Enrico Ruggeri - What Other Singer-Songwriters Don't Say – Video

The “zone”

Via Einstein is a side street just over a hundred metres long. An asphalt hinge connecting the avenue leading to Milan's ring road (south-east area) with the "zona" proper. We're in the second half of the Seventies, and the "zona" is a quadrilateral bounded by the Friend's Bar on Via Tito Livio, the park at Largo Marinai d'Italy, Piazza Martini and Piazza Insubria. These were the places where people met up whenever, by common agreement, friends arranged to meet "in zona".

On one side of the street run the railings behind the Istituto Tecnico "Pietro Verri" and the main entrance of the Liceo Scientifico of the same name; on the other side stand two apartment blocks flanked by the prefabricated building of the Scuola Media "Tito Livio" (today, after years of decay, it has been demolished and a university student residence built in its place).

Enrico's musical career begins right there at school, in 1972, at the Liceo Classico "Berchet". Josafat, his first band, is one of the many pro-progressive cover bands livening up the days of school occupations and the countless student assemblies of the period. Within a few months Josafat gives way to Molotov, then Champagne Molotov, channelling their leanings towards the far more seductive universe of decadent rock.

The approach is amateurish, the trajectory identical to that of countless teenagers playing at being rock stars, but what sets Enrico apart is that for him the game soon turns deadly serious. Music-making is experienced as a supreme mission, pursued with an almost religious devotion: a trait we can still recognise in him decades later.

Life choices follow directly from the path he has taken, so enrolling at university becomes a front to keep his parents happy, anxious as they are to see a clear future ahead for him, while odd jobs provide the money to fund the cause.

By the time his name was starting to circulate "in zona", the embryo of Decibel was already taking shape, amid sudden line-up changes and a dizzying round of basements hastily converted for the purpose.

Punk! (Before Everyone Else)

1977 is the decisive year for punk, the atomic bomb that went off in rapid succession in the United States and England with such a deafening blast that its echo was felt even in an Italy still grappling with the monsters of rock of progressive, and none too keen on novelty.

But our young frontman, already predisposed in taste, aesthetics and inclination, is at the front of the queue to be struck by lightning. The litmus test of how thoroughly he had absorbed the lesson of Malcolm McLaren comes in September 1977.

Within a few nights, in fact, the whole of Milan is plastered with posters announcing a Decibel concert due to be held on 4 October at the "Piccola Broadway" disco, then very much in vogue. All completely fake. Yet every punk in the city turns up outside the venue to attend the concert, which proves to be a phantom one, and alongside them some groups of far-left militants as well. These are years when short-cropped hair or a black jacket alone are enough to earn an accusation of fascism; for this reason the centrally located Corso Buenos Aires turns, within minutes, into a powder keg, becoming the scene of a mass brawl that makes headlines in every newspaper the following day.

It's the turning point. The publicity uproar means that Maurizio Arcieri (already well versed in such stunts) shows up at the band's door first, followed, through the Dik Dik, by the established producer Sandro Colombini, head of the newly founded Spaghetti Records (Shel Shapiro of the Rokes and Silvio Crippa are the other partners), with whom the first contract is signed. The line-up that enters the studio that December to record the debut album features Ruggeri on vocals, Pino Mancini on guitar, Enrico Longhin on bass and Roberto Turatti on drums. This line-up is reached after their friend and longtime Champagne Molotov keyboardist Silvio Capeccia opts out, unwilling to go along with the band's blatantly punk-heavy direction.

The condition imposed by the producers is that the record must have lyrics in Italian: no small problem, given a repertoire sung entirely in English. Enrico doesn't flinch, and his proverbial tenacity gets another chance to be put to the test. Within a few days he writes the lyrics for Punk (in truth the record has no title, but the wording that appears on the plainly illustrative cover, the work of Mario Convertino, ends up christening it as such), an album with little mediation, recorded almost live, drawing raw inspiration from the famous Reed live album "Rock'n'Roll Animal", and one from which emerge both Mancini's guitar talent and the brazenness of a singer who, bar a few inevitable naive moments, clearly knows what he's doing.

From the eight songs that make it up (credited entirely to the Dik Dik trio Vescovi-Salvaderi-Sbrigo, since Enrico was not yet a member of Siae at the time) some brilliant flashes of insight emerge, well worth dwelling on. The sarcastic insolence of "Col dito... col dito", which takes aim, with no mincing of words, at the feminist movement (“E se pensi che ogni volta che ti tocchi col dito/ un orgasmo simulato ti sei procurata/ donna femminista non pensi che lo slogan sia solo per te una stupida trovata…”, against which the garbled "repentance" that arrives at the end of the track can do nothing), the almost prophetic power of "Superstar", which, heard with hindsight, seems to flow straight from the mind of the man who, two years later, would assassinate John Lennon, the outsider's social condemnation of "Il lavaggio del cervello", and the lysergic frustrations of "New York", perhaps the most accomplished track musically.

