Gino Paoli
Storie

I don't know Gino Paoli. Or rather, I used to know him in the past only for some of his hit songs, considered classics of Italian pop music.

A few months ago, this compact disc fell into my hands, I read the author's name, the album title, observed the dark cover; it fascinated me, and so I bought it.

"Storie" is an album that already from the name explains its essence and structure: twelve tracks for twelve different stories, real experiences, stand-alone portraits.

A work that at first glance, thematically, seems non-homogeneous, "broken" into individual episodes.

However, through simple and clean musical accompaniment (I would dare say "carefree"), slow rhythms perpetuated by few and selected instruments, including the classical guitar and the percussions, each song clarifies the life experience of a character with quite disarming clarity and serenity, in total antithesis with the good content of the lyrics, rather full of melancholy and at times even dramatic.

This particular contrast lends the album a certain ease of listening, but at the same time maintains a validity in terms of content.

Contents that in some respects appear obscure; behind the episodes of the individual characters perhaps lie the author's ideologies: a certain impatience towards the chaotic lifestyle of our days (Il Buco), towards servility to power (Signora Provvidenza, L'Uomo Che Vendeva Domande), towards the unfounded fear dictated by ignorance (La Paura).

Sometimes the song's lyrics merely describe the lives of characters nowadays disappeared from social collectivity (Il Marinaio, La Signora Mauri).

Sometimes dramatic events like rape are sung with great "calmness and sweetness" (Il Pettirosso).

In other tracks, the theme of love is expressed in an elegant and romantic manner (Il Nome, La Chiave, Due Vite).

A pleasant album, highly recommended.