Luciano Ligabue
Made in Italy

Sunday: what to do? Maybe it's the bad weather, maybe it's a vague masochistic instinct, but the fact is that I gathered my courage and went on Spotify to listen to "Made in Italy" in its entirety, the eleventh album of new works by Ligabue. The singles released so far would have advised me against it, but the thought of "it can't get worse than this" prevailed. In fact, it wasn't worse: tracks like "G come giungla" and "Made in Italy" are uniquely bad, even compared to the rest of the album, and the fact that they were chosen as singles says a lot about the level of Italian music A.D. 2017. But let's take it step by step...

Let's start with a fundamental problem: can Ligabue be classified as "rock"? Probably, for several years now, this label has made no sense. If we talk about this last album, the stylistically "rock" pieces are just a couple and completely negligible ("La vita facile", the aforementioned "G come giungla"): no, this is not the field in which to seek comparisons.

Let's try another angle. For some years, Ligabue has been trying to engage with singer-songwriter music, unfortunately with disastrous results (I remember a cover of "Creuza de ma" that was an offense and a duet with De Gregori that butchered "Alice"). So, has there been any progress in the lyrics? No, the level remains the same as in the last albums, which means national-popular to the highest degree, with some generic complaints like "it's raining, government thieves" and two or three strategic swear words to add some edge. No, if we were to classify "Made in Italy" as "singer-songwriter music" it wouldn’t even be worth writing about it.

At this point, some fan who has read Liga's latest interviews might ask, "But this is a concept album! Can we interpret it this way?" Well, it's best to dismiss this superstructure right away: there's no need to make comparisons with Tommy or Rael, or even with the more recent Jesus of Suburbia. The connection between the songs practically doesn't exist, except for the sequence "Quasi uscito" - "Dottoressa" - "I miei quindici minuti" - "Apperò". There's no story, there's no character development, and the point of view of Riko, the protagonist of the album, is always and in any case superimposable to that of Ligabue. No, this is not the right track either.

This album can only be placed in the large cauldron of "pop", that realm of entertainment music where you expect nothing more than a more or less pleasant background. This vocation is accentuated by Liga's musical choices, which conform to the Seventies revival trend and, in many arrangements, recovers disco music sounds, with horns and bass lines winking at the funky, while in other tracks it goes even further back in time, with rockabilly and boogie reminiscences. Also noteworthy is a curious debt to Men At Work's "Land Down Under" in "I miei quindici minuti". From a certain point of view, the choice pays off: some tracks can also be enjoyable, and this lightness allows putting aside, at least for a few minutes, the Liga that's too-serious-because-too-full-of-himself that's been around for decades.

Incidentally, some old fan may have noticed the return to the band of Max Cottafavi, the historic guitarist of Ligabue's first three albums: a good musician who, unfortunately, is not utilized properly given the stylistic shift mentioned above.

Indeed, there are three tracks that stand out from the group and place themselves at a higher qualitative level. Not coincidentally, they are three brief acoustic fragments: "Meno male", "Quasi uscito" and "Apperò", the last one with a ukulele borrowed from Israel Kamakawiwo'ole. A sort of "air break" for Liga, who for a moment stops thinking about radio airplay and tries to fit some emotion into his chords.

Let's sum it up. It's time to rate this album. Where does it stand? Well, established that it's pop, we could even place it a step above direct competitors like Modà or Nek, but it's certainly light years away from those who really know how to do pop, like Pharrell Williams or Lady Gaga.