Giorgio Gaber
Polli di Allevamento

THE REVIEW

Battery Chickens was released in 1978, and it represents the angriest and most daring album by Gaber and Luporini at the same time. It is also embellished by the arrangements of Battiato and Giusto Pio, who were just starting to become known to the general public at that time. After the release of this double LP, Gaber took a rest period, as the show wasn't well-received by the audience, who felt challenged. Like Pasolini, Gaber accused the youth of the time of being "ugly", "kids who didn't love themselves", "kids who hated out of frustration and not by choice". Gaber was courageous, as an artist and as a man; no one had dared to explore the protest so deeply during a time when engagement was dangerously becoming just a fashion.

As usual, many themes are addressed. It ranges from a very clear analysis of today's fathers, described as a very shallow presence that will leave no trace, and who are contrasted with "my fathers", that is, the fathers of yesterday, who even stern and ancient, "had a certain consistency and gave the idea of individuals from a past that fades away on its own". The finger is also pointed at the men of the seventies who found themselves forced to lean on "a gun" in the eponymous song, stemming from the fear that invaded Italy during the "years of lead". Fear is also the protagonist of the homonymous prose in which a man is seen as frightened by a fellow human, but wrongly so. There's no more humanity in us, and even a person encountered on a dark street can scare us.

In the theater song of Gaber and Luporini, there is always room for the man-woman situation, and in this show, we have the song "Eva has not been born yet" in which there is debate about the new awareness of feminism, Gaber invites us to wait, to try to understand. Clearly one needs to immerse themselves in the atmosphere of that '78 to appreciate the songs and their incredible prophetic charge.

Finally, we have the trilogy on fashion in the three standout songs of the show: "Battery Chickens", "Look at Me Closely", and the masterpiece "When It's Fashion, It's Fashion".
In the first, Gaber begins to clarify his thoughts on the new generation he was facing with verses like "Dear, dear battery chickens who hate now out of frustration and not by choice, dear, dear battery chickens with that ambiguous expression that is increasingly distressed. Imagining walking past you on a dimly lit street, one does not know whether to expect a smile or a knife stab. "

In the second song, he presses further by describing the portrait of the new nihilist "Look at Me Closely, I don't believe in anything anymore, I don't want to work like an idiot anymore" and again "The fever of Saturday night arrives, and I throw myself into it. Have you seen what a mess I am. ", all accompanied by Battiato's neurotic and electronic music.

In the last song, the invective reaches disturbingly annoying heights, Gaber saves no one. What he spits out at the audience is impressive, and at the end of the song, you can feel the shock it produced on the people. It's said that during this song, Gaber was also insulted and drowned in boos and dissent. But he followed his path, time proved him right, here is one of the most significant verses

"I am different, I am polemical and violent
I have no respect for democracy
and I speak very badly of prostitutes and prisoners
because I despise those who make them myths
regarding those who will call me a populist, I don’t care
I am no longer a comrade, nor a militant feminist
I am disgusted by your entertainments, popular research, and other nonsense
and, finally, I can't stand your liberated women
with whom you argue democratically
I am different because when it's shit, it's shit
it doesn't matter the specification. . . "

In conclusion, an album that should be listened to along with Pasolini's "Scritti Corsari". After that will come "If I Were God"... and Gaber's invective will spare no one...