Jovanotti
Il Quinto Mondo

THE REVIEW

It was 2002, we're in the post-September 11 era, the States are bombing Afghanistan in search of two ghosts that continue to unsettle the world today: Osama Bin Laden and his beloved little brother Oil...
In Europe, the first pacifist fervors begin, and so it is in Italy, where the first timid protesters make their presence felt with the initial "without ifs or buts". And I was timidly beginning to search for the cradle of my ideas, looking for them among Marx, Nietzsche, and the Nos to war. The Nos dawned in my head, I had the romantic disheveled look of the handsome dark, young rebel. But I was still too young to view the world critically and understand that purity of spirit is a utopia. For instance, I didn't understand Jovanotti's exceptional business sense. We were in the height of a war, and already Iraq was being talked about; Fallaci was making her nonsense speeches... and there he was, the rapper of SanRemo, with the composed air of a Guru making the first Italian pacifist broadband work of the period. Needless to say, the sales, thanks to the crossover-faux folk single "Salviamoci" politicized and pacifist, with banal rhymes over that nevertheless catchy sound, but not graspable. I knew little about rap, and when March 11, 2002 (or 2003? I don't remember well) came and "Il Quinto Mondo" was gifted to me, I was thrilled that among my Guccini and De André, a rebellious pacifist like Jovanotti also found a place. Yes, poor deluded me. 2-3 years later, I listen again to that much-coveted gift, and I am ashamed of myself.

After "Salviamoci" comes "Un Uomo", a beat that attempts to mimic the early pseudorap works of Jovanotti, which opens our ears to his beautiful world: pacifism, the usual tender and clumsy romanticism, his sought-after simplicity, his fake irony of a poor nobleman dealing with plebeians... a very stupid and banal pseudorap... "revolutionary", oh yes... revolutionary. And I am a Nazi, imagine that, now while listening to you Lorenzo, I feel like shouting everything opposite to yours... and so long live war!
"L'Albero Delle Mele" is the only piece together with "Date al diavolo un bimbo per cena" that is catchy and passable from the album... a beat strung between jazz, world music and almost bebop at some points, text always predictable but tender deep down.
"Ti sposerò", the base seems like a karaoke sampling theme song of a TV show like "Sei grande maestro!" for bored children and old people... broadcasted on channel 5 at lunchtime, while you eat buttered pasta or plain rice or at 8:15 pm as you eat the same things. The text is very banal, his voice unbearable, the beat then almost becomes a 1940s base of a club with scantily-clad bunnies passing through the tables and dancing on a low stage, mimicking sailors and gondoliers. In short, a bore.
"Morirò D'Amore", what a bore, Jovanotti revisits his adolescent romanticism on a base that seems a sampling of his old ones and the text that seems the same as "Ti Sposerò". How boring, I understand why he's cuckolded, and safe, safe, watch out these songs are to bring the runaway back to the nest "I am an apple and I'm hanging on the branch, but if you don't pick me, I will rot" god... you rot! "what happened I don't know, what you did to me I don't know, I only know that if you leave I will die" with that damned beat that still seems karaoke, from which attempts of samplings like alien rays and the devil's "beep beep beep beep!" pop up occasionally!
"La Vita Vale", pacifist politics in an attempt at rap that doesn’t even manage to become crossover, a failed attempt at militant ecology, and an affirmation of simplicity, which doesn’t hold on this slogan that sounds old, trying to imitate itself from when his pseudorap was still giving something useful (very little), "a life is worth (...) more than a multinational" in a chorus of four little girls with him above going "get up, get up, ahyeah" and then goes "what should I do mama! mama!" trying to even imitate Zucchero, and then trying to reach a Gospel-Spiritual that sounds like an imitation of a poor copy of De André's "Spiritual"...
"Noi", a failed attempt to get back to a bit of funky, a bit of rap, with weak scratches under it, and a beat that sounds tiresome from a mile away, Lorenzo seems to have the presumption to sing generational anthem, a bit revolutionary, of an unknown generation, which is unclear what it is... mah. And when he then says "and flames that go out" he stops abruptly and heavily as if he had said the pearl of wisdom of the century, for Christ's sake...
"Salato parte uno" and "Salato parte due", the first a very commercial and weak attempt at world music, compared to which "Rotolando verso sud" by Negrita seems like a masterpiece, the second a weak attempt at cool jazz and blues, which went badly wrong, very badly wrong. Then comes "Canzone d'amore esagerata" and "(Storia di un) Corazòn" which are a festival of mushy and stupid rhetoric on a theme not new from the repertoire: LOVE (enough makes me want to vomit, too much, too syrupy, feels like an overdose of those chewy and soft pink hyper-sugary candies, or like being stuck in a cloud of those hyper-sweet abominable cotton candy scents).
"Il Quinto Mondo", pacifism, criticism to the cruelty of the other four worlds, utopia and BOREDOM.
"Date Al Diavolo Un Bimbo Per Cena" further attempt at funky and rap (which doesn't succeed) of the CD. 11 minutes of various politics and tenderness, but it isn't very ugly, then when he says "I'm the MC" a smile of pity and sadness forms on my lips. It seems to hear an eighty-year-old singing who didn’t fight in the second world war but only followed it from afar and still tries to fit into the canons of those who made it by answering the same themes, in the same usual ways. Pitiful.
The CD closes with "30 modi per salvare il mondo", a summary of all the rest where it talks about love, politics, and nostalgia. But it's ineffective. The foundations are what they are and the lyrics are what they are.

Zero because this Jovanotti is pitiful, a blind and deaf dog with a poor sense of smell, terminally ill, agonizing, that only awaits to be put to sleep, but must remain competitive, a war with himself he will lose. Pitiful, shoot a nail into his head, inject him with something... put him down, it’s like listening to him beg for mercy from the stereo. "Tanto(3)" is proof of this, and I bet that "Buon Sangue" is a new attempt to get out of a limbo he will never be free of and return to a paradise he will never enter again. But as long as he continues to prostitute himself to gossip and showbiz, Lorenzo Jovanotti will remain at least anchored to the stink of euros and the summer hits for the brainless who dance to them in groups at the villages (something I spared myself at the village where I stayed).

Therefore, this CD is exclusively for
1) Jovanotti fans, those truly diehard ones, eh;
2) stubborn and obtuse pacifists who just woke up now and dust off their entire new romantic radical chic and peace and love repertoire of the various discographies;
3) for the editors of the smemoranda who consider the Al Mukawama hip hop and for Simona Ventura who considers Paolo Belli the king of Italian funk, and for the journalists who say in interviews with Jovanotti "so with this album, you've returned to give a funky and hip hop twist to your music";
4) and obviously for Jovanotti, convinced of giving a funky hip hop twist to his music and convinced that two definitions by ignorants on the matter and a bit of peace plastered on some bases can be sold like it’s nothing, and be considered an artist anyway.
No Lorenzo, I don't fall for it.
If this is art, if this is innovation...
Save me Save us...