Paola & Chiara
Giornata Storica

"Historic Day" sees Paola & Chiara in a declining phase. The period of "Ti vada o no" (version of "I Won't Say (I'm In Love" by Belinda Carlisle, for Disney's "Hercules") and "Per te" only confirmed their popularity. The release of the first single "Colpo di fulmine" marked a halt. Personally, I didn't love this single: musically, today I find it pleasant; lyrically, it still brings me back to adolescent situations in "Ci chiamano bambine" (as also 2/4 of the album does).

The album contains a dedication in its CD booklet: "...to the memory of the victims of the Omagh massacre (by a splinter wing of the IRA) and to the spirit of all the warrior poets who have fought and continue to fight for freedom", similar to the previous album that stated: "This record is dedicated to the memory of Grandfather Mario and to all the fearless hearts around the world fighting for freedom".

I stood for this record when it came out in 1998: its failure disappointed me. Yes, it doesn’t contain tracks that can remain hits like its predecessor, but there is something good to be found in terms of lyrics. The music is nice, and reflects a certain desire for change (even if the two sisters are still young and cannot be considered as pioneers of something "musically" interesting, as perhaps the Oasis did).

The tracks I will examine are few. "Siamo noi", the second track of the album, is somewhat a defense for the generation of then and now accused of not having values. For this, I turn to Fabrizio De André:

"The youth of today don't lack values: they have values we can't understand because we are attached to our own".

If the values are material and not moral, I, too, am somewhat against. If they are moral, I fully agree. If both, perhaps even yes.

"We all have a fire inside/the task of all our dreams/is to never let it go out".

This is how "Non puoi dire di no" begins, a song about living life freely, moving forward without looking back, and making dreams a reality. The only successful song from the album, in the video Paola & Chiara appear with a slightly strange and rebellious look, where I can appreciate them in about 3/4 of the video before moving on to a different opinion, without, however, "disdaining" them.

(This seems like a metamorphosis that lasted a year: long hair and teenage clothes; hair cut and long skirts [beautiful at the Sanremo of 1998] and now like this).

Paola tells "Music line" in 2004, on Retequattro: ""Historic Day" is an album that came out in a moment of tension with our record company.".

And then "Nina", a song about a somewhat difficult girl who "like a beautiful glass flower will fall into a thousand pieces every time she takes a step back" - despite the strong woman singing style of Paola & Chiara, I find a certain affection towards the character. The last single of the album.

Pacifist songs in Italy found their first bard in Fabrizio De André. "La guerra di Piero" is his most famous piece. "Soldati" concludes the album and is a pacifist piece, an outlier in the repertoire of the two Milanese sisters. Well done, it's one of the most Irish songs of the whole album; in the credits, you can indeed read:

"uillean pipe, tin whistles, bodhran, bouzouki, Irish intro: Massimo Giantini".

If De André’s songs consist only of rhymes, this piece has some rhymes and a few assonances. This track is a bit strange for the two sisters whose voices have always sung about adolescent moments. But if this were a price to pay to try something out, so be it.

"Historic Day" thus does not reveal itself as a commercial step forward (a similar result happened to "Blu" in 2004 and the recent "Win the Game") and the two sisters will stay afloat thanks to television.

The after... is now. Paola & Chiara have left behind their adolescent look (with the exciting red lips on the cover of "Ci chiamano bambine") to show themselves as women on the cover of this album (less makeup than the previous album. Beautiful as always). And they show me that even if they won't leave anything significant in Italian music, the mix of "commitment" and "youthful transgression" (sometimes evident, sometimes not) will make them remembered as somewhat "apart" characters.

From 2000 onwards, the look of emancipated women, never definitively abandoned.