Punk can hardly be called a record suited to drowsy Italian audiences; indeed it is ignored by the public and panned by a critical establishment with its mind elsewhere, which at best manages to dismiss it as apolitical posturing. What remains is the satisfaction of having thrown a stone into the pond, and the privilege of having shared the bill, on Italian dates, with Adam And The Ants, Johnny Thunders' Heartbreakers and Richard Hell, and Xtc.

Betrayal! And a Hysterical Ending

The flop causes the departure of all the band's instrumentalists, but Enrico doesn't lose heart and asks Silvio Capeccia to get back in the game. The new line-up is rounded out by Fulvio Muzio on guitar, Mino Riboni on bass and fifteen-year-old Tommy Minnazzi on drums (who would leave shortly after due to friction with Enrico himself, since reliability was not exactly Tommy's strong suit). What we'll call the wave-keyboard turn translates, in 1979, into the single "Indigestione Disko/Mano armata". Produced by Shel Shapiro (again for Spaghetti Records), the two tracks are embroidered with sharply sarcastic lyrics (the first is a jab at the fashionable vacuity of the "Saturday Night Fever" crowd that defined many well-off youths of the era, while the second is the apology of crime of a delinquent sui generis), but above all with robotic touches close to the style of Devo, which give the exact measure of how radical the shift in the project's trajectory is compared to its beginnings. Both Muzio and Capeccia inject fresh, original lifeblood into the Decibel sound, while Enrico moves with surprising ease in crafting lyrics that turn out to be the first signs of a distinctive style.

But it's in 1980 that the band makes a choice destined to change the course of events: taking part in the Sanremo Festival with "Contessa". The cabaret-like delivery, the amused invective Enrico aims at the archetype of the fickle woman and, why not, a shirt-and-tie look closely recalling bands like Ultravox and The Knack, make the performance impossible to ignore, and the song (with music credited to Fulvio Muzio) lands an unexpected fourth place.

Old fans cry betrayal, to the point that Enrico is forced to flee the Damned's Milan concert to avoid being attacked by the more hot-headed punks gathered by the stage, but new and larger crowds of teenagers welcome the new direction.

The album Vivo da Re (which contains the Sanremo hit), with its Sparks-like touches and decadent aesthetic, is a work that's caustic in its words and witty in its compositions, but above all endowed with a highly recognisable stylistic signature, out of scale compared to the Italian landscape at large. It gets a good response from the public, and this time the critics manage to grasp its distinctive qualities too. But while the barometer of approval points to fair weather, the temperature inside the band drops to worryingly icy levels. The strong personalities of Ruggeri and Capeccia start clashing and, ironically, the label's two masterminds, Colombini and Crippa, also find themselves at loggerheads.

The split sees the singer walk out together with Silvio Crippa, while the other three members of Decibel decide to stay with Colombini, with whom they'll record 1900.

Sempre giù

For Enrico, this opens the most difficult period of his entire career. Caught up in a double legal battle, he's forced to withdraw his first solo album from the market (Champagne Molotov, 1981, which would only be reissued three years later) and is barred from performing live for five years, that is until his contract with Spaghetti expires. Only a costly settlement prevents such an apocalyptic scenario from becoming reality, but even more decisive are the esteem Silvio Crippa holds for him, and the quiet friendship of another figure who would prove crucial: guitarist Luigi Schiavone. He's the one playing guitar on this record, he's the one who will stick with the Milanese singer without interruption through every album to come until 2016, and his manager will do the same until 2010.

Champagne Molotov follows the path laid out by Vivo da Re, and given the enormous difficulties, including financial ones, that accompanied its recording, the whole thing can be considered something of a small feat.

What the headstrong musician is eager to prove is that the Decibel sound was essentially his own creation, and he succeeds brilliantly. "Amicizia da ricordare e cambiali per suonare e diciotto spettatori amici tuoi e l'impianto ce lo scarichiamo noi". “Sette anni divisi in due/ le mie canzoni con le tue/ le ragazze per giocare un po’ con noi/ solo l’ultima ci avrebbe ucciso poi…”. The Stranglers-style reggae-rock of "Una fine isterica" opens the show, pouring out all the bitterness over the end of the Decibel experience, in particular the breakup of his partnership with Capeccia, and the Stranglers resurface in the dazzling two minutes of "Fingo di dormire". The Latin-tinged synth-pop of "Señorita" is an early sign of a friendlier openness towards the female universe, treated in his lyrics, up to that point, as a mysterious enemy or at best a realm to be wary of, while the admirable psychedelic pastiche of "Nostalgia" brings an uncommon versatility even more sharply into focus. "Sempre giù" blends early XTC with the drive of Stiff Little Fingers, "Passato Presente Futuro" opens up Ruggeri's visions beyond the here and now, sparking reflections that will become a mainstay as the story unfolds.

