Vasco Rossi
Il mondo che vorrei

After tours accompanied by oceanic crowds, hundreds of thousands of copies sold, and an honorary degree for the communicative impact he's had on multiple generations of Italians, the popular national icon Vasco Rossi releases his fifteenth studio album.

The Vasco "king of the stadiums," the one who can sell four hundred thousand copies just in the first week of releasing an album, the one who is now considered the greatest Italian rocker, at the age of fifty-six, much to the delight of many, churns out his eagerly awaited new album. Lots of glory and success for a character who paradoxically experiences his moment of glory in the least creative and most disappointing phase of his now thirty-year career, but we all know very well the magic of show business...

Il Mondo che Vorrei is the result of everything I have just said, you can see, or rather, hear a totally banal Vasco now a product of the Italian discography that he manages to lift out of the sales crisis. Just take a look at the tracklist to understand his now "predictable" intentions. It is certainly an album with good musical foundations (the part he takes less care of), some excellent international caliber musicians collaborated, with Slash being the foremost, but despite this, there is the sensation of listening to a Vasco that is not authentic and uninspired. Now people know too well what they expect from him, so he limits himself to make little songs that, if sung at San Siro by eighty thousand people, can even look good, but if listened to with both ears and heart, turn into a sad sermon of platitudes. All seem already more or less heard: "Gioca con me" talks about a girl who fills jeans very similar to "Brava," or "Il mondo che vorrei" seems like "Un Senso" but with an added load of self-awareness. Then there are the new GEMS like "Colpa del whisky," where he doesn't remember the girl because of the whisky, but in the refrain, he implores her to stay with him; the AWFUL "Ho bisogno di te" with a long repetitive refrain where he does nothing but scream, "I need you, who needs me." No Comment. Instead, in "Non vivo senza te," where all in all the refrain is cute, he writes, "Writing a song / is like dancing for hours / before singing collapsed," up to this point all is fine, to then scream, "DO YOU WANT ME TO SING A SPLENDID SONG?" and I would wish for everyone to answer YESSS, since he just can't do it anymore!!! In short, I can't accept this Vasco of 2008, those small, simple verses, but direct to the stomach like a punch, that made him unique and authentic for years, have been replaced by useless moans without meaning.

I think it’s time to retire, although the stadiums are still packed and everyone, even the most authoritative music magazines, keep praising him (they could never afford to lose a good slice of the audience). Vasco has made many beautiful songs, has suddenly entered the DNA of millions of people, has made people cry and laugh, dream and suffer.

But even beautiful things sooner or later end.

Thank you so much for the attention you’ve given to my first-ever review/rant.