Radio Days
Back In The Day

Music is mathematics and notes are numbers for doing operations and producing something, that is, what comes after the equals sign.

Like ... Beatles + AC/DC + Buzzcocks = power pop.

If the donut always came out with a hole, since the Beatles and AC/DC sell millions of records but the Buzzcocks do not, power pop should be a hugely successful genre if things were proportional.

But it’s not true that the donut always comes out with a hole; or maybe it is true, and the Beat and 20/20 are swimming in gold but are concealing it well.

Then everyone knows “My Sharona”; but if you ask anyone who plays “My Sharona,” anyone already becomes someone; and if you ask someone for another title to accompany “My Sharona,” someone rhymes with no one.

It happens that the aforementioned donut comes out without a hole in the United States but also in England, let alone in Italy.

Never heard of a power pop scene in Italy, where no one even attempted to bake the donut.

But then, the Radio Days emerged, who aren’t a scene, but they are a really great thing.

They are from Milan and have been active since the Zero Years - of the millennials, to be clear - starting with four and remaining three, Dario on guitar and vocals, Mattia on bass, and Paco on drums.

They immediately disowned their first album and removed it from their discography with correction fluid, with a nonchalance that not even Joe Strummer had when faced with “Cut The Crap,” and it's rumored that it was self-titled: really rather banal, pop punk without any real art, a poorly scribbled copy of Blink 182 and Sum 41, just to stay in the magical world of random numbers.

Then came a mini, “Midnight Cemetery Rendezvous,” and it's said to be a little masterpiece; said, because the hundred copies printed sold out in the night of time and were never reprinted; however, those who have it are trustworthy people and speak highly of it, and after listening to the disc in question, they rushed to acquire the complete works of the aforementioned Beat and 20/20.

Two LPs followed, “C’Est La Vie” and “Get Some Action”, the first not bad, the other quite good: they say, regarding “C’Est La Vie”, they make semi-serious references to a phantom prog-power-pop (!!!!!), “... stuff for psychopaths ...”, due to arrangements “slightly” over the top; I think so too, even if the genre prog-power-pop is something I would never even have imagined; anyone can form an opinion since these can be found, around.

And a few months ago, here comes “Back In The Day,” which is a proper power-pop album.

The Beatles are there, of course, and placed right at the beginning, just to get it out of the way: “Why Don’t You Love Me Anymore” and “Rock’n’Roll Night” still smell of wet ink, but even stronger is the aroma of sauerkraut and sausages that comes from the kitchens of little Hamburg joints where the not-yet-baronets were honing their skills, fifty and more years ago, and anyone who complains is an old fogey and everything that follows; and then “You Won’t Fool Me Twice” is even more of the mop-top hairstyle, clean face, jacket and tie, but the title suggests otherwise.

Right, exactly them.

So, the lads borrow the riff of “Substitute,” redo it in flat or sharp but what do I know, and in no time place “Back In The Day” there, just to say that the Beatles are the Beatles, but the Who have their reason too and for some they are the fab four of rock’n’roll.

Then there's everything else that should be in a power-pop record, that is, sunny and beachy melodies, festive and sweet little choruses, Saturday afternoons strolling the main street, waiting for the girl of my dreams to pass by, and this time I find the courage to ask her if she wants to come with me to that nerd Simone’s party and maybe then I find the courage to invite her out to the cinema and pizzeria.

Which is more or less the essence of “I’m In Love With You,” “Out Of The Shade,” “Subway Station Girl,” “Smash This Party” and all the rest.

Great album, highly recommended.