1982 is forcibly a sabbatical year because of the well-known legal troubles, but that doesn't stop him from co-writing what would become one of the cult anthems of the Italo-disco movement, "Tenax" by Diana Est. The experience is repeated the following year with "Le Louvre", but also with "To Meet Me" by Den Harrow, and with tracks for Albert One and Jock Hattle, these three under the wing of Decibel's first drummer Roberto Turatti, who was establishing himself as a record producer.

Va tutto (molto) bene

Finally free of legal entanglements, the Ruggeri-Crippa duo signs a deal with the Cgd label, very attentive to new Italian talent thanks to the enlightened artistic direction of Caterina Caselli.

In spring 1983 Polvere comes out, a pivotal work since it marks the start of a new chapter, allowing the Milanese artist to meet important songwriters (it's Ivano Fossati, for instance, who sets him on the brilliant career path of writing for other artists, pitching Loredana Bertè the future hit "Il mare d'inverno"), as well as the active involvement of Gigi Schiavone in the songwriting. It's to the latter that we owe the music of the beautiful title track, which represents the peak of a modern singer-songwriter form already glimpsed in his earlier work, but which perhaps had never been achieved at this level before.

The rest of the album confirms in its lyrics an outspoken conflict with the opposite sex – "Va tutto bene", the icy "Qualcosa (per prenderti il cuore)" and "Fuoco sui giocattoli" –, hints at inspired urban moods (the electronic "Gerarchie") and even politically incorrect content ("Salviamo Milano"), probably written with the intent of a provocateur who hasn't forgotten his roots.

Polvere contains songs ranging from singer-songwriter fare to electronic music, boasts more sophisticated arrangements and a certain underlying self-awareness, marking an important step towards broader horizons.

Confirmation that everything is moving in the hoped-for direction comes once again on the stage of Sanremo, in 1984, with “Nuovo swing”. This outing too has a troubled gestation, since Enrico turns down the offer to appear in the newcomers' category: the song, however, is liked so much by the organizers that it's added at the last minute to the lineup of the “big” names. The artist who takes the stage at the Teatro Ariston is very different from the bouncy performer who had revealed himself with “Contessa” four years earlier. The once-nervous poses now become composed, as do the lyrics, now much closer to the disenchantment of a seasoned crooner.

“Nuovo Swing” finishes second-to-last, but wins over the critics and the younger audience.

The unexpected appearance at the Festival raises the question of which LP to put on the market to capitalize on the media wave. At first the idea of a “best of” comes up, but it's not feasible, since Colombini would never have authorized the inclusion of Decibel tracks; so the choice falls on a hybrid record that reproduces the old repertoire live, while also making room for the few new unreleased tracks available.

Presente, as it's titled, certainly has the merit of putting on vinyl some fundamental moments (besides the Sanremo single, the rendition of “Il mare d'inverno” and a delightful cover of “Vecchio Frac”, much appreciated by Domenico Modugno himself and later performed on “Festivalbar”), but it suffers from its evident fragmented nature.

After giving away three new songs for Loredana Bertè's album (“Savoir Faire”, which gives the Calabrian singer's record its title, “La curiosità” and “Non finirà”, all later reinterpreted), Enrico throws himself headlong — this time with due patience — into recording new material. This is the phase that cements the collaboration between the Milanese frontman and the “new” Champagne Molotov. Alongside the trusty Gigi Schiavone, we find Alberto Rocchetti, Luigi Fiore, Stefania Schiavone and Renato Meli, who will stay by his side under the band's banner until 1989 (in truth the group's name already appears on Polvere, but there it's made up of the trio Schiavone, Meli, Amodio). The group releases its own single, “C'è la neve”, and with this song — later revived by Gigi Schiavone in his solo career — takes part in the 1984 edition of Festivalbar, while the following year it appears among the newcomers on the Sanremo stage with “Volti nella noia”, which also credits Enrico: a track that deserved a far better fate than swift elimination.

