Marco Carta
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Imagine being an artist trying to break through. You have a passion for music, and you want that passion to become a reality. You start looking for the members to form at least a decent band, and with difficulty, you find them (and we all know that nowadays there are plenty of guitarists and bassists but fewer and fewer drummers, not to mention keyboardists, setting aside skill). You start writing your pieces, strictly all together, and begin performing in your city to get known. Maybe sometimes they organize some contests, some festivals, and you try, not aiming too much, but simply to have one more stage to perform on, more people to entertain with your music (whatever genre it may be), maybe gaining new fans.

You create a nice Myspace page and gradually promote it (you decide how). With a lot of effort, using your saved money from various gigs, you manage to rent a recording studio, finally making a serious demo not recorded in your home garage. You distribute it, set it at a fair price. And you keep on touring, trying to get known. As they say in my area, you 'bust your ass'. One evening you go on iTunes, check the chart. Maybe you dream, that one day, at least you'd be in there too, among the millions of tracks, yours would also be present. You read the top-selling albums chart. You read a certain Marco Carta, you don't know who this guy is, but you move on.

The next day you go to a record store... You had asked a favor from the shopkeeper, who could display your demo, a result of months of effort. Unfortunately, the shopkeeper says no, no record has been sold. You look there at your small shelf, still full. You move a bit forward, look, and see this Marco Carta again. He has a cardboard cutout just for him, rows and rows of CDs, some already sold out. Curious, you buy the album, wanting to understand who this guy is, perhaps someone like you, who has worked hard and now has the right price.

Before playing the CD, you do a bit of research on the Internet to understand who this Marco Carta is. You begin to discover that he is one of the many who, unlike you, simply needed to have a nice face, have screaming girls and boys supporting him. Win a show, and they make you a CD. And there you are, working hard for every single gig, doing the hard yards, while this guy arrives and gets everything immediately. But oh well, you don't want to be prejudiced, as De André said: "Flowers are born from manure", maybe this time he is someone who deserves it.

You play the CD, being absolutely unbiased, forgetting all the anger for the duration of the CD. But the anger keeps rising. Anger because a major label like Warner stoops to make such a record. Because it is just a record. The voice is somewhat there, I admit, but it goes no further, it is just a voice without anything. It's clear that the CD was made hastily to strike while the iron was still hot. It goes from terrible covers, including one of "La Donna Cannone" where his strong Sardinian accent comes out. The original songs are the most banal ever conceived by human mind, at the level of the rhyme "sun, heart, love" that has done so well both at Sanremo and for a singer whose name eludes me now. While the covers can never compare to the originals. It is a product made specifically for the fans who will happily spend 15 €, melt in front of the clichés, and fill forums with k's and shortened words to praise the idol of the moment, until another one emerges from the low-quality pop machine.

And you, doing everything to play, sweating over every single note, find yourself at the end with this record in hand, the almost smug face of the singer looking at you as if to say: "See what it takes to achieve success?" And you think of 1984, the book that changed your life, when it talks about music created artificially by the Big Brother for the Proles to distract them from real problems, the lack of freedom. And you get pretty angry.

For the record, the story isn't exactly mine, but of someone dear to me who allowed me to make it public.