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Rating: Sometimes my mom sends me to get milk (or the "rookie," since it's all the same, there's always a woman in command at home). As soon as I set foot in the supermarket (everyone knows the village shop "is too expensive"), my mind becomes a battleground between two irrepressible and contradictory desires.
On one hand, there's the urge to quickly grab all the products on the (mile-long) shopping list and dash to the checkout, to escape that vile place full of poorly marked aisles, old folks eternally torn between Ketchup and Catsup, and whining children over the unpurchased Kinder egg.
On the other hand, there’s the opportunity to rummage for hours in the legendary music bargain bins, inexhaustible mines of discounted CDs and authentic trash gems.
Even though the "studio albums" of big international bands (U2, Bob Marley, and Santana are the most common) or pop stars (Madonna as the undisputed queen, plus a "breakout artist of the moment" chosen from Rihanna, Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, and... Kylie Minogue) make a rare appearance here and there, it is naturally the greatest hits collections that dominate. And once you open them, it’s a field day: among many, you might find the 20th Century Masters Millennium Collection or something similar, with its gray cover and black-and-white photo of the group, but mostly focused on British or American artists, mainly of the rock genre, or the collection of Latin American dances, with their brightly colored covers, featuring a semi-nude Brazilian dancer or a bald dancer dressed entirely in white. But above all, there are the collections of Italian light music singers, which are blatantly popular. Characterized by almost approximative packaging, with few and sparse notes, a nondescript and poorly curated sound, these compilations are produced for nostalgics without any aesthetic or auditory expectations, or for tourists, especially from the North (read: Germans) or Eastern Europe, who are enchanted by the Italian bel canto.
"Primo Piano: Gianni Morandi" from 1998 is a splendid example of a collection published without any logical criteria: it is so approximative and senseless that it becomes captivating in its ugliness. The pretense of concentrating a multi-decade career into just ten tracks, without any apparent connection, demonstrates a disdain for diligence like no other. The cover, faithfully reproduced on the back with only the addition of rights, vividly explains the obsessive attention to graphic detail. The tracks attempt to briefly summarize the intense career of the Bolognese artist: from the youthful and well-known "Fatti mandare dalla mamma a prendere il latte" to the fiery words of socially engaged songs like "Un mondo d’amore", "C’era un ragazzo...", and "Vado a lavorare". And of course, the ingenious "Sei forte papà" couldn’t be missing.
But it's the incredible mishap of the track-list that grants this wonder my full approval: not only can you observe discrepancies in the order of songs between the back of the case and the musical support (a trifle, merely a minor switch between "Fatti mandare dalla mamma" and "La Fisarmonica," just enough not to confuse the unsuspecting foreign listener), but you can also note the unusual rebellion of the titles on the front cover, which follow the same order as those on the back up to the sixth track, only to then arbitrarily and completely randomly arrange themselves.
In short, we are faced with a wonderful mix of indolence, anonymity, and ugliness, a masterpiece concentrated in just a few grams of weight and a few cents of price.
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