Luca Carboni
Fisico & Politico

2013. Thirty years have passed since the boy from Bologna offered his audience his first 45 rpm, "Ci stiamo sbagliando/Giovani disponibili", ahead of the release of his debut LP, "...intanto Dustin Hoffman non sbaglia un film." To celebrate the anniversary, Michele Canova Iorfida, the new producer of the now over fifty-year-old artist, decided, after Luca had already recorded with the rapper Fabri Fibra "Fisico & Politico," to make an album that celebrated the past and wasn't, therefore, a new album of original tracks. In reality, as explained by Carboni at the presentation of the latest "Pop-up," the 2013 track was supposed to be the first of the 2015 project, but it was not. Indeed, the choice was made for a celebratory duet album, spiced up with a handful of new songs. The result? "Fisico e politico," the first recorded track, gave the album its title and summed up the album's spirit and Carboni's themes, always suspended between sentiment and social observation. The track leading the way is a rappop, a genre that has been emerging in recent years (see Fedez and Francesca Michielin, Fedez with Noemi, or Clementino and Claudia Megrè), but to which Carboni was not entirely unprepared. In fact, Luca, back in 1992, went on a tour with Jovanotti, one of the greats of Italian rap from the '80s and '90s, and some tracks from "Diario Carboni" clearly demonstrate the blend between Carboni's pop and Lorenzo Cherubini's rap. The track, let's say it, also revived Luca Carboni from a strictly radio perspective after several years. In fact, after "Mi ami davvero," the subsequent "Lampo di vita" and "Fare le valigie" do not seem to have achieved the same feedback. After a duet, the second song is also, not vocally but in authorship. Indeed, Luciano Ligabue, an Emilian like Luca, decides to give his fellow countryman "C'è sempre una canzone," a philosophy of the singer-songwriter, who has and always will have something to write and sing about. Luca's version is less aggressive than the one by the artist from Correggio, but it's in line with his character. The third new track is "Dimentica," a song neither good nor bad that closes the new songs. Then begins the juiciest part of the music project: the revisitation, in duet with nine artists, of as many classics from our protagonist's discography, curiously chosen by the duetting artists. It begins with "Persone silenziose" from 1989, chosen by Tiziano Ferro, who had already duetted with Carboni in "Pensieri al tramonto" in 2006 because it was the song that inspired the singer from Latina to start writing his own lyrics. The interpretation is engaging, the song proves to be suitable for the interpreter. Then follows the hit "Vieni a vivere con me," with Elisa Toffoli, with a different arrangement that makes the song lose something in the finale (the ending of the original is amazing!!). This interpretation convinced me less, but the strength of the song overcomes that of the performance. We were talking about Jovanotti, who returns after 21 years to collaborate with Luca, and he does it in "Ci vuole un fisico bestiale," adding, from his Los Angeles studio, a rap that Carboni did not expect ("...a little practice with IT... lights, camera, action!", so to speak) and that will eventually end up in the track, giving it a different flavor that goes beyond simply re-singing the piece as originally conceived. Then comes the unexpected artist, Carla Bissi, also known as Alice, who truly elevates "Farfallina," one of Luca's signature songs, to which he has also chosen female voices for this "encounter," not just male ones. After Jovanotti, Miguel Bosè returns as well, who 18 years after "Mondo world welt monde," for which he had adapted the lyrics for the Spanish version, sings "Inno nazionale." At this point, the unexpected happens, the artist you'd least expect to interpret a Carboni song does it, once again demonstrating his versatility: Franco Battiato lends himself to a duet with Luca for "Silvia lo sai," a track quite distant from the Sicilian Master's production, but among those relatively closer (an alternative could have been "Solarium," quite similar to early '80s Battiato). Another well-chosen track is "Primavera," made his own by Biagio Antonacci, which seems to contain echoes of "No signora no, etc...," although it's a song of a completely different caliber. Closing out are two thoroughbred Bolognese, it could not be otherwise, Cesare Cremonini for "Mare mare," which the author of "50 special" had already tried a couple of years earlier on stage with Jovanotti and the song's author, and Samuele Bersani, who interprets the most Bersan-like of Carboni's songs, "Gli autobus di notte." To sum up, "Fisico e politico," thanks to Michele Canova, the man who "redesigned" Carboni's image, marks the relaunch, more in radio terms than artistic, of Luca. Although it's worth noting that resorting to an album of past revisitations was also a way to compensate for the uncertainties, if not shortcomings, of the present. Uncertainties that will be at least partially overcome with Luca's first album of original tracks with the Padua producer, namely "Pop-up."