Raffaella Carrà
Raffica Carrà

Hello guys, I must confess that, in my limited experience here on Debaser, I have never suffered from what - as Jack Nicholson teaches in Shining - is known as writer's block, or more modestly reviewer’s block, meaning that I have never feared the blank page of my notebook or my computer. My love for the subjects described is too strong, and my passion for my mission, as well as for all of you, is too great.

But there's always a first time, and this first time surprisingly presented itself in front of the blonde bob of the legendary Raffaella Carrà, to whom I wanted to dedicate yet another incursion into the so-called "minor" Italian music: who knows why I didn’t know where to start this review, from which perspective to analyze, with you and for you, Miss Pelloni (stage name Carrà), famously the most loved by Italians - as the old kitchen advertisement reminded us - and certainly one of the most capable showwomen that your reviewer’s memory recalls.

So I decided to make this impasse itself the subject of the review, convinced that, despite her media overexposure, Raffaella is in fact one of the most unknowable characters in Italian entertainment and music: look at her in this cover and tell me what can be said about her! She is not beautiful, provocative she’s not, she doesn’t have a great voice and she’s not an excellent dancer, her bob is as improbable today as it was in the 70s... but despite everything, Raffaella, statuesque like her hair and as ineffable as a Sphinx, is here watching us and asking to be watched, perhaps reviewed, standing as a model - inimitable and unmatched - of haughty femininity, distant, ineffable despite her apparent and familiar closeness.

Who knows what feelings she experiences, ours, what her Spirit is, her existential tone, who knows what she thinks of us, this woman in continuous movement and evolution, akin to a sculpture or a Futurist depiction by a Boccioni or indeed a Carrà. I don't think even the men in her life, from Boncompagni to Japino, understood her, let alone me.

The only way to understand her, in this context, is through her work, summarized in this recently made CD, with a title as ambiguous as it is misleading, "Raffica Carrà", containing her greatest hits, often used as opening themes for the numerous television incursions that Raffaella, sometimes with flared pants and a bare navel, sometimes with sequins and glitter that drag queens love so much, has been giving us for almost forty years.

This music, at the exclusive service of television and choreographic representation, is music to dance to, mixing with a certain wisdom and humor, without excelling technically, pop and vaudeville moods, Latin and calypso touches, describing an Italian-ness eager for escape within its domestic walls, passionate and at the same time chaste, subversive in conservatism, and therefore almost a living oxymoron: much like the expression Raffica Carrà itself!

Indicative of this spirit are the famous "Ma che musica maestro" and "Chissà se va", with a rhythmic incision - with syncopations that surpass so much Italian tradition in a hit hat beat - the exhilarating "Tanti auguri", which exactly thirty years ago, with its blast of joy, sought to entertain Italians during the dramatic Moro kidnapping period. Latin touches appear in the seductive and daring "Porque el amor" and "Bailo, bailo", obviously leading to "Carramba che sorpresa".

The double CD I'm commenting on here, though rich in content, even video in the deluxe version, has been criticized for the absence of equally well-known Raffaella tracks, chief among them two of my favorites: the funky disco "Furore" and the Mexican-tinged "Pedro": listened to among the group dances of a large hotel a few years ago, it opened gaps and escape routes from the humid Adriatic beach where I resided, perhaps on a yacht with the young Raffaella. But we would have had nothing to say to each other, so I continued to read my Gazzetta dello Sport under the umbrella, contenting myself with a tea that in Santa Fe Pedro can only dream of.

Surprisingly Yours,

Il_Paolo