Tutto scorre (1985) confirms the maturity of an artist who by now moves with great ease both in the development of his lyrics and in weaving arrangements perfectly balanced between a new songwriterly form and Mitteleuropean leanings. Many emblematic lyrics of the Ruggeri universe belong to this moment of great inspiration. The disillusioned reflections on time changing one's perspective on feelings in “L'ultimo pensiero” (“Se si potesse ritornare indietro saremmo tutti migliori/ ed un qualsiasi dettaglio cambierebbe destini ed amori. Ma questa vita ci costringe a discutere su un vecchio divano/ e quella mano che mi davi da tenere ti serve per gesticolare…”) and in “Poco più di niente” (“Caffè? Grazie, ma non ne voglio questa sera/ Lo so, vado a dormire presto/ oppure salto il pasto e scappo via/ E tu, che non mi chiedi niente e stai in cucina/ E tu, nemmeno mi rispondi, oramai non ti offendi neanche più…”), the troubled journeys into inner solitude of “La vita corre ancora” (“Come sono solo/ bicicletta incatenata a un palo/ E guardo le automobili/ e non mi muovo più/ ma faccio di necessità virtù…”), and through the labyrinths of his own contradictions in “Beneficio d'inventario” (“Stargli dietro è proprio impossibile/ ha il pensiero troppo mutevole/ Ciò che dice è sempre la verità/ ma chissà se poi durerà…”).

It's a Ruggeri looking in the mirror, utterly determined to show himself without any filter, in “Non sono incluse batterie” (“Autosufficienti mai, sempre instabili/ Mai troppo contenti noi e sempre fragili…”), who becomes a keen urban observer in the Sparks-like “Fantasmi di città” (“Sono sempre frettolosi, non si fermeranno mai/ Primi attori negli specchi, ma comparse nel via vai…”) and who, paying tribute to Ultravox, expresses his whole decadent soul in “Da questa vecchia casa” (“Quante macchie sopra quei muri/ e la luce con le strisce/ ed i volti sempre più scuri/ di chi non mi capisce…”).

He doesn't, it's true, get the commercial results he hoped for, but it hardly matters, since his name can by now be considered a fixed point among the most highly rated names on the Italian scene.

The successful chansonnier (the seagull years)

Determined to ride the wave of his moment of grace, the following year he appears again at the Sanremo Festival with the refined, melancholy “Rien ne va plus”, which wins the critics' prize and is later included on the EP “Difesa Francese”, while in the autumn he releases the LP Enrico VIII, which will earn him his first gold record.

Still backed by Champagne Molotov, this new recording effort abandons electronic arrangements in favor of a more traditional use of instrumentation, and the result once again proves excellent. Enrico VIII is the LP of the romantic ballad “Non finirà”, of an admirable rewrite of the Waits-like “Foreign Affair” (here renamed “Con la memoria”), of “La bandiera” (which could easily sit among the finest work of Paolo Conte), but above all of “Il portiere di notte”. “Because of my wandering through hotels, I've met quite a few night porters,” he recounts, “and I've always been struck by the fact that in hotels the room always stays the same while the guests change: like a stage on which different actors take turns. The porter also suggested to me the idea of the eternal spectator: the one who watches and is forced to work, who sees the rooms as they are left afterwards and prepares them for whoever is to arrive. He arranges other people's love affairs but always remains excluded from them.” The song is a snapshot that reveals his innate talent for telling stories from perspectives other than his own, capturing even their finest nuances, so much so that it would later enter Mina's repertoire. A sensitivity that would lead him, with equal effectiveness, to recount in 1991 (the album Peter Pan) the existential struggles of a transgender woman in “Trans” (“E quelle stesse persone/ che ridono della mia voce/ hanno anche loro una croce/ ciò che nessuno dice, ciò che nessuno sa: storie da Pasolini nelle macchine strette/ con dietro i sedili dei bambini e le sigarette…”: verses that move you, hitting the mark like few others), and the inner turmoil seen through women's eyes in “Quello che le donne non dicono”, co-written with Schiavone, with which Fiorella Mannoia would win the critics' prize at the 1987 Sanremo Festival.

That this was his Festival is proven by the landslide victory of “Si può dare di più”, performed together with his fellow members of the Nazionale Cantanti, Umberto Tozzi and Gianni Morandi. It's the story of a foretold victory for a song that will indeed go down in the annals of Italian popular music, yet by flirting shamelessly with mainstream populism and conforming to standards quite unlike those of his three previous appearances, which in their own way had brought touches of originality unknown here.

But if the goal was to reach the highest degree of popularity, it can be said to have been achieved. The double LP that includes the two Sanremo songs is the live album Vai Rrouge, featuring a fifty-piece orchestra and retracing the stages of a career on an unstoppable rise, here sealed with a platinum record. It includes “La canzone della verità”, which had initially been the winning trio's first choice before the pick fell on “Si può dare di più”, and the delicate “Confusi in un Playback”, performed two years earlier alongside his friend Mimmo Locasciulli, which digs with his usual sensitivity into the turmoil of his own childhood. It's precisely the success of this tour, still underway when the record hit the shops, that cements his bond with a hardcore fan base that would never abandon him, allowing him over the years to organize ever-packed calendars of well-attended dates.

