Luca Carboni
Forever

The second album by Luca Carboni actually presents itself as the first in which lyrics and music are composed contemporaneously. In fact, "...intanto Dustin Hoffman non sbaglia un film" also included lyrics written at the end of the '70s when Luca was not yet twenty. "Forever," just like the first album, takes its name from the last verse of the last song. In 1984 the song was "Giovani disponibili," in this case, the song is "La mamma." Encouraged by the success of the first LP, to the point of being confused and identified as the "new Vasco Rossi," Luca was proposed to write another album within a year, he accepted, and succeeded, crafting 8 pieces of good and sometimes very good quality, like the opening track, "Sarà un uomo," the masterpiece of the album and among the masterpieces of the entire, not very abundant actually (11 albums in 31 years to date), Carbonian production. The echoes of his mentor Lucio Dalla are terribly, or rather "blessedly" one might say, evident, in fact, the piece recalls Dalla's gem "Futura": "Sarà un uomo, e la dance che oggi ci fa ballare sarà un rumore lontano..." ("It will be a man, and the dance that makes us dance today will be a distant noise..."), also a song about the future, where "children born without television will be greeted," just like Luca, who grew up until the age of 10 without the means of communication and enrolled his son Samuele in a Steiner school, with an education therefore resistant to mass media. After the excellent calling card, which needs to be listened to rather than described, comes "Sexy," where Luca trills on the chorus and the novelty compared to the album from the previous year is immediately noticeable: electronics, which replaced the more instrumental arrangements of "Ci stiamo sbagliando" and its "album companions". Electronics that nonetheless blend with beautiful melodic insights. Side A closes with two pleasant episodes, although not on the level of the first song, which are "Ci sei perché" and "Sugo." In the latter song, Luca's falsetto is surprising, and at times resembles Mango's voice, but it is a subjective interpretation. Side B opens with another song that will be brought to concerts even in future years, namely "Le nostre parole," reflective and intimate, worth listening to more than describing. Then comes "Simmu gente ca nun sa," where Luca uses, a unique episode in his career, dialect as a more immediate register of communication. The third song of the second side is the second wonder of the album after "Sarà un uomo," the song that brought Luca Carboni closer to new-wave: "Solarium", "perdo la testa per gli occhiali da sole..." ("I lose my mind over sunglasses..."). Musically and lyrically, Luca rides the times, those of tanning lamps even in winter. It all concludes with "La mamma," a sweet ballad of five and a half minutes with lyrics never trivial, as indeed for the other seven pieces, which closes with the repetition of "Forever," signifying precisely the eternity of the maternal figure. In 2011 to close "Senza titolo" there will be "Madre." Cycles and recurrences. "Forever" almost gets four stars, the Luca Carboni of 1985 is in great form, which he will top (only) with the self-titled album of 1987, the one with "Silvia lo sai" (the most beautiful song of the Bolognese author?), but also with another touching gem like "Gli autobus di notte" and the captivating "Vieni a vivere con me."