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Rating: ”I want to tell the scandal” Romina Falconi
Let's talk about Romina Falconi, born in 1984, blonde (dyed, by her own admission) from Torpignattara (transplanted to Milan) who describes herself as “a truck driver in the body of a vamp.” I got to know her through some collaborations with Immanuel Casto (for example “Sognando Cracovia” or “Crash”), but Romina comes from a long apprenticeship: a wedding singer at a very young age, a backup singer, and finally XFactor and Sanremo. In short, she tried in every way, but only succeeded when she let herself go and really dared, baring herself in her music.
Now let's talk about “Biondologia”: you know those simple things we sometimes feel ashamed of, but they are what actually bring us back to life? Like a nice meal with friends, the smell of coffee in the morning, those moments when we're alone and do silly things in front of the mirror? Well, Biondologia for me encapsulates this mood. A concept album that aims to be an emotional map of all of life's blows, with few consolatory frills and without that Italian pop obsession with Pollyanna-like positivity of “if you slap me, I'm stronger and I'll forgive you because I am a woman and I'll make it.” Because, let's face it, while it's true that life is wonderful, there are moments when you really don't know how you'll make it through the night and phrases like “everything will be okay” just make you upset.
These are precisely the moments that are the core of Biondologia. And the weapon used to tell the story is one that Romina Falconi knows how to use very well: irony. It's hard to capture all the perfect phrases that unfilteredly talk about disappointments, anger, and other hard-to-digest events, but that in the end are capable of bringing a smile (even if sometimes it's a forced one). “When one door closes, this shit opens,” Falconi sings in “Troppo Tardi,” or “You said you can't live without me, so why don’t you die” in the beautiful and concluding “Buona vita arrivederci” or “Like in prison, the soaps fall and I have to bend down” from “Cadono saponette.” She talks about remorse, regrets, abandonment, emotional dependency, sex, death, pessimism. All told with the lightness of someone who is used to walking on the edge of the abyss and has stuck their head in that abyss a thousand times. And maybe this is precisely how the singer-songwriter exorcizes her demons. Nothing new under the sun, you might say, but music often used in this cathartic manner gives us great albums.
Musically, the album is exquisitely pop and uses as many colors as possible. It ranges from the current sounds in the dance direction of “Troppo tardi,” to the soft electronics of “Buona vita arrivederci,” through the singer-songwriter style of “Vuoi l’amante” and the 1980s pop-rock of “Ringrazia che sono una signora.” The intention was to create a standalone world for each song, and to string together each stroke in the right way took three years. The result is a pop record that you feel like singing at the top of your lungs and in a liberating way, where every word has a precise place and meaning. The best pieces are those where the tragicomic and the grotesque take over and open the door to Romina's (and each of our own) mental tortures.
In short, finally a pure pop album that stands out from the glossy and annoyingly optimistic Italian scene and dares to offer us a personal, brutal, and ironic view of life. And it's in this way that Romina has managed to create from scratch (and using the web in a very clever way) a following of loyal fans who adore her. I eagerly await the next step.
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