The time comes to indulge a few whims. If La parola ai testimoni (1988) proves to be one of the best-played and best-arranged records of his discography, that's also thanks to the presence of musicians of the caliber of Andy Mackay, whose sax is well supported by an entire horn section and by backing vocals, the latter also a feature of other works to come.

The witnesses are none other than the characters of the songs, sketched with his usual keen eye and a pen steeped in poetry. We have the romantic suffering of a woman (the masterpiece “Marta che parla con Dio”), the jovial, deliberately over-the-top description of fleeting one-night stands (“Tango delle donne facili”), the soldier telling his own story amid the fires of a trench (“Lettera dal fronte”), and again the memories of a now-distant adolescence (“Il tempo che immobile va”).

There's barely time to reap the rewards of this new wave of acclaim before Enrico heads off to the Soviet Union, where the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra awaits him to complete Contact (1989), the covers album with new original material, largely recorded during the sessions for La parola ai testimoni. The record has its ups and downs: an excellent rendition of Endrigo's "Canzone per te", a truly remarkable "Il funambolo" — a moving song that uses the artist's life as a metaphor, set to music by Cocciante — a rather naive take on Alunni Del Sole's "'A canzuncella", and a lukewarm remake of De Gregori's "Alice". Of the three original tracks, "Che temperamento!" stands out, its rock-leaning mood foreshadowing a new artistic phase that would take shape shortly after.

Rock Returns (The Hawk Years)

At the dawn of the new decade, the image many had painted of Enrico Ruggeri was that of a skilled songwriter for other performers (in 1988 even Mina, as mentioned, would cover "Il portiere di notte"), and of a prolific, melodic chansonnier who nonetheless didn't particularly shine vocally. Yet this reading overlooks his early underground, decadent phase, and conflates the distinctiveness of a vocal timbre with a supposed lack of range.

As if to make this very point, Il falco e il gabbiano (1990) reveals a number of new elements. While still holding firm to melody, the guiding light of his entire output, the album veers toward decidedly rougher sonics. Gone are the horns and the layered arrangements, gone the ceremonial iciness of his early days, replaced by a melodic rock that more than once winks at classic hard rock. A godsend for Gigi Schiavone, who finally finds himself free to run wild.

This is the album of the fast-paced "Punk (prima di te)", on which our man gets a few things off his chest (“Sono stato punk prima di te/ e mi sono fatto male, io/ suonavo l’heavy metal quando tu/ eri molto più normale”); of the ballad "Ti avrò", where once again it's the guitar driving things forward, carving out the other side of the same coin. But it's also the album of the splendid "Notte di stelle" — co-written with Schiavone — which the following year would also appear on talented singer-songwriter Dario Gay's album "Nonsoloamore", for whom Enrico had already produced the debut record ("Nella vita di un artista c'è sempre un disco che ha per titolo il suo nome", 1988), also as a way of returning the favor for the music of "Le luci della sera", which Dario had co-written on La parola ai testimoni.

It's no coincidence that the show he took round the theatres that year was split into two parts: the first with Enrico in jacket and tie, indulging his singer-songwriter side, the second in a t-shirt, trading blows with Gigi and the rest of the band.

From melodic rock to arena rock is a short step. And so Peter Pan (1991) pushes even further down the path set by its predecessor, offering up tracks that are even less mediated ("Tutto subito", "La band"), outright tributes to Queen (the title track's huge success), heartfelt intimate passages ("Prima del temporale") that probe, with his usual innate skill, his own inner voices ("Vola via", "Oggi chi sei?"). It's the album featuring "Trans", already discussed, which stands as one of the highlights of his entire career. Propelled by the single's strong radio impact, the album blows past the four-hundred-thousand-copies mark, becoming the best-seller of his discography and taking Rouge touring around Italy for over a hundred dates.

In between, there's time for Luigi Schiavone's debut solo work, "La spina nel fianco" (1991), for which he writes the lyrics, and for a now-legendary collaboration with Elio e Le Storie Tese, appearing as a "special guest" on "Il vitello dai piedi di balsa" from their album "Italyan, Rum Casusu Çikti" (1992), revealing even to the last skeptics a flair for irony that, incidentally, he's never lacked.

There's barely time to wrap up the tour before we find him back at the Teatro Ariston, where with "Mistero" he repeats the festival victory he'd achieved six years earlier alongside Tozzi and Morandi. The track, which formally echoes the operatic rock of Peter Pan with carefully measured nods once again to Queen, turns out to be, all things considered, the first rock song in the history of the Sanremo festival to reach first place.

