Renato Zero
La coscienza di Zero

"I don't thank politicians and those who sing for them."

It is this sentence, closing the credits of "La coscienza di Zero", that certifies the anomaly of Renato Zero, guaranteeing him a status of otherness compared to almost all Italian songwriters. No Festa dell'Unità, no Festa del Garofano nor dell'Amicizia, no kermesse of the Vela, Udeur, Pontida, the first of May, or Liberazione: despite what he claims in one of his famous hits, Renato Zero has never sold out, neither to politics (even though recently his friendship with Veltroni raises some doubts), nor to TV commercials (he will never meet the sad fate of Vasco Rossi), nor to the trash of MTV and the big radio networks (which indeed don't broadcast him even by mistake).

Respect: this is what the former Montagnola's street boy inspires in me, regardless of the artistic value of his production (which indeed during the period 1973-1977 was excellent, compared to the average of Italy in music). Today, as he releases albums at a fast pace, most of which are superfluous (but not for the masses, who every time reward him by pushing him to the top of the annual sales charts), Zero is the ghost of what he could have been if only he hadn't immersed himself in the role of a melodic guru, dispenser of advice and consolations, a role in which he revels.

Still, he manages to highlight some flashes of talent now and then, with one or two hidden gems in each album, even recent ones, and with shows that, stripped of the hysteria scenes from an audience ranging from three to a hundred and twenty years old, are always pleasant, fun, and sometimes exciting. Of course, to appreciate his splendid voice, which is indisputable, one should listen to him in a theater rather than in stadiums or arenas. But for him, it would be a less lucrative choice; hence, a green light to colossal shows, with dancers and fireworks.

Regarding hidden tracks, in 1991 Renato released this Coscienza di Zero (nice title), a sort of anthology of unreleased tracks retrieved from the leftovers of albums from the period 1977-1989, with the addition of "L'aquilone Piero", written in 1990 in memory of the Livorno songwriter Piero Ciampi. The lyrics are delicate and engaging: ("Fear of meeting you, listening to you, understanding you/of resembling you and instinctively then following you/in the deepest of whys in the great desert that now exists/in the doubt of returning to fiction./ Sincere to the core to not be believed/so true not to be liked/when disorder is company/loneliness a disease/when living is a whole song"); the interpretation is minimalist like the arrangement, making this nearly unknown track one of the best of his career (if then compared to trash tracks like "I migliori anni della nostra vita" or "La vita è un dono", it even ascends to the rank of masterpiece).

The album is inevitably, given the different dates of composition and recording, disjointed. And in this, paradoxically, it is perfectly consistent with its author, who has made the alternation of beautiful inventions and total rubbish his trademark. What bothers is the desire to soften tones, to sweeten the original tracks both in text and interpretation: "Psicomania", "L'assassino", "Nafta", "Civiltà", "Tiratura Tiritera", leftovers from Zerofobia, Zerolandia, Erosero, and Artide Antartide, have been entirely re-sung and partly rewritten: by doing so, the poetic-street-trash charm that characterized them in the first version is somewhat faded (the original demos and/or live performances circulate online).

Others have not been touched, among them a successful cover of The Rokes' "E' la pioggia che va" and a curious medley of his "No! Mamma, no!" and "Mamma" by Cherubini-Bixio. From 1983 is "Al cinema", where amidst Alvaro Vitali-like double entendres, the chronicle of an afternoon in a porn cinema is narrated, while from 1982 is "Buon Compleanno", initially sung by Claudio Villa alone, to which Renato here overlaps his voice in a bizarre posthumous duet. The album, (today unavailable like all those from the period 1980/1993, due to a long-standing dispute over rights between the artist and BMG), closes, after the inevitable sermon not recited by Renato Zero, but by his conscience (which in fact turns into an apology of Renato Zero), with "Più insieme", a call to follow the path of the heart instead of the voice of indifference. Before the final line, "I don't thank politicians and those who sing for them", which earns him one or two stars more.