The Cranberries
Stars The Best Of 1992-2002

In 2002, in a phase of limbo after a hefty dose of Blur and Oasis (thanks to their album and 'Stop crying your heart out'), a brief love for the Cranberries reignited within me, with a song that brought back the 'dramatic' and deeply felt atmospheres in music (from their first albums) and Dolores' voice.

The song is 'Stars': what captivated me and gave me a taste of their atmospheres and the bittersweet times of my third year of high school (see previous review) was the video, an alternation of images of the Irish nature, of her in it and with the others in the band playing.

Reviewing the Best is pointless, simply because I chose it as a pretext to talk about an important personal experience.

But if I had to satisfy the principle of talking about a record, I would say a few words about the group's production up to this album: the Rock start with Celtic nuances, not too strong, of the first two albums, more pronounced in the third revealed the group's musical identity with success, which started in America, and spread around the world; the fourth record, although pleasant, showed a loss of strength in their style, but understandable for the singer's inner rebirth after problems with depression due to personal reasons and with the press (correct me if I am wrong).

The last album, born in serenity, flows without leaving any great emotion.

The song 'Stars' is a nice return to the origins of the pain that led Dolores to write the most heartfelt songs.

And the pain provoked on the evening of January 15, 2018, when in the opening titles of Tg1, the death of Dolores O'Riordan in London was announced.

As long as I knew it was a sudden death, I was quite upset: when months later I read the real cause (alcohol intoxication), I had to resign myself to the fact that such deaths, in the history of Rock, are common.