Ron
Vorrei Incontrarti Fra Cent'Anni

THE REVIEW

You can take a record and get lost in a whirlwind of abstract thoughts. About minor characters, about (possibly) minor songwriters, about how songwriting (both minor and major) survived the '90s, about records where old things are replayed and sung again. About this and much more. About Ron. I am the type who indulges in abstract thoughts (those who read me know this...) and so, here we go, let’s dive in.

This is a record from 1996. Ron, the mysterious songwriter, is at one of his thousand comebacks. He disappears, writes for others, writes for himself, returns with a heavily advertised record that doesn't sell, does the opposite and sells, performs genuine charity work, gets an inexplicable prime-time slot on Rai dedicated to him, then disappears again, reappears at Sanremo and finishes last, returns again and wins, then comes back once more, and no one notices. What conclusions can be drawn...? In my small way, I always try to stick to the facts, which here are called products, and are called songs. And Ron has written many songs, some of them beautiful in the past. Many remember "Joe Temerario". Far fewer remember "I Ragazzi Italiani". Everyone knows "Piazza Grande". These are great songs. Well-written songwriter songs, with a great "sense of song," of harmony and the alternation between verse, chorus, and various refrains. Even some texts, now ancient, have truly shone in their own light. Then something breaks (as happened, more or less always in the '90s, even to many others, Dalla and Daniele chief among them): the lyrics become deliberately (it can't be otherwise...) preadolescent, the music bluntly "pop" (and certainly not said in a good sense), and the repetitive, useless, often wrong commercial operations.

But this record is not altogether bad. You put it in the stereo, and it "spins" well. Therefore, the rating cannot and should not be insufficient when the product is consumed well. Then we can and must make qualitative distinctions...: let me give you a wine comparison. A good red wine can go down with pleasure, with everyone's satisfaction: host, conversation, diners, the evening in general. But if one has a bit of palate and taste, one can go a bit further, evaluate the processing (lately often too much), the amount of time spent in oak barrels... in short, the special effects. And revise one's rating, maybe still saving, as in this case, the passing grade of the complete work.

Ron won Sanremo with the song that gives the title to the album. And, I'll say it right away, it is a very modest song, although it was (apparently) copied from a Bard's lyric for the literary part and being similar to a hundred other songs musically/harmonically. The participation of the overrated Tosca adds nothing to the track, just as it does not add (and indeed, in my opinion, takes away) from the subsequent "Anima".

The rest is a handful of re-recorded songs, following the sad trend of the time, some with interesting and genuinely new arrangements, and others substantially very similar to the originals. The most interesting pages are "Al Centro Della Musica", "Il Gigante E La Bambina", and "Per Questa Notte Che Cade Giù", tracks already beautiful originally and here enhanced by new, clever, and very pleasantly percussive arrangements.

"Attenti Al Lupo", a hammering of Dalla's that was peaking, but Rosalino's composition, here makes more sense, transformed into a more rock key. One might even see "dramatic" and desecrating aspects here, intending them as desecration of the silliness of the effective Dalla-esque reggae. "Cosa Sarà" becomes an almost-rap. Interesting but not new (this version was already on a previous album). The cover "Ferite E Lacrime" is a useless and poorly realized work, although certainly listenable, with a text as banal as late Pino Daniele. "Piazza Grande" and "Una Città Per Cantare" are always beautiful, although the lack of the co-protagonists from previous versions is felt. There are two versions of the overrated "Non Abbiam Bisogno Di Parole", a song of embarrassingly banal musical and—so to speak—literary nature, although blessed with inexplicable success (or perhaps very explainable, but the discourse would become too long...).

On the cover, a rose with a stylized drawing, on the back a photo/portrait of Ron looking thoughtful and smiling (at himself?). Pleasant record, but symbol of the uselessness and inspirational collapse of songwriters in the nineties (with the necessary, and very rare, exceptions). He will return with a couple of studio albums of basically ugly new songs, and other operations of re-singing the same old things. Well...