W.A.S.P.
The Crimson Idol

“…and they lived happily ever after”

THE END

Hold on, hold on. Who are you trying to fool? Did you really say everyone? And by "lived" do you mean forever, until compost, or just for the honeymoon and the months that follow? It's nice to hope that once you reach the "goal" you can look at everything from above and spend the rest relaxing pleasantly on a downhill slope. You graduate and you're a volcano ready to conquer the world, you move up a category after 5 years of second places and you think it's the start of an exponential trajectory whose end you can't see lost among the clouds, you get married and think about your future Mulino Bianco family that's happy in the morning when going to work and getting ready for school, you retire and plan your thousand hobbies, you get hired and envision promotions and satisfactions. Rightly, as kids we believe it, damn it, but as adults we know that just as the pure and soft snow exists, so does the gray smog slush that messes up the streets after a few hours. Nevertheless, many read with emphasis those silly Moccia-like books, horoscopes, watch soap operas drawing inspiration for real romantic life, and enjoy little films where after the storm comes the ever-resplendent calm because good always triumphs and hope that by induction it may happen in their lives too. It's basically a way to keep alive the Santa Claus they stole from us, damn it, when we were kids. But then the axe comes and SDENG!!!! Co.Co.Co, very temporary project work, you discover how hard and cold the bench is, sex happens less frequently and to compensate, you get increasingly annoyed by the kids' nighttime cries, perfect report cards along with the exhausting negotiations of Saturday nights combined with tantrums over pimples and small boobs, etc... The retirement hobbies clash with backaches, the seemingly affable colleagues turn into real bastards; employers become embodiments of the purest evil. The mortgage installments, the lottery win that never comes… People live on expectations and hopes that are often brutally disappointed. It's nice to think that sooner or later we could live happily ever after, but those are just bullshit. It's not a matter of money; happiness is by definition something elusive, fleeting, and momentary; everything else is a race and survival. We have proof of this every damn week. You live to make it to Friday and... magic, it's immediately Monday. Who is that obese son of a bitch with the insatiable stomach that swallows up those precious 48 hours every single time?? Why should the next ones be any different? We know it won't change, but we hope. Fools.

No bullshit, melancholy guys is sublime: I love it. I'm a very melancholic type and when it doesn't knock on the door like now and takes me… Wow! Many associate it with a prelude to depression, but no big professor or Durer's engraving will change my mind about its fundamental importance. It's pure rationality; a bucket of ice-cold water that messes up all the false illusions that TV, newspapers, pundits, and common assholes throw at us. It clears the mind and brings me back to raw reality. You look at your silent phone and the beautiful sunset view from the window as now, and you realize you're not as young as before, that you've missed some important trains that won't come again. Never again. Melancholy with its aura of sadness doesn't depress me. Quite the contrary. It makes my brain move, doesn't fill it with bullshit. It gives a nice kick to my neurons and tells me: hey moron who do you think you are? Wake up, stop daydreaming and instead of talking, act because you're already on a descending path. The door with all your opportunities is progressively closing, don't you see it? Like hell, you'll resurrect and have another chance in paradise. If it weren't for melancholy, I wouldn't wake up at 5 in the morning on Sundays to go to the mountains to breathe real air, I wouldn't be curious, eager for knowledge and interests like a sponge because I would wait for happiness and not go out to get it.

While writing spontaneously, I decide to put on the stereo “The Crimson Idol” masterpiece by W.A.S.P.: it's sonorous melancholy and erupts in all its disruptive power from the speakers. The tight and hopeless riffing almost suffocates us as Lawless' razor-sharp and heartbreaking voice takes on the WASP on his shoulders after Holmes' exit and leads them to the pinnacle of hard rock music. But Blackie is not stupid and he has no illusions. In the detailed and profound concept album (partly autobiographical) like few, he talks about a boy marginalized by family and life who almost accidentally achieves success with music. Millions of records and happiness??? Not exactly. Success drives our hero to end up hanged by his guitar strings. Perhaps he had deluded himself into thinking he could stay on top forever. Disgustingly current, don't you think?? If melancholy were as many depict it: apathy, sadness, and simple isolationism, this album would be an axe to the crotch: full of acoustic and reflective interludes and instead Lawless finds space to even fit in a chainsaw (Chainsaw Charlie). Just like a bucket of icy water to grab us by the collar and warn us with melodic, yet raw and cutting notes of the danger of illusion, of enduring, permanent success. And so, between a sinister and acoustic intro like Titanic Overture or The Gypsy Meets The Boy and the galloping Arena Of Pleasure, the minutes flow until the grand finale with the dramatic The Idol and The Great Misconceptions Of Me. Theatrical crescendos, decadent and metallic of unique beauty and impetus that place a stone on an epochal album to which I give 5 without thinking for a moment.

Long live melancholy.

ilfreddo