Ligabue
Ligabue

THE REVIEW

If there’s an Italian mainstream rocker who can give “Blasco” a run for his money, it’s definitely Ligabue. The debut album simply titled "Ligabue" shows how the artist from Emilia-Romagna is capable of creating simple rock songs that stick in your head from the first moment, making us empathize with the characters, landscapes, and stories being portrayed. It begins with “Balliamo sul mondo,” a famous "arena" song that remains steady in the verse and then explodes in the chorus; it continues with the amusing spoken-sung style of “Bambolina e barracuda,” which tells the story of a meeting between a man and an apparently tranquil woman: initially, it seems like the meeting has a happy ending, "she is so beautiful in her bathrobe, and she's exactly what I imagined. And now the room is a bottle of her scent...," in the interlude you notice something different, "...she has a bad tic now, says strange things, and looks at me like I wish she wouldn’t...," in the final verse the situation deteriorates, "bambolina, put down that gun, all right I'm staying here...what should I do? Bambolina, do you want to talk, don't tie me up, come on!."

We get to the incredibly famous “Piccola stella senza cielo,” and anyone who knows it from the 2003 version will find an apparently different song (and better than the new one): here, in fact, the melodic line is at times different, and there is a sax solo. Next, we find the beautiful “Non è tempo per noi” with an almost Country arrangement which can be summed up in one phrase, “if for every mistake I had a thousand lire, what a retirement I'd have.” The beauty of Liga is that he tells simple stories but does so in an incredibly realistic way, as in the wild rock of “Bar Mario” which talks about Mario, his bar, and his customers in a very ironic way reflecting on the hangout’s regulars, "the knight returns from the ride, greets Mario who asks, ‘so, how did it go?’ he makes an exaggerated impossible number with his fingers...". Or “Sogni di Rock And Roll,” which is a quiet portrayal of a Saturday night coming to an end, "dreams of rock and roll and woe to those who wake us." The fast-paced “Figlio di un cane” concludes an album that makes one long for the genuineness and simplicity of the lyrics and so, looking at the present, raises a question we would all like to ask Liga: but what the hell does it mean "Eri bellissima ostrica e lampone" ??