"Mistero" is included on the compilation La giostra della memoria, which kicks off a new tour in which our man entertains both the audience and himself by improvising the setlist, drawn each night by means of a large wheel featured in the staging, inspired by a similar device used by his beloved Elvis Costello. His songwriting work continues non-stop, so much so that that very same year sees the release of Luigi Schiavone's second solo album, titled "Animale", while work also presses on to shape the follow-up to Peter Pan.

Oggetti smarriti (1994) presents us with a musician grappling with his own personal troubles, standing almost as a chronicle of his separation from his wife Laura, told from multiple angles. It ranges from the plainly descriptive, yet no less heartfelt, "Non piango più", to the resentment of "Non è una canzone d'amore" (“Questa non è una canzone d’amore/ perché non sai scriverne tu/ è solo la piccola storia di quello che non potrà essere più…”), through to a father's tender concern for his own son ("La vita davanti") and the twilight mood of "Oggetti smarriti" (“C’è un giornale che ho letto/ le candele di cera/ tra le cose che non hai portato via/ il mio primo biglietto, quella tua canottiera/ tra le cose che mi fanno compagnia”), whose narrative device of recounting a love now over through the objects that anchor its memory is the very same one Cesare Cremonini would use years later in "Marmellata #25".

Here concludes a path set in motion with Il falco e il gabbiano, one that calls for greater attention to the musical element, with the lyrics only crafted afterward, in a creative process closer to pop-rock with openings toward psych-progressive, but inevitably far removed from the singer-songwriter mould so dear to many. While this leads, on one hand, to something of a decline in lyrical refinement (which, it should be said, rarely tips into the obvious, even if it occasionally flirts with it), on the other it elevates the music, now freer to roam without constraints. We owe to this shift some genuinely pleasant surprises, like the Beatles-esque unfolding of "Lunghe strade dipinte" (which, much like the Fab Four, hides LSD references within the initials of its title), the folk-ballad mood of "Speranza", and the Morricone-like breath of "Piccole persone".

Even the concept album Mud and Stars (1996) builds on these foundations, further developing its progressive leanings, while still indulging in already-familiar references (within the notes of "Cercami" it's easy to spot Ultravox's "Hymn").

Preceded by an entry at Sanremo with "L'amore è un attimo", which passed almost unnoticed, the new record is marked by five-minute tracks that leave plenty of room for sweeping keyboards, alongside the ever-present guitars, and arrangements onto which Enrico still manages to stamp a few memorable lyrical turns. Take "L'altra madre" (which, together with his rewrite of Waits's "I Don't Wanna Grow Up", had appeared two years earlier on Fiorella Mannoia's "Gente comune"), where the theme of drug addiction is rendered with uncommon empathy, or "Ulisse", whose tale of an elusive wandering hero becomes yet another pretext for laying bare his own contradictions.

The following Tomorrow Is Another Day (1997) is a minor-key crib sheet of several earlier chapters. Drawing on a by-now well-established sound, we find "Neve al sole" echoing the lost-love refrain of "Non piango più", "Volti perduti" putting "Fantasmi di città" into prose, "Quando i vecchi si innamorano" walking arm in arm with Aznavour's "A mia moglie", and "…E Geppetto rimase di nuovo solo" tucking away, more intimately, the outpourings of "La vita davanti".

A novel touch comes from “Il fantasista,” a heartfelt tribute from a longtime Inter fan to the mercurial genius of Evaristo Beccalossi, opening the series of sports-themed songs that would culminate in 2000 with the even sharper “Gimondi e il Cannibale” (the theme song for that year's Giro d'Italy), but also continuing later with the less memorable “La donna del campione” and “La linea di meta.”

Almost simultaneously, Luigi Schiavone released the bare-bones “III,” once again conceived in tandem with Enrico.

L’isola dei tesori (1999) becomes the occasion to dust off several of the many songs he had written over the years for other performers. And there are plenty of surprises. From the sprightly “Sonnambulismo,” which the short-lived Canton brought to Sanremo in 1984, to Fiorella Mannoia's classic “I dubbi dell’amore”; from the trio with Shel Shapiro and Biagio Antonacci revitalizing “Canta ancora per me,” originally gifted to Gianni Morandi, to the delightful little skit of the re-recorded “Il vitello dai piedi di balsa,” in which Elio returns the favor for his own guest spot from a few years earlier.

Always present

True to the perpetual motion he's imposed on himself, Enrico is back in stores just a year later, now with Sony. L’uomo che vola, which still contains notable moments such as the already mentioned “Gimondi e Il Cannibale,” socially and politically charged lyrics (“Nino no,” “L’autocritica”), and the closing mini-concept on the seven deadly sins, picks up and expands on the progressive-rock landscapes already explored especially on Mud and Stars.

No stranger to writing, in 2001 he produced an autobiography co-written with the late journalist Massimo Cotto (following other collections of stories and poems released over the years, confirming an intellectual restlessness hard to keep in check), as well as the double live album La Vie En Rouge, which revisits his back catalogue in an acoustic key, complete with double bass and accordion.

