Jovanotti
Lorenzo 2015cc

LA RECENSIONE

While browsing Debaser yesterday afternoon, I became aware of a terrible gap. A lack so significant that it calls into question the importance of the site itself.
As I swam through reviews of rather underground, alternative, and often unknown bands and albums that make Debaser users drool, it was clear to me the absence of a few lines about the CD that, statistically speaking, has sold the most in Italy in the first half of 2015.
I'm talking about Lorenzo 2015 cc. The author, of course, Jovanotti.

Eager to cover this gap and armed with infinite patience, I hurried to listen to this work, which came out last February 24 and has been continuously at the top of the FIMI charts (already 150,000 copies sold).
It is a box set composed of two albums, totaling thirty songs: a real whopper!
By the third track, however, I realize I have already listened to it. I had already listened to it and promptly erased it, much to the delight of my ears.
Sarcastic preamble aside, I am a decent fan of the national Lorenzo, I've indulged in almost all his works, appreciating his recent evolutions and gentler artistic turns, moving away from the “rap” origins.
I've been left with pleasant impressions from tracks like Le tasche piene di sassi, A te, Mi fido di te, but also more dance and upbeat tracks like Mezzogiorno, Tensione evolutiva, La notte dei desideri, Safari.
In short, I really like the latest Jovanotti.
But not the very latest, though.
In fact, Lorenzo 2015 cc emerges as an album excessive in form but hardly impactful in substance. The tracks, truly too many, seem all similar. Sure, fresh, cheerful, sometimes romantic, but never reaching the peaks of previous works.
Listening to the themes addressed, it seems the good Cherubini is immersed in a perfect and colorful world full of good deeds, energy, warmth, and positivity. A world all his own, in short, a world that dramatically distances itself from the Italian situation. Certainly, I am far from evaluating a work of Lorenzo from a political point of view, and the recent endorsement made by the Tuscan singer to the Italian government has created a wasp's nest of controversy, not entirely justified, that I won’t comment on. However, this forcibly happy, sugary, at times diabetic narrative has already worn out after a couple of tracks.
The impression is that Jovanotti’s evolutionary push has stalled, as well as his energy, chained to dozens of fairly similar tracks destined to have little success on the radio (as much as a Jovanotti single can have little success).
At times, there is a clear feeling that the author is trying to emulate past successes, without succeeding. L'estate Addosso would like to resemble Estate, Gli Immortali should replace Il più grande spettacolo dopo il Big Bang, Ragazza Magica, in the author's ideas, is the sequel to Baciami ancora: the attempt has failed, missing the polish of the recent period, and the tracks seem like faded copies of the more successful originals.

Of course, I avoid doing a track by track: with an album so packed, there's the risk of falling asleep, and I admit to having erased some tracks that I have no intention of dusting off for the occasion.
I note Sabato, the first single released, which at least stands out for the originality of the sounds: the video was directed by Salmo, and I don’t know if that’s a merit or a fault, but it’s a curiosity I felt like sharing with you.
Then there’s L’astronauta, my favorite piece, a bit romantic and a bit visionary, the only one I kept on my mp3.
There are also L’estate addosso and Gli Immortali, which are the other two singles, really nothing special; then there's a narrative “Caravan story” that doesn’t come close to "quando sarò vecchio," an extraordinarily successful song from a few CDs ago; and there are another 20-25 completely similar tracks, a bit dance, a bit classic, a bit romantic, stuffed with clichés, love, peace, and fantasy.

They'll be enough to fill San Siro and sell staggering numbers, but I'm sorry, dear Lorenzo, for me it's a no!