There is no prism on the cover, but there is light broken down into a rainbow, on Marco Mengoni’s face. Impossible not to think of one of the most famous covers (the most famous?) in rock history: “The Dark Side of The Moon”. The degrees of separation between Marco Mengoni and Pink Floyd are less than what one might hypothesize: “I chose the title regardless of the album’s anniversary”, said the singer, who on the occasion of Eurovision had shown a band that uses the night to sleep: “I hope you bring luck”.
It worked: “I should buy another one”, Marco Mengoni jokes: Eurovision went well, the third album in less than two years is ready, the trilogy is closed. After the “Earth” and the “Skin”, it is the turn of the “Prisma”. It’s not the album on his dark side, but it is an album that combines introspection with a “clubby” atmosphere. The prism is a filter on emotions and music: “This is a record with much more attention to the rhythmic dimension, and I also played with my voice filtering it with plug-ins, acting as a prism for my voice”. But it is also “An album in which I’m a little angry: for not knowing how to say no, because I would like a different world, because people don’t fully connect. I thought, lived and wrote this album analyzing moods and behaviors, from the more carnal or not very rational ones, but also the usual and known ones, trying to show a filtered vision of what human nature has shown me”.
The end of the trilogy
A little less than two years from “Matter (earth) and one from “Matter (leather)”, the trilogy concludes. Which will remain so and will not have a sequel: “I learned from this trilogy that I will never do another one…”, he jokes. “When you make a one-off record it’s something you can close, you take the time to think. In this case there were things I wanted to tell that couldn’t fit in just one album”. Such an extensive work “is a continuous analysis of yourself and of others, without ever taking a break. This constancy leads you to get tired ”, she says.
Put the first stadiums in 2022, the victory in Sanremo in 2023, then Eurovision, then the other stadiums this summer and a European tour in the arenas and arenas in the autumn. “I still don’t know how I can speak and how I can say meaningful sentences”, she smiles. “I’m privileged, I do very cool things… But to the next one who says to me: ‘You sing anyway’, first I hug him – not violence, always – then I incinerate him with a glance. It’s a job that involves emotions, it’s not easy to manage them,” he says.
“I haven’t had a personal life for a year, because when you get home you want to have a moment for yourself, be there and get away from everything. I try to follow everything on the front line, and it’s a big job. I had a great time, I didn’t expect what happened in Sanremo, nor the reception at Eurovision: I studied English a lot to enjoy it. From one to 10 I am satisfied 100”.
The collaborations, from Calcutta to Elodie and Ernia
In addition to “Due vite” – which opens on the disc in the Sanremo version, there are several featuring. The first is the new single “Pazza Musica”, featuring Elodie, a sort of catchphrase without having the classic characteristics: “We’re a bit against the trend, we haven’t put in Latin American rhythms. Elo is a friend, we share some anxieties and fears: let’s hope that music will make them go away”, she explains
And then Ernia, with whom Mengoni had duetted in “Everyone is afraid”; the rapper returns the favor in “Pride flowers”, “He’s a friend, he wrote one of the most beautiful albums of the last 10 years”, says Mengoni. “The song was born as a totally mine piece”, he explains – so much so that it is present in a double version, also “solo”. “It’s already a very tight melodically song, since my voice leans towards the melody and I wanted to hear how a rapper interpreted it. Then he wrote a very melodic part, we got on well”.
Among the authorial collaborations there is “Calcutta”, which signs “Due Nuvoli” (in which he also plays bass and guitar): “It is the piece that brings me the most joy, you really feel like a cloud: it acts as a counterweight to the other more introspective”.
There is again Fabio Ilacqua, who co-signs “The damned of the earth”, inspired by a book by the philosopher Frantz Fanon: “With Fabio we compensate completely, like in a puzzle, he is one of the people in this work to whom I love him more, he’s like a mentor to me and I think he thinks so of me even though I’m younger and have read fewer books. He manages to settle my thoughts better than me: superficially he has always stuck to a certain type of music, but then he gets carried away with the things I make him listen to.
The tour, the future
The next moves? The tour: starting with the zero date June 17 in Bibione, then stadiums in Padua, Salerno, Bari, Bologna, Turin, returning to San Siro and closing at the Circus Maximus on July 15, then in autumn in Europe, starting from Barcelona iil October 18th. “The tour is part of the same project, but it will mutate and change, both for ‘Prisma’ and because I would have liked to change the lineup anyway”, explains Mengoni. Then a trip, or rather living a bit abroad: “I’m fine in Milan , but I need to breathe more air. Eurovision confirmed to me how much I like having these contacts, talking to everyone. You open your brain a lot”