The acoustic leanings, combined with a growing interest in current affairs, paved the way for “Primavera a Sarajevo,” whose Balkan folk flavors were brought to the Sanremo Festival in 2002.

The following year's album too, The Musician's Eyes, bears the heavy imprint of these new impulses. The intentions are admirable, to the point that his umpteenth appearance at the festival is rewarded by critics: “Nessuno tocchi Caino,” co-written with Andrea Mirò, takes a stand against the death penalty, becoming the manifesto of a successful civil rights campaign. Within the fifteen tracks, however, there's a compositional approach that rarely hits the mark, probably somewhat constrained by a classic singer-songwriter mold that doesn't quite suit him.

The proud declaration found in Il falco e il gabbiano becomes, in 2004, the title of his new work. Punk Before You brings to fruition an idea he'd long nursed: rehabilitating the old repertoire of the early Decibel while also paying tribute to the artists he admired in his youth. The bold, forward-leaning energy of those early days is given fresh clothes, walking arm in arm with old loves like the Ramones, David Bowie, the Clash, Lou Reed, Mott The Hoople and the Stranglers, a potpourri that indulges longtime fans while also piquing the curiosity of newcomers.

As usual, it takes only a few months before another collection of songs arrives. Love and War lacks nothing in terms of the keen eye of a hypersensitive observer, nor the support of a solid, seasoned band that dresses up the songs with practiced skill across pop, rock and assorted folk flourishes. However much craft often comes to the rescue of creative drive, it's hard to remain unmoved by the disenchanted retrospectives on his own feelings in “Perduto amore,” or “Quando sogno non ho età” (a tender memory of his late mother), not to mention the surprising originality of the sparkling “Paisà,” which, drawing on Italy's postwar years, captures in a few frames many of the country's never-lost vices. Also worthwhile is the Capossela-esque “Romantico aviatore” (some fans will read it as a stylistic self-quotation from Enrico VIII), while “L’uomo dei traslochi” and “La prima volta” feel a bit forced, and the caricature-like “L’americano medio” comes across as overdone.

The three years separating him from another album made entirely of new material are filled with the triple compilation Heart, Muscles and Brain, the forgettable Regalo di Natale (original songs and themed covers to celebrate the holiday, on which he trades vocals with Andrea Mirò), but above all by his work as a TV host on “Il Bivio.” A late-night show, at times ironic, at times socially engaged, that seems tailor-made for the conversational, utterly unpretentious style of an Enrico who is clearly at ease in front of the cameras. Its success is such that it's not only renewed the following season, but also leads to a new show titled “Quello che le donne non dicono,” also airing in Italy 1's late-night slot starting in autumn 2008.

On 2008's Rock show, there is at times a sense of coasting along out of sheer momentum. The stories told with the help of entirely unnecessary subtitles (“Leggo le carte,” “Attimi,” “La terra e la luna”) are offset by the Dylan-esque country-rock of “Sulla strada,” the spot-on “Cuore segreto,” whose sax seems lifted straight from the late-period Psychedelic Furs catalogue, and the fine baroque pop of “Teneri amori,” in a dizzying swing of genres, and also of inspiration, that suggests an opportunity only partly seized.

Enrico nonetheless finds a way to make headlines with the album's closing track, “Il giorno del black-out,” in which he imagines the day when “… la corrente finì, il contatto sulla rete sparì…” and then “…qualcuno si suicidò, qualcuno impazzì e la vita della gente cambiò, e la gente fuori casa tornò,” a scenario for which he is branded reactionary and anti-technology: it's neither the first nor will it be the last time that the Milanese singer-songwriter ends up in the news for his positions, which are all too often liberally reinterpreted.

The perpetual motion doesn't let up the following year either, with a triple CD bearing the telling title All In – L’ultima follia di Enrico Ruggeri, which becomes an occasion to gather old and new artist friends: disc one offers an instant reinterpretation of the entire Rock Show setlist. The second disc captures live performances in which Enrico revisits his most beloved material, though it opens with the fine new track “Incontri (Dimmi quand’è),” originally written as an advertising jingle for Amaro Averna. The third disc is the soundtrack to “East West East – Volata finale,” a film by Albanian director Gjergj Xhuvani, which features a single sung track, “Volata finale,” while the rest is entirely instrumental and composed together with Andrea Mirò and Luigi Schiavone. It's a move that is, to put it mildly, commercially bold, but one that has the merit of presenting an unprecedented side of Ruggeri as a soundtrack composer.

