Luciano Ligabue
Dedicato a noi

De André, Totti, Carnera, Bukowski. Pools full of sharks. Xanax and coffee.

Music suspended between rock and ballad.

Luciano Ligabue's new album proves faithful to the past without sacrificing novelty, and in terms of quality, I dare say that it might be the best since post-2002, which, in the opinion of the writer, was the last gasp of his golden phase with "Fuori come va?"

Eleven tracks that create a unified story about Us, and its multiple meanings.

The first three are quite homogeneous. Così come sei retrieves a classic from Liga's early days, Salviamoci la pelle, while La parola "amore" and La metà della mela seem to pair up.

The title track is slower and one of the most successful on the album.
There's also a tribute to the craft with Musica e parole, but the gem is Una canzone senza tempo, which for Luciano from Correggio is what In questa città was for Massimiliano from Pavia.

Quel tanto che basta is listened to just quanto basta, and the album then rises again in level with Niente piano B, rhythmic and rockish.

Chissà se Dio si sente solo recalls Dio in cosa crede by Luca Carboni, a good track, Stanotte più che mai is also a beautiful romantic piece with a very good text, which serves as a precursor to Riderai, the final ride that also represents the entire spirit of the album.

In the LP version, there's also Non cambierei questa vita con nessun'altra, released two years ago and a sort of outtake and preamble to this new music project by Luciano.

Luciano, now over 60, no longer plays at being the thirty-year-old rocker idol of the masses and tries to write things more in line with his age, both musically and textually.

This trend is especially visible starting from "Mondovisione."

I rate this "Dedicato a noi" with three stars, which Liga has been missing since the 2013 work, and even before from 2002.