Stadio
Siamo tutti elefanti inventati

LA RECENSIONE

When I happen to dust (very rarely) the cabinet where I keep all the CDs I've bought over the last 30 years like religious relics, I realize several things: that I've purchased authentic masterpieces and I boast about it to myself (sic), that I've bought other CDs just because I liked the cover, and others still recommended by phantom friends "versed" in music. Sometimes I've also bought some enormous blunders, as is normal. But it is during the dusting that I come across works that at the time of purchase perhaps did not gift me the emotions that, instead, I've felt decades later while re-listening to the work.

That happened to me today with an old album by Stadio, an authentic Emiliano band, former support group for Lucio Dalla who launched them back in 1982 by arranging their first work. The album in question was released in 1991 and is titled "We Are All Imaginary Elephants," perhaps their best work along with "Of Foxes, Vices, and Virtues" and "Let's Establish Contact." Indeed, this triptych stands apart from the rest of their production, which is full of banal lyrics about love and its thousands of facets entrusted to one Saverio Grandi who, after some good points ("The Big Box," for example), wrote almost exclusively about love in a trite and overwrought manner. And then within the triptych are songs worthy of the name, just think of "Swatch" written by Guccio, "The Stakeout" by Bergonzoni, or "Wasted Love Song" written by Vecchioni, up to the pieces signed by the poet Roberto Roversi (yes, the Norisso of Dalla's automobiles).

For this reason, today I've reevaluated the imaginary elephants because it is not a "monothematic" work but rather varied, containing small forgotten pearls not numbered among Stadio's famous tracks. The album, very enjoyable, wisely arranged, rich not only in guitar riffs but also in brass that make it fuller and more complete, puts Gaetano Curreri's powerful voice to the test, probably at its best period. Some of the pens that participated in writing the songs are among the best in Italian singer-songwriting knowledge.

The CD, after "Try Not to Be Away," written by the best Vasco Rossi, and the televised "Generation of Phenomena," gives us a great vocal performance by Gaetano Curreri in the track "Skin to Skin," with words by Luca Carboni, where the lead vocal capitalizes on the experience and years of apprenticeship spent with Dalla. It thus reaches the unattainable, to the song played and sung "heavily," a piece that Stadio will hardly repeat. A solid rock with interesting lyrics, full of keyboards and guitars, entirely signed by Ivano Fossati, who later included it in his "Lindbergh" of 1992. This song alone would make the work more than dignified, but one can also listen to others like "Voicemail" with lyrics by Claudio Lolli: a story perhaps over, or perhaps not, the appeal of a man to his woman, or rather to her voicemail... It's true, we're very far from Lollian poetry, but it's still Claudio, and you can tell! The ending of the track is intense with Marco Tamburini's trumpet.

The boys (at the time they were) have mastery of their instruments and make themselves heard even in the lesser songs on the album "I Need You" and "Who Knows What It Is" where the lyrics by Saverio Grandi, signed with Curreri, are not up to the music. The icing on the cake remains that "Chalk White and Black of Heart" words by Roberto Roversi, a true anthem to racial integration, composed in his antiquarian bookstore in Bologna "Palmaverde" where as a boy I had the honor of entering only once to listen to Roversi talking about resistance and the greatness of writing that can break through among peoples of all races and religions.

A dignified album to listen to and re-listen to because, unfortunately, after 1995 (year of "Of Foxes, Vices, and Virtues") the group's production has terribly flattened with works that, except for some sporadic cases, have said nothing new.