Luca Carboni
Luca Carboni

THE REVIEW

Like, and even more than others in Italy, Luca Carboni knew how to capture the moods and hopes (often in vain) of his own generation—that is, those born in the early ’60s and in their twenties during the ’80s, the so-called “generation without a voice” who grew up without the ideals of the previous decade, raised on television and social plasticization (hedonism; Milano da bere; Thatcherism), and believed to be empty and shapeless. Carboni, instead, recounts their doubts and betrayed hopes, the desire for the future and a future that seems frightening, the getting lost and finding oneself again, confused love, and “La voglia di vivere”. A bit like Max Pezzali would do the following decade, but with much more class (and musical skill) than his colleague from Pavia. With his third album, Carboni hit the mark both in terms of critical acclaim (it is still one of his most appreciated works) and commercially (over 800,000 copies sold). On the cover he appears with his full name, wearing a wide-brimmed hat and sporting an expression as “experienced” as it is late-adolescent, betraying his mere 25 years. He appealed to the young girls (he was a handsome guy), pleased their mothers (he was a good guy), and despite seeming to sing as if being dragged by his hair, that kind of tone—so “laid-back”—was the key to the success of an album that contains at least three singles that made history: “Silvia lo sai”, “Farfallina”, and “Vieni a vivere con me”. In particular, the latter was one of the very first Italian songs to talk about cohabitation in the otherwise asphyxiated Italian music scene, where at most you could date, then get married, but nothing further. Carboni, who grasped that the “ritual” of living together was taking hold among people in their twenties (and thirties), described this union, unregulated by any contract, with irony and humor (“Vieni a vivere con me/sai quante