Francesco De Gregori - Viva L'Italia!! (1979)

Artist...............: Francesco De Gregori
Album................: Viva L'Italia!!
Genre................: Pop
Source...............: Cd
Year.................: 1979
Ripper...............: Exact Audio Copy
Codec................: Flac
Information..........: TntVillage
Covers...............: Front
Total Size...........: 218 Mb


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Rewiev
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Francesco De Gregori came back with a vengeance from a self-imposed retirement with his outstanding 1978

album De Gregori. He immediately followed with a successful collaboration with friend and fellow pop star

Lucio Dalla that extended over the hit single "Ma Come Fanno i Marinai" and a high-profile tour, and

recorded the excellent live album Banana Republic. Not surprisingly, his 1979 release Viva L'Italia is the

most "Dalla-esque" album of De Gregori's career, even if Dalla did not co-write any of the material (he is

only listed as playing horns on two tracks). Both artists seemed to be on the same wavelength at the time,

as a comparison between this album and Dalla's release of the same year (simply titled Lucio Dalla) will

attest. In fact, the parallelism between Dalla's "L'ultima Luna" and De Gregori's "L'ultima Nave" is so

obvious that it is very likely both singers were having some sort of private contest or joke. While Dalla

and De Gregori complement each other beautifully, when the latter tries to adopt the more playful style of

the former, he occasionally slips into blandness. While the album include some remarkable songs that manage

to stay on the right side of cute, such as the impishly lovely "Gesù Bambino" and "Stella Stellina," it

seldom reaches the heights of his previous work. Moreover, the sound is a bit generic, perhaps as a

consequence of the curious decision to bring British session musicians to Rome to record it, including

legendary producer Andrew Loog Oldham (whose influence here is impalpable) and arranger David Sinclair

Whitaker. At any rate, Viva L'Italia is best remembered by its classic title track, a heartfelt song about

the pain and pleasures of living in Italy, that achieved the stature of an unofficial national hymn. A bit

like "Born in the U.S.A." for Bruce Springsteen, "Viva L'Italia" has given its notoriously engaged author

many a reward and many a headache over the years, since parties at all ends of the political spectrum have

tried to appropriate the song for their own purposes, including the ultra-nationalist right that De Gregori

reviles. A pleasant album by De Gregori, Viva L'Italia nevertheless remains the least satisfying of his

glorious '70s records.


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Tracklist
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01. Capo d'Africa
02. Buenos Aires
03. L'ultima nave
04. Eugenio
05. Stella stellina
06. Viva l'Italia
07. Gesu' Bambino
08. Terra e acqua