The stupid set
Hello I love you

LA RECENSIONE

Like, "Hello I love you" is a really great song. It’s not part of the first two Doors albums, but it’s pretty cool all the same. It has a nice psychedelic circus rhythm and a kind of innocence like a hyper little song... and it talks about an apparition girl, and all of you know what an apparition girl is, right?

What I mean is that, in a certain sense, it talks about Venus (and a colored Venus if I remember correctly).

But despite the subject (damn, Venus!!!) it doesn’t take itself too seriously and seems just right, with that rhythm that’s almost a joke, suited/suited to transforming into a toy song.

That’s what the Stupid set did, toy songs.

And by transforming "Hello I love you" into a toy song they managed to produce one of the most beautiful covers of all time.

After all, there was a lot of playful spirit in the vibrant Bologna of the late seventies/early eighties, just think of Skiantos or the Confusional Quartet (the latter group deserves to be rediscovered). The power of imagination, with us, is mostly from that period.

Imagination and irony, bien sur. And if we add to the group people like Andrea Pazienza and Filippo Scozzari, we understand each other even better.

Anyway, consider "Hello I love you" as something like this: a little Bontempi-like keyboard, electronic drums, wave primer voice, various types of doodles, silly or faux psychotic choirs... then the voice thickens, the rhythm becomes dark and, in a flash, it shifts from toy song to a primer of early eighties paranoia...

Well, until yesterday I only knew about this little gem, it was on a c90 mixtape that my best supplier of crazy music made for me. But "Hello I love you" is an EP and contains three other tracks, all magnificent. It's rather obsessive electronics, but essentially playful, with those little keyboards making little tunes of childlike incongruity and a thousand and one other contrivances between the dark, the laughter-inducing, and the who knows what.

The playful air is never missing.

The Residents as masters, I read in all the various articles online: undoubtedly, or even without a doubt, except that I know The Residents very little... if not almost nothing...

Maybe let’s add a pinch of no wave (Arto Lindsay was very interested in the Bolognese scene) or some inspired (and inspiring) prankster at random, like maybe dear old Uncle Frank.

Ah, there have been pranksters in our music, and rightly so, we also count the Stupid set in the category. Their corporate name, after all, is a whole program...

Trallallà...