Mario Venuti
Recidivo

"Recidivo" is the first album by Mario Venuti that I have ever purchased in my life, and I have absolutely no regrets about buying it. A great album, which I highly recommend (its debut on the FIMI chart at only the 36th position screams injustice, but we all know that quality and sales don't necessarily go hand in hand, quite the opposite... often).

I have always bypassed Venuti in my musical purchases, despite being an aficionada of Italian songwriting, primarily because his vocal style left me cold: it's not only limited in range (which isn't necessarily a bad thing for me: I love several other artists who share the same "flaw," if it can be called that), but also fairly colorless, expressionless, and a bit too "forced" in delivery. Accompanying these doubts were more significant ones, concerning his lyrics, which on various occasions in the past seemed to me a bit too self-congratulatory, characterized by the search for themes, words, and impactful images that felt somewhat contrived, put there just to make people say, "How talented he is..."

In "Recidivo," Venuti's voice still doesn't particularly excite me, but none of these lyrics communicate any artificiality to me, with the possible exception of the title track and the duet with Carmen Consoli, dealing respectively with the themes of bisexuality and prostitution.
Among the tracks that struck me the most in this rich and beautifully crafted work of songwriting, I'd like to highlight at least the following:

- "La virtù dei limoni", dedicated to his father, affectionately addressed as "engineer," but always without any trace of rhetoric or easy elegy. A fresh, sincere, and touching dialogue, woven with images that are sometimes everyday, sometimes metaphorical, but always poetic, supported by a musical accompaniment that is never intrusive, building to a crescendo in the chorus without ever betraying the delicacy inherent in the spirit of the track;

- "Galatea", a reimagining of the myth of Aci and Galatea, but seen from the perspective of the cyclops (humanized and refined here), characterized by extreme sweetness in its melody, simple language, and a beautiful accompaniment of delicate strings emphasizing the uniqueness of this Polifemo-narrator, timid and bewildered for once;

- "Un cuore giovane", with its discreet harmonies reminiscent of a 1960s tile dance, into which a simple yet beautiful lyric is woven: a vivid, intimate tapestry of sensations and emotions that at times—especially in the very first verses—reminds me of "L'illogica allegria" by Gaber (a truly fitting duet with Cesare Cremonini, an artist I've also come to appreciate for what he’s worth only since his 2005 theater tour, and whom perhaps I've never heard in such vocal grace, able as he is to bring other very warm colors to the already precious textual imagery).

- "Spleen #132", a sublime embroidery of refined strings supports another great duet, this one between Venuti and Franco Battiato (who, in the parts reserved for him, seems almost to be singing one of his own songs, so much does he make it instantly "his"; or perhaps it was unconsciously Venuti—and this also applies to the track sung with Cremonini—who has respectively embraced, in composing music and lyrics, certain atmospheres and styles perhaps more usual within the respective repertoires of his duet colleagues); here, the subtle melancholy—the "spleen," indeed—of an ordinary Italian consumerist Saturday night quickly dissolves into an autumnal reflection animated by accents of vague but heartfelt optimism towards life and the future;

- "Il Milione", with a Venuti who is part Marco Polo, part philosopher on the meaning of life, painting truly evocative and poetic pictures yet again characterized by the power of images (it seems you can see in front of you "men who smell of wind/sitting around a fire to consume tea..." or those "women who do not shy away from the gaze/even if their body is to be hidden..."); all in the unfolding of the plot of a journey to the East. A light piano and initially almost intangible strings, then gradually more and more majestic until they seem like the soundtrack of a Hollywood blockbuster, effectively underline the textual enchantment.

The tracks that convince me the least in the album are, conversely, those with more lively rhythms, among which I particularly point out "Impulsi primari", "Recidivo", "Lasciami andare"; in these, in fact, the quest for musical zest doesn't seem to me to rise completely from the shallows of ordinary and somewhat trivial pop, which ends up, in my opinion, never allowing the lyrics to truly soar (in any case, appearing not on the level of those truly magnificent songs I have analyzed above).

But I am talking about sins that are venial within a record that I find very beautiful overall.