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Rating: It was 2002 when this album came out and I bought it, and I said: "well... actually... bad: it's over". It had all the air of a funeral, of the epitaph, sometimes even cheerful, of the great Italian singer-songwriter tradition. The protagonists were these: the Prince De Gregori, certainly the best of the group, a splendid and always very active singer-songwriter, often dubbed, rather inaccurately, the "Italian Dylan", an epithet that is both belittling and exalting. Certainly, in his way of living the song, there was (and is) a lot of Dylan-esque spirit, for better and - very little - for worse. The second is Pino Daniele, one of those Italian artists with a career split in two: a glorious past of experimentation, creativity, and great compositional and instrumental trials, and a present that, when it's good, is pure elevator music, and when it's bad fills the room with embarrassment for anyone who has loved him. The third is an absolutely mysterious figure in our national singer-songwriter scene. Capable of magnificent singer-songwriter songs (anyone who wrote "Piazza Grande" has already amply earned paradise), of clever and well-made pandering ("Attenti Al Lupo"), of forgotten Sanremos with beautiful songs ("Il Mondo Avrà Una Grande Anima"), and others won with nice but fundamentally mediocre pieces ("Vorrei Incontrarti Tra Cent' Anni"). He collaborated as much on the immortal "Banana Republic" in ancient and true years as with the very forgettable Lorenzo Giovannotti in tiny, tiny recent years. In short: a talented mystery, perfectly in tune and with great musicality, as well as an enviable sense of songwriting.
The fourth is Fiorella Mannoia, labeled by the harsh as "luxury piano bar" and by the good as a great singer, mostly for the love directed towards her by maestros such as Fossati and De Gregori himself. I have never managed to be biased. Technically she's quite good, some albums are objectively beautiful, but the whole thing has always had an aura of inevitable overestimation. The fact that four such personalities came together not for a concert but for an entire tour was, at the time, a pleasant and terrifying thing. And so is the album.
Pleasant because inside there is a great sample of beautiful songs, true history of Italian songwriting, almost always wonderfully interpreted. Terrifying because the project in itself combines the despair of a dying genre with a "let’s turn it into a festival" that feels a lot like a party event, with sausages and "let's all sing together" that risks being somewhat a debasement of both the genre and the performers themselves. Certain vocal flourishes by Daniele, certain dances by Mannoia (for those with the DVD...) and above all certain “third-rate choir” vocals certainly don't enrich a product that, I'm sure, twenty years earlier would have been conceived in a completely different, if not opposite, way. Someone might argue, at this point, that I like the serious, angry songwriter who tells you about the world. And perhaps, to some extent, it is true. But there are middle grounds like, for instance, the latest Fossati, who managed to reconstruct his rockier and "fun" past without creating an atmosphere of "is this the party?".
However, it is undeniable, at times it is enjoyable. Some interpretations are beautiful. There is certainly more fun than emotion, and maybe there's only fun and no emotion. But at least the fun seems sincere. Pino Daniele has said he's willing to repeat the experience only if Fossati agrees to participate. It seems that the Genoese-Piedmontese, perhaps falsely and courteously, responded with a smiling "no, thanks".
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