Vasco Rossi
Il blues della chitarra sola

Every time Vasco Rossi does, says, or writes something, it’s a success. No matter what he does, says, or writes, it will surely be right for the numerous "gang" of Blasco. And, by now, it’s been like this for thirty years. The feeling towards the self-proclaimed rocker from Zocca (Vasco is to rock what Renzi is to Che Guevara), increasingly posthumous while alive, has now become an increasingly uncritical belonging. "I like it because Vasco is Vasco," is the cyclic response you hear from those who praise and defend him, no matter the cost. For at least fifteen years Vasco Rossi has slyly reiterated himself, talking to the moon or blaming the whiskey, each time garnering ever-wider acclaim. As Pier Vittorio Tondelli said back in the '80s, his success doesn’t depend so much on his musical message as much as on "an attitude, a lived story, a mythology, becoming the idol of a diversity." But what kind of diversity are we talking about? Certainly not political, but more personal and temperamental. Vasco is generically against, it’s not clear who he’s against, but he has to flaunt a malaise that animates the popular grumble (Colpa di Alfredo, Siamo solo noi), between a slurred "ehhhhh" and a raised middle finger against the world. The existential years, then the years of prison and drugs, and then the radical years, and later the announced and effectively denied farewells. He is a revolutionary but moderate refuge, a hitting nobody to hit a hundred thousand, a boisterous yet tenderly romantic being. Let’s be clear, during his long and commendable career, the national Blasco has strung together always worthy pearls (Sally, Vivere, Ogni volta, Liberi liberi etc.), but always seasoned with that echo of quirks that have led him to become a caricature of himself. For many years now, Vasco evokes tenderness; he’s "the fragile friend" sung by De André. More than his artistic sensitivity, it's his perception that impresses. Only Vasco can turn formulas of blatant adolescent simpleness (I want to find a meaning to this life, even if this life has no meaning), into invulnerable and irrefutable words. Because he sings it, because he embodies it, because he recites it. The last notable album is "Canzoni per me," dating back to 1998: after that, nothing. Vasco has aged poorly, and his art has aged poorly as well. In his vague, but subversive dissatisfaction, there’s a declination to a non-specific annoyance for a world that "makes you lose your mind" and that "is not the world I want." He will always be there, and he'll never be able to pull the plug because he's now a slave to his character and his condition, between a verbal scuffle with Ligabue and a hospital recovery stint. For him, as he sang in "Sally," there will always be a place where strawberries can still be eaten.