As we look with concern at the beginning of 2022, amidst canceled concerts and uncertainties, the time has come to take stock of the year that is ending for Italian music. It was an excellent year, especially when compared to 2020, when the pandemic had practically blocked the discography. This time of albums, luckily, they came out, and also of excellent quality. Here is the list of the best.
10. Flop, Salmo
The most beautiful piece of Flop, the “worst disk” (in his words) of Psalm, is To gave, a track driven by a 1940s blues-style resophonic guitar. But there is also Guillotine, which has perhaps the best lyrics of the album (“Do you know who scares me? The pharmacies / They look like churches, they changed the name / In a row as if it were the first communion”) and is enriched by the presence of Noyz Narcos. In The key instead Salmo is the singer, taking the chorus and leaving the verses to Marracash. Flop it works, it flows well, although sometimes more thanks to the quality of the arrangements than to that of the writing. But that’s okay, you can’t ask him to always do it again Midnite e The island chainsaw massacre.
9. How to leave your body, Not Waving
There is an Italian who lives in London, his name is Alessio Natalizia, he does electronics (even if defining it only in this way is a bit simplistic) and collaborates with Mark Lanegan and Jim O’Rourke. His stage name is Not waving, he has been around for years and in 2021 he produced two splendid albums, How to leave your body e What is normal today?, especially the former. And why didn’t I write anything about him? I don’t know, but putting it in this ranking is my way of apologizing.
8. I wanted to be a rock star, Carmen Consoli
Already from the cover, Carmen Consoli’s ninth album promises to be a journey into the memories of the singer-songwriter, an opportunity to take stock but also to face the present, as happens inBlack man and in Mago magone. Of course, there is also a bit of a trade in keeping everything together, but it’s not a fault. The class, as it comes out in Is happening e A Sunday by the sea, it’s always there.
7. Magical musicVenus
Venerus is good, it was already understood from his first ep released in recent years. And together with the producer Mace he found the right key to stay in the balance between songwriting and rnb, becoming the perfect shoulder for many Italian rappers and also a credible soloist. Magical music it is a long album, perhaps too long, from which I even expected something more, especially from the point of view of the lyrics. But if you put the beautiful pieces in the album in a row, you have to think: to have them. Venerus can write choruses (Out, out, out …, Ck) and in this album he also included the most beautiful Italian song on the lockdown, Song for a friend, which he first published in the spring of 2020. And I also have a soft spot for Lucy, a hymn to LSD with a textbook melody that draws a little from the Beatles and a little from Motown.
6. Discomoneta, Thru Collected
During the pandemic in Naples, a collective of very young visual artists and music producers was formed. They are called Thru Collected and they made an album called Discomoneta which, net of some forgivable naivety, is a beautiful fresco on what could certainly become Italian pop in the coming years. Between electronics, hyperpop and rap, the formula is very interesting. At times, as in Cantautoraverz, seems to be affected by the Animal Collective. And when they sing in Neapolitan, as also happens in A voc ro padron (they quote Franco Battiato? Who knows), they are irresistible.
5. Just everything, Maximum Danger
Scialla always, Massimo Pericolo’s debut dated 2019, could also have been a coincidence. Just everything made us breathe a good sigh of relief, because it confirmed that in the future Italian rap will have to rest on its shoulders, on its innate ability to write and tell stories (listen to yourself Lies and especially Smoke, which keeps you glued to the last second). A very pure talent, which is the present and the future of the scene.
4. The third summer of love, Cosmo
This record is above all a political act. In an era of social distancing and the domination of streaming, Cosmo wrote a hymn to sociability, freedom of the body and artistic independence. The third summer of love expresses all the subversive, disordered, cheeky side of his music. Contains songs to dance like Antipop e Illegal music and other dreamy, poetic ones like Fresh e Sails in the wind. With some less exciting moments (Out, I dance), The third summer of love it is not the best Cosmo record but certainly the most sincere. And it is a necessary act, in a period like this.
3. We, them, the others, Marracash
We knew that Marracash was the best Italian rapper. With We, them, the others gave us a little reminder of how he can handle rhymes. Then, of course, some beats are a bit too phoned (∞ LOVE e Clown), but when everything fits together properly it does not take prisoners (They, Cosplayer, Doubts). Perhaps Person it had a few more twists, but also We, them, the others, which is its more intimate and reflective counterpart, is a high-level record. After all, the nickname “King of rap” still suits him.
2. BOTH, Mace
Few albums have had such a strong impact on the Italian rap scene in recent years. BOTH he rehashs everything we have heard, from trap to old school hip hop, and makes an unprecedented synthesis, which overcomes the barriers between genres. Just listen to songs like Ayahuasca, with its exotic sounds and ambient openings, or the bluesy guitars of From dusk to dawn. He holds together Gué and Venerus, Colapesce and Gemitaiz, all at the service of the style of the producer from Pioltello. One of the flaws of Italian rap is that it is often a bit provincial, imitative. But with Mace it doesn’t happen. BOTH it sounds great, it’s deep, colorful without being gaudy, surprising without being messed around. And then it contains the most successful Italian pop piece of 2021, Our song: a small intergenerational masterpiece inspired by a piece by Japanese composer Hiroshi Yoshimura capable of moving teenagers and adults alike. BOTH raised the level of Italian hip hop.
1. Ira, I’m a dog
Iosonouncane’s third album is a polyphonic tale of crossed borders, mountains, deserts, prisons, rivers and soldiers, where the boundaries between musical genres and languages blur. It is the sound of “a multitude”, as its author stated. Ira it is not sung in Italian, but in a mixed language that also includes English, Arabic, French, Spanish and German, and therefore it is strange that it is at the top of this ranking. But in 2021 nothing comparable came out in our country, nothing with this ambition and this stubborn search for uniqueness. Ira it is not an easy record to metabolize, it requires several plays, sometimes frustrates, wears out. You don’t fully understand it until you listen to it live, until you allow it a time for listening that is outside our contemporary habits, too crushed on streaming and random repetition. But once it breaks through its rarefied sound, the compositional subtleties emerge between jazz, ambient and prog rock of pieces such as Winter e Horizon. We let ourselves be hypnotized by the lullabies that pay homage to the Maghreb (Crowd, Hajar) and echoes of the previous album are heard, The. Often the music that remains most inside you is the one that makes you struggle the most at the beginning.
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