Ivan Graziani
Nove

THE REVIEW

Ivan Graziani is my favorite singer-songwriter, the only one who made me love this category. I like him because I see him as solitary, sad, and pensive. His songs are halfway between commitment and light music, but what I mainly like about him is the melodic side, the realities described in his songs, and the recurring theme of women he had or dreamed of. This distances him from classical singer-songwriters and makes him perhaps the only one of his kind, perfectly at ease amidst pop twists. Ivan was different from the others in tastes and lyrics. I imagine him writing his songs, with hair in front of his eyes, hands on the page, gaze towards the door in his room, with a guitar on the bed and some photos of women scattered on the bedside table. I might be wrong, but that's how I see him.

When I'm down and it's raining, I don't hesitate to put on one of his CDs. He evokes this in me; I don't know why, I need to hear his voice in those moments, probably because it gives me confidence. Among all the works by the great Ivan, one stands out to me, not necessarily the best, as he created masterpieces, but this one is worth listening to. It was somewhat overlooked, leading Ivan to acquire more trendy sounds over time but mixing them skillfully with his guitar riffs. The album is called "Nove" (many don't consider it much, nor the subsequent "Picknick," although they will save "Ivangarage" from 1989), in "Nove" is present the usual style of the singer-songwriter, women and feelings. The song I like the most is "Minù Minù," which tells of an adventure with a gypsy girl. Ivan presumably falls in love, but she's already gone, leaving only a faint memory as he asks himself where she might have gone. A little-known song but no less beautiful, with excellent arrangement and soft atmospheres.   "Lucetta fra le stelle" and "Geraldine" are also worth listening to, where he recalls another woman, and even in "Blouson Noir" one can hear echoes of new wave, in fashion at that time.

A must-have album, an excellent example of a product created and conceived in the 80s, not closing its doors to new sounds but blending them with an already mature style, a forgotten album that is well-deserving, this makes it clear that with the passing of the Teramo singer-songwriter, we lost a prominent figure in Italian music, which needs more consideration for its quality and poetic lyrics. Today, when everyone takes every word of other singer-songwriters as gospel and praises groups that have nothing more to say, a tribute to Ivan Graziani is a must.