3, Piero Dorfles, 18/05/2021)