Ligabue
Sopravvissuti e sopravviventi

As I have already clarified, my intention is not to review a specific album but rather to comment on Luciano Ligabue's entire artistic journey. To this end, however, it will be the discographic releases that will be the path I follow to complete this project.

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This third album, released in 1993, had sales that fell well below the expectations raised by the two previous works. This is because, as I mentioned, with this third publication, Ligabue decided to scrape the bottom of his drawer full of songs written in his youth, and he did so by bringing to light his darker and sadder side, which leaves no room, unlike in previous records, for any optimistic signs or self-indulgence. The new sound achieved by Ligabue and his band, once again the Clandestino, cleaned up meticulously and made much harsher than what the Emilian rocker had accustomed his audience to until then, only accentuates this atmosphere of doom that permeates the depths of this peculiar album. A grunge sound, once more with the influence of '80s-styled sonic imprints (after all, it was in the early years of this decade that these pieces came to life), with assertive keyboards in perfect Doors style and revolving Lordian-inspired Hammond organs, and hard rock guitars reminiscent of illustrious names like Savatage and Neil Young. Clearly, it should be unnecessary to clarify the nature of these statements of mine, that is, that Ligabue's sound, in this album, echoes Neil Young's hardest rock, or that Gianfranco Fornaciari's Hammond (who replaced Giovanni Marani on keyboards in the Clandestino) reminds one of John Lord's in certain Deep Purple tracks, given that it should be clear to everyone that stating this is like saying one has studied a history exam on the high school book (if not even the middle school one or, why not, even on Bignami), rather than on the monumental manual written by the professor himself, upon which (unless he resorted to recycling) a non-negligible portion of the responsibility for the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest falls. But since I am convinced that many readers will have jumped out of their seats reading these juxtapositions (which are not, obviously, comparisons), it will be useful for my cause to clarify that any Ligabue piece that evokes any illustrious and enlightened author or track from the past (as it is normal given that "everything has been said and everything has been written"), must be understood in no other way than as a simplification of the source of inspiration (of much higher artistic and qualitative level, of course) from which the Emilian author has drawn.

Now, returning directly to the prevailing sadness in "Sopravvissuti e Sopravviventi," it emanates in every aspect of this existential-themed work, based on the human-animal metaphor within a zoo, which represents the young alternative and desperate rebellious rocker, dismayed by the reality surrounding him, which is once again that of a village of 20,000 souls, narrated through the stories of its inhabitants; very sad characters, each marked by personal pain that causes them profound distress and leads them to futilely seek some gratification or at least some solace. This is the case of Regina, Colera, and Ramengo, who try to fill their inner void respectively with sex, beer, and music ("Piccola città eterna", a fast rock ballad with distorted guitars and a tenderly dragged riff, in which Ligabue reveals all his sensitivity in a simple and sincere way, something that makes him, despite many opinions, one of the few true rockers in the world), or of the various characters like the professor as lonely as a dog, the mature stripper, and the smoking pianist already mentioned in my first publication, who frequent the nightclub described in "La ballerina del carillon", a fine track representing the darkest and saddest moment of the album; or again it’s the case of Veleno, the protagonist of "I duri hanno due cuori", alone, mocked and betrayed by his wife, on the verge of suicide ("his leg hurts from the weight of the cold of a gun that somehow he managed to find"), a project soon abandoned ("a quarter to two and Veleno is sitting on the bridge over the river watching the gun sink") so that his life continues in the utmost squalor, a situation which he has evidently become culpably and irremediably accustomed to ("now the cold is real it has passed into his bones forcibly emerging from his heart" or "he will punch the door of his room will shout for his woman and his friend to be quieter and on his sofa he will stretch out"). Even the atmosphere in "Dove fermano i treni" is certainly no more relaxed; in this urban life slice, we are in a central station with its hectic coming and going between soldiers on leave, tramps, prostitutes, various rogues, and mere travelers. It is undoubtedly the hardest track in Ligabue’s entire production with heavy distortions and violent drums, which however will soon fall into oblivion like most of the songs on this record, except for "Ho messo via", a 3/4 ballad on the "Peter Pan syndrome" that creates a nice nostalgic flavor atmosphere within the album, located as the third track between the tense and swift power pop-rock of "AAA Qualcuno cercasi" and the almost metal grunge of "Dove fermano i treni". "Ho messo via" will become one of the most successful singles Ligabue will ever launch, which the rocker will never fail to propose during his live performances in different arrangement versions, although the best remains certainly the one contained in this record, also thanks to the two solos present in the track, the trumpet one at the end of the second chorus played by Demo Morselli, but especially the final one written and performed on the electric guitar once again by Max Cottafavi (practically the last creative flair of the Modenese guitarist who soon after, along with the entire Clandestino band, will end his artistic collaboration with Ligabue). In the analysis of the individual tracks composing the album, one must not forget songs of the caliber of "Ancora in piedi", the album's opening which starts blues and narrative then explodes into a powerful hard rock, as well as hard rock can be mentioned concerning "Lo zoo è qui", a track preceded by a well-crafted synthesized effect that Ligabue sometimes adds to his songs. "Walter il mago", on the other hand, represents yet another symbolic character in Ligabue's poetics that we will also find in songs that the Correggio rocker will write later. Of little value instead seems to be "Pane al pane", although it could be considered, thus reevaluating it, a deliberately bad track, a sort of redundant Nick Cave-like experiment of a melody that spins frantically and noisily on itself. A separate discussion for "Sopravvissuti e sopravviventi: tema", a kind of Ennio Morricone soundtrack, which succeeds brilliantly, better than the previous "Quando tocca a te" which instead seems a bit trivial and ends in itself, in the aim to close the record offering the listener a sigh of relief, glimpsing a ray of sunshine, albeit dim, but which after the storm formed by the previous twelve tracks, finally offers a sense of tranquility and peace.

Thus ends this third album by Ligabue, undoubtedly the most "artistic" of the three, a concept based as mentioned on the human-animal metaphor of the zoo, an intention clearly revealed by the author already on the cover, characterized by expressionistic realism, melancholy, existential reflections, and soul voids. An album, therefore, explicitly anti-aesthetic and hence not very commercial, which indeed did not achieve considerable success in terms of sales, which among other things led to the end of the collaboration between Ligabue and the Clandestino and made the Correggio rocker mature, on a more or less conscious level, the not entirely unfounded belief that another so-called "committed" record would certainly not benefit his career, which instead had to be (and in fact was despite everything heading towards being, thanks to a tenacity and determination common to few) that of an undisputed rock star, at the top of the Italian music charts.

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