Gianna Nannini
La Differenza

I return to writing in Italian about an artist, the one from Siena, who has many forgettable songs in her repertoire (from the beginning until 2017 included) but who has never crystallized on an octet of systematically repeated "pop" or more mixed combinations throughout her discography (do you get me, Mr. Cotugno? Same for Zanicchi or Pravo): she also has a desire to explore genres (and endless jokes, mind you) and reinvent herself... IMHO, I think it is very wrong at this point in history to compare Gianna, the subject of my writing, to a "monstress" of skill like Patti Smith or to contemporary singers of lesser historical impact (not talking about sales) such as Bonnie Tyler, Quatro, the German Nena, or Joan Jett, because for the sake of a path, one must avoid a personality collapse that would lead to an absence (yes, one of the "strong titles" of this Italian album of the "'19 beppe contiano", it is). This turning-point goal, primarily, if a singer-songwriter is to be respected, he achieves it by skipping over the emulator's wall, testing, at worst, about ten covers of his choice and composing his own freely.

In "La differenza" there's not one episode similar to past ones, except for one "launch",

≠L'aria va finendo≠, even without seeing the controversy-igniting clip, we feel it (with its smudges and banalities);

after an admirable and melancholic title track and a prompt invitation to accept the small mistakes of those we love or will love (musically a 6), we move from the Battistiana ≠Gloucester Road≠ to the growing "folk in triplets" part Donovan part "Herself" of ≠Per oggi non si muore≠, both with a dual theme of hypothetical love-affection plus self-analysis performed by young elders, alongside a sorrowful ballad, ≠canzoni buttate≠ to the unexpected country ≠ A chi non ha risposte ≠, with a bridge and a stanza as a symbolic closure of a ruthless and revealing Hellenic-Italian decade of what we would have at Dusk: important answers are missing from those who facilitated their rise in a nasty recession which was then amplified by the disappearance of the regular job and social Asc, with the pompous Renzi-ism that damaged education with deceitful, multi-privatizing agendas, an aspect of silence-disagreement extendable to the many victims of entire minimized regional healthcare systems (and not only them: the public television, in fact, in the middle of the last decade, threw us into genuineness and cultural freshness for the subscription-fee scam and the parting goodbyes of some great faces, from Ida Colucci to FF to Mario Meloni).

So it seems to me a gentle tap every day spent here reviewing CDs-books and writing an editorial now that we risk being bombed just not to give up on energetically depending on Gazprom -Sob!-.

Well, with an Entomology lesson approaching at 9 PM, I return to the record: if ≠Motivo≠ with the then-debutant Coez is of a curious minimal Indie at times caught in the music, with a text between sentimental and existential, ≠Assenza≠ is a Celentano-like rock andante (another novelty for Nannini) dedicated to the many mothers with fourteen-year-old children who are away from home from 8 PM to 2 AM, and not because they're picking up, but to moderate speed on the darkest road stretches, defying the "reckless rams".

At least that's how I saw it.

And in the perhaps slightly fawning sound-shouting ≠Liberiamo≠, we finally have an impulse to love life in the fields.

Overall, comparing it to previous Inno and Amoregigante (where L'AVF could have been placed), La Differenza conveyed to me creativity and balance, and everything cannot be separated from this maxim by Daverio:

<It is the human being in e×trema ratio, in its ontological essence, that is irreparably complicated and for this very reason, commensurate with everything, so curiously creative... >.

I'm hungry and rushing to dinner! Apunau, for I've got Entomology at 9 PM...

-Cluck-