Jovanotti
Lorenzo 1992

THE REVIEW

In conclusion to this mini-cycle of reviews about Italian music from the '80s and '90s, I am writing about an album (and I'll say it right away, so I'll get the insults over with, just in case) that, for me, is a masterpiece, definitely the most beautiful by Jovanotti, one of the most beautiful in Italian music spanning those two decades. The reasons are mainly three: 1) it is Jovanotti's best-produced work; 2) it is Jovanotti's most entertaining work; 3) it is the right mix, which he will never achieve again, of "fooling around" (a genre of which he was a master) and serious, truly genuine moments, less sentimental than usual, where he talks about sex (which will not happen again) and political current affairs (another great absent from his future repertoire).

And here, we should remember who Jovanotti was in 1992. He was 26 years old, coming off the success of "La mia moto" (another one of my cult favorites), had completed military service, flopped with the dreadful "Giovani Jovanotti" (1990), and was the undisputed idol of Italian kids, who dressed like him and identified with him, that sort of domesticated freak who, as a good son of the '80s, had assimilated the era's hedonism, the retreat from the '70s politics and thus, almost, had no political ideas, saw the USA as the center of the world, paninari, maranza (not like today, different stuff), let's party, let's have fun, we are living in the best possible times, we are young, so let's "blow our ears" and not like those who came before us, those who went to the streets with political and social passion. Jovanotti at the end of the '80s embodied, like no one else in Italy, the adolescent (or perhaps a bit more) fool and dopey of that era. He was (and perhaps still is) a fool, and he should have stayed there, it's a shame that he later discovered (presumably) that he was a poet.

It's true you can't be young forever, and at 26 you start to not be able to be such a fool anymore. Here comes "Lorenzo 1992", which in the last track of the album, the most sensational in my opinion, talks about politics. But how, the retreat? Well, but Tangentopoli is starting, so something must be said. And he does it in two tracks. In "Ho perso la direzione" he goes straight to the point, practically rapping and discrediting the entire political class of the time (Sgarbi, the only one still around, Pannella, Andreotti, Craxi, the right, the PDS); in "Benvenuti nella giungla" he switches to rock and uses metaphor (Italy is a country that resembles a jungle where anarchy reigns, precisely because of Tangentopoli) and nails his best rhyme: “Look at what they did to the people who surrendered, sometimes a punch in the face is legitimate defense.”

The album has a rare cohesiveness, both when it gets serious and when it fools around. The beginning is autobiographical, "Il rap" ("It's me, it's me, the one from 'is this the party', the one with the cap, the one without the head"), and indeed back then, it wasn't like there was a lot of Italian rap around, and this was the first true Italian rap album to enter many Italian homes. In some way, it opened the doors to a genre, sure, then you can argue that here we had Jova and in the USA the Public Enemy, but those are unlikely comparisons. The diptych "Non m'annoio" and "Ragazzo fortunato" is known by everyone, but there’s something surprising even in the love songs, of which there are essentially two (very few, today Jova's albums are only love songs): "Puttane e spose", fun and with lyrics that today would, at the very least, be accused of sexism (he talks with his friends about girls like a dockworker: "To speak with friends in words seasoned, with concepts, with expressions, eh, colorful") and "Chissà se stai dormendo", which is perhaps the weak track of the album, but here too, there are things that would be impossible today (he and she are together, but she's just turned 18).

Sex, finally. The only Jovanotti album where sex appears, and thus it is his truest because, every syrupy ambition set aside, he remembers that life, under the covers, is life, indeed, not just little kisses. In this sense, since, as I said above, he was the idol of young Italians, "Sai qual é il problema", which invites the use of condoms, may also be a do-good thing, but, looking at it today, it also seems an act of courage. And it’s well-rapped too.

It adds some social connotations ("Televisione Televisione" and the commendable, and rocker, "Vai con un po' di violenza") but doesn’t forget that his audience also asks for nonsense to hum on the beach in summer, thus he churns out "Estate 1992" ("But what heat, what heat, in this city").

A compact album, like never before and never again. The next one, which many love, is too long and stuffed with (pseudo)poetic songs that will be his main Achilles' heel to come, as long as he doesn't think of himself as an experimenter (because it's gotten into his head) in the pretentious "Lorenzo 1997". Well, for me, Jovanotti began in 1988 with "Is this the party?" and ended in 1992 with this album, after only disappointments and, I wonder, where did his goofy side go? Not the poetic-goofy one, just the goofy one.