Lucio Dalla
Il Contrario Di Me

Stubbornly, we still try to love it. Periodically. And periodically we get angry, and much more rarely do we enjoy it. If the neglected and semi-unknown DVD with the horrendous title "classica&jazz" was nevertheless a more than worthy work, this album, a real album, this "the opposite of me," once again does not fully convince. While Dalla remains an animal of pure musicality, and at times loves to remind us of it, more often than not he showcases the flaws highlighted in the last two decades, ever since that “change” which carried that symbolic and definitive title.

Indeed, Dalla, since that distant year, has truly “changed,” and not just a little. The way of writing has changed and especially the way of singing. It's not that his voice has become ugly, but it's precisely the way he approaches the texts, the way he “cuts” the meter that has changed. On the other hand, even Lucio, like Vasco, nowadays writes very little of his albums, and it shows. Definitely. Unanswered question: how is it possible that someone with this level of songwriting talent chooses, with seemingly only convenience, to put himself in the hands of others, and moreover almost always less capable hands? So here we're stuck with a long series of utterly useless co-authors, from well-known co-signers (Mariani, Ferro, Costa... I mean... the usual circle, not even bad), to Lucio's new “musical infatuation,” that Alemanno who seems to be a capable character, but not very much, and certainly less than the protagonist. In short: Lucio falls into Vasco's mistake, Pino Daniele's and many other more or less classic singer-songwriters: he senselessly puts his talent in the hands of others, whether to make less effort or to support the apparent exhaustion of artistic vein. I, personally, am among those who believe that veins do not run out, but it is the living conditions (and cerebral) of artists that undergo dangerous amortizations. If I would recommend Pino Daniele a little house of sixty square meters in the center of Naples, with a Stratocaster and without Fabiole around, so would I recommend Lucio Dalla to lock himself in a nice Bolognese attic, student stuff, with an electric piano, paper, and pen. No computer, no Alemanni, no baroque overdubs of four hundred tracks. Voice and piano, then adding in the studio, later, a guitar, a bass, a drum set, and a keyboard. I'm sure beautiful songs would come out, maybe not the great masterpieces of the golden era, but simply beautiful songs. Look at Fossati, Conte, Battiato, and De Gregori: signing their own pages is proof of dignity, as well as artistic consistency. Being recognizable is nice, even for oneself, or at least it should be...

Going back to the album, some good things can still be noted, regardless of the choice (purely marketing but posed as artistic/inevitable) to sell the product at a -finally- reduced price in newsstands. The first good thing, and good in absolute, is the absence of the usual chart gimmickry (the “attenti al lupo,” “canzone,” “ciao,” etc...), and this is already a plus, as it would at least suggest the intention to deliver a product, in some way, “artist’s,” and not just a summer/beach music animal. Then, a certain refinement in the arrangements, even if redundant here and there (as often happened over the last twenty years), makes the CD an album that indeed "sounds" quite good on the stereo. Then a couple of objectively good songs, like "Rimini" (fun and truly “Dallian”), “Malinconia d'ottobre” (not a masterpiece, but more than listenable), or even "Lunedì" which might have been a failed attempt at a summer hit but remains a good “Dallian” track as well, even with echoes of the “Ron/Stadio” period. Disappointing “due dita sotto il cielo,” a pseudo-tenor song dedicated to Valentino Rossi who, anyway, deserves better, the very melodic and trivial “la mela,” or the useless duet “i.n.r.i.”.

The album closes with “come il vento,” a decent ballad that never quite takes off as it should, and “ativ,” which has a nice backbone of a verse on a good jazzy rhythm and a pleasant piano riff. Unfortunately, after the verse comes a refrain that doesn't match up, thus, to close in an evidently symbolic way, an album that promises but does not deliver. Or at least, it doesn't deliver all it seemed to promise (...maybe only to us who are perpetually disillusioned...?).