Ligabue
Sopravvissuti e sopravviventi

I had unfinished business with this album, and debts, as we know, eventually need to be settled.
I was 18 and barely more than a youngster, keen on masculine frolics and somewhat erratic studies, and Liga, I admit, I liked it a lot. "Piccola stella senza cielo" was the soundtrack of my life for a long time, and the leg-thumping (an improper term to define that kind of syncopated music halfway between rock and crudeness) of "Balliamo sul mondo" I couldn't get out of my mind anymore. At 18, in short, you make great mistakes: and overestimating Liga was a more than sensational mistake (granted that the first album, "Ligabue", was really successful).
"Lambrusco, coltelli, rose & Pop Corn" was nothing ecstatic, but at least it was passable (most interesting, above all, the acoustic "Camera con vista sul deserto"), but it was "Sopravvissuti e sopravviventi" that finally opened my eyes. Because it was there, at that precise moment, that I had the chance to understand the mistake I was making: I truly believed Ligabue was a good songwriter.

Since that distant 1993 I have never listened to "Sopravvissuti e sopravviventi" again, but, as we know, coming back from a holiday the hit of melancholy is great, and then you just can't go there and listen to Genesis or Biohazard, it would be like watching a Kubrick movie during an excursion in city sewers. And so, dusted in the box of my one-room apartment, I found "Sopravvissuti e sopravviventi", a cassette that, despite everything, I have always kept in the midst of relocations and changes of apartment, among memories and disappointments, between joys and bitterness. Always there, always without ever listening to it, but always close.
And while you are there, busy unpacking that damn suitcase that signals the end of the holidays (which repeatedly are always too few), behold a kind of miracle pops up: from the stereo begin to be felt, first imperceptibly, then more and more strongly, musical sounds so familiar to you but, at a closer look, light-years away. Songs that you listened to at 18, that seemed nice to you, you knew they weren’t absolute masterpieces, but to woo a girl, in 1993, Ligabue was more than sufficient. But years have passed, 13 years have passed, school is over, friends are lost, and women are a bit less naïve and a bit more demanding. And you realize, in hindsight, at another age, that what seemed nice to you as a young person was nothing more than a solemn and utterly banal nonsense.
For goodness' sake, if you have a bit of heart and a bit of courage in facing the resurfacing of memories, one can't help but feel a shiver while listening to "Ho messo via" or the very sweet "Walter il mago" (the one who "came back from Mario like a star"), but one cannot overlook everything either. Because as a young person you liked the syncopated rhythms of "Ancora in piedi" and today you discover that they are so fake and plagiarized, that they result old and smelly, and how to forget the phony hard rock of "Lo zoo è qui" (but does Ligabue know what hard rock is, or does he think that to do it you just need two guitars, a bit of grit in the drums, and a bizarre and at times even ridiculous text?). "Dove i treni fermano" is also passable, all in all, but the 12-string guitar of "La ballerina del carillon" would make even a harmless amateur guitarist pale, and it's useless plagiarizing oneself with "I duri hanno due cuori" (half sung and half spoken, like "Bambolina e barracuda", or the references are even higher, who knows, the half sung and half spoken of "La lontananza" by Domenico Modugno?). The strings of "Piccola città eterna" seem sincere, and therefore I can't criticize, but good grief, when I was 18 I was crazy about "Quando tocca a te" whereas today I discover it really is a stupid ditty of almost six minutes where nothing more than assorted platitudes are pronounced (when it’s your turn, it's your turn, and you'll understand what a novelty, you've discovered the obvious dear Liga). And then that air of arrogance, those instrumental pieces that would like to be touches of class whereas instead they are mostly boring and inconclusive.

The suitcase is empty, the cassette is over. "Sopravvissuti e sopravviventi" is not an album I want to throw away, I want to keep it among my most cherished things, indeed, among my most sincere things. Because you know it's an album that musically is worth little, but every time the notes of "Ancora in piedi" start, I seem to go back in time, when music was a vehicle to spend days with friends and you didn’t mentally masturbate thinking "but which bands made the history of progressive?". Back then, music had an emotional value, and it didn't matter if it was good or bad: and if I think about it, tears come to my eyes.
But damn it, have 13 years gone by so fast?

* I usually don't write reviews in which I recount personal or intimate facts. This time I made an exception. Forgive me if you can. Otherwise, it doesn't matter.