Lucio Battisti
Cosa succederà alla ragazza

After the interesting but unsuccessful experiment of "Don Giovanni" (1986) and the weak interlude of "L'apparenza" (1988), followed by the somewhat less scattered experimentation of "La sposa occidentale" (1990), Battisti hits the masterpiece: "Cosa succederà alla ragazza". The process of musical disintegration has now been completed. With guitars and pianos banned, Battisti composes songs solely through highly precise electronic instruments: keyboards become 'programmable'; guitars are rhythmic; the arrangements are metallic and futuristic. The classical and mystical melodies (which had been the backbone of "Don Giovanni") vanish and, definitively, die. The rhythm is hard, very hard, almost unbearable: Panella's lyrics are more than hermetic, they are insane, and Battisti's voice is harsh and biting. A true revolution: the audience didn't appreciate it and sent the album plummeting to the lower regions of the hit parade. Indeed, it's difficult to love this album at first listen: the songs, beautiful as they are, present neither catchy choruses nor enticing verses, only a jumble of words and thoughts. Total emotions blend with often abstract and deliberately confused ideas and concepts, metaphors become obscure, and pop seems to suffer, perhaps a bit too much, under the blows of a substantial and coldly logical renewal. There are no solutions, no demarcation lines: "Cosa succederà alla ragazza" is art, art that's hard to grasp, art that's hard to understand. It's like a Picasso painting, you know it's beautiful but you don't fully understand why. It's like life: it’s worth living, but you don't quite know why.

"Cosa succederà alla ragazza" is indeed a delirious conception of the world and life. This is especially evident when listening to the less comprehensible tracks, such as "Però il rinoceronte". "E si dovrebbe vivere lontani per non essere creduti se si dice, ti è nato un disinganno mai allevato che è grosso come un bue": in this verse, superbly composed with divine syntax and articulation, lies the entire meaning, and perhaps more, of the album. It is love, and thus life itself, that drives man: this might be a cliché, but for sure, the language used to express this cliché is ingenious and original. Philosophically, the album is filled with ideas and sometimes extreme concepts (see the song that gives the album its title), but very often it touches on artistic flair and ecstasy: "Tutte le pompe" is a masterpiece of pure art. The hard and pure sound of the drum beats consistently and ever vibrantly on a seemingly crazy text that is, in truth, very sincere: "Una lady s'incendia un pò per sfizio, un pò per gaudio immenso anticipato, e il suo marito in cravatta con la lingua, diventa un calamaro così che non sfiguri". The arrangements, crafted by Gregg Jackman, Richard Lowe, and Howard Bargroff, sail towards sounds and melodies closer to late '80s hip hop (already third-rate hip hop) with surprising openings towards more harmonious sounds strangely close to the underground sounds of certain American suburbs. A beautiful song, "La metro eccetera", breaks, and partly alleviates, the harshness. Strangely less hard and less underground, "La metro eccetera" is perhaps one of the most successful tracks of Battisti's entire career. Techno music with interesting vocal openings worthy of the best Battiato (from "L'era del cinghiale bianco"), it’s an extremely catchy track, deliberately flat and melodic, in which, a rare case, Panella’s lyrics avoid being hermetic or incomprehensible. It’s incredible how the poet Pasquale (no one ever called him that, it’s my exclusive) manages to describe, with terms oscillating between the simple and the grandiloquent, the journey of a metro between one station and the next. Strikingly seductive glimpses open, and immediately close, the intense track: the entrance of a beautiful woman seems like a Manichean mirage amidst the most degraded urban squall ("In un soffio di porta fa l'ingresso la bella incatenata a testa alta, mentre i passeggeri sono entrati, col capo chino e l'umiltà dei frati. Bella incatenata dai suoi stessi ormeggi, la cinghia della borsa, e stringhe mosce e fascie di camoscio e stratagemmi, dei morbidi tormenti d'organzino"). Alas, the repetitive finale misses the mark ("Cosa farà di nuovo", there's no denying it, is quite disappointing), while Andy Duncan, the album's producer, masterfully oversees the entire work.

The cover, white and striking, is yet another show of courage and independence from a great artist, Battisti, capable (partly out of shrewdness, partly out of skill) of earning respect from record labels and producers (produced by the glorious Columbia). Music, after "Cosa succederà alla ragazza", will never be the same again. A good or a bad thing? "Hegel" has the final say.