The wheel keeps turning

The new decade opens with two events that seem relatively minor at the time but, in hindsight, turn out to be early signs of the big changes just around the corner. Enrico takes part for the ninth time in the Sanremo Festival with "La notte delle fate": the song is eliminated during the penultimate evening, the duets night, where he takes the stage wearing his historic white Lozza glasses, but above all alongside Fulvio Muzio and Silvio Capeccia for an unexpected Decibel reunion. With Andrea Mirò conducting the orchestra, the new arrangement's intro contains more than one nod to "Contessa", a touch that thrills longtime fans on one hand, but leaves the juries lukewarm on the other, and the song fails to make it to the final night.

The other noteworthy event is that The Wheel – the album released to coincide with the festival – is also the last one to see Silvio Crippa as executive producer. "The Wheel" turns out to be an excellent album, fresh, tight in just the right way, with a set of songs free of the weak points that, for a few years, had made Ruggeri's albums a seesaw of brilliant flashes and top-tier songs alongside filler that added nothing to what he'd already done, all a result of a relentless release schedule that never allowed for a pause. The record is a pleasure to listen to from start to finish, with elegant arrangements, a well-balanced production, and lyrics that embrace episodes of a refined pop-rock that never gives in to the temptation of the easy effect.

Alongside the good Sanremo entry, we find big ballads like "Vivi" (with Schiavone credited) and the romantic liaison of "La ragazza del treno", fresh reflections on war (on top of past and future ones) in "Il mio onore", and the wheel of life captured without falling into cliché in "Padri e figli". Religion seen from an individual perspective in "La mia religione", but also the sturdy punk-pop of "Io conosco il rock'n roll" and the Stranglers-esque "L'ordine naturale". Closing things out is "Vorrei", which musically treads ground already covered elsewhere ("Non finirà"?) but which, as a declaration of love to a hypothetical beloved, leaves little room for rebuttal or objection.

2011 is the year Enrico debuts as a novelist with "Che giorno sarà", the story of Francesco Ronchi, a singer who brushes up against success without ever reaching it, becoming a sort of narrative "sliding door" in which, through the depiction of the pettiness and small-mindedness of the record industry, one seems to catch a glimpse of the author himself, had fate not set him on his own path. The novel is followed in 2012 by the noir thriller "Non si può morire la notte di Natale", with further works to come, a sign that his writing career - already tested in previous years through poetry and short stories - is pursued with the same remarkable command of language that marks the lyrics of his songs.

His recording career, always interspersed with long tours on every stage across Italy (which are really the true constant of the irrepressible Rouge), continues into 2012, a year in which the recording studio is handed over, at least in spirit and not only, to a roster of musicians who reinterpret, each according to their own vision, some of the more or less famous songs from Ruggeri's vast catalogue. Songs for the Witnesses, a play on the title of his 1988 album, brings together artists of varying fame, including Bugo, Fluon (a project by Andy of Bluvertigo and Luca Urbani), Boosta of Subsonica, as well as other musicians from the Italian independent scene. It's the classic album aimed squarely at fans, whose inevitable stylistic patchwork yields a few effective moments (the robotic techno version of "Polvere" with Fluon, the full-on synth-pop of "Tenax" with Serpenti) alongside others best left forgotten (Bugo on "Il lavaggio del cervello", or Marta sui Tubi on "Contessa"), though it should be said that covers are a field where subjective taste carries even more weight than usual.

In 2013 Ruggeri throws himself into the most ambitious project of his career, a rock opera inspired by Mary Shelley's horror classic "Frankenstein", paired with the booklet "L'uomo al centro del cerchio", also loosely based on Shelley's novel, its plot interwoven with that of the album. Lyrically, the work is probably the most demanding of the singer-songwriter's career, and it runs decidedly against the grain of how music was being consumed at the time. It's not the kind of listen you can take in with a quick, one-off spin, but exploring it pays off. What keeps it from fully hitting the mark is a musical setting that, while largely up to the task, doesn't seem to fully sink into the lyrical and narrative context. We don't know whether what happens in 2014 stems from similar second thoughts on the part of its author, or whether Enrico already had in mind to re-record the album in a new guise; the fact remains that Frankenstein 2.0 swiftly re-presents the same compositions as its predecessor (with the addition of new tracks) in a bold electro-industrial key that, had it come from some obscure goth band rather than a singer-songwriter filed under the mainstream, would have shot the album to the top of plenty of alternative listeners' year-end lists, niche magazines included. A special mention goes to one of the new tracks, which opens the new version, titled "L'onda", in which, with his usual clear-eyed sharpness, he skewers without mercy the new respectability, hypocrisy, and more broadly the prevailing mindset, in a kind of "Lavaggio del cervello" updated for the social media age.

In September of that same year, the trio Ruggeri-Capeccia-Muzio, better known as Decibel, just like in the old days get back together to play live in a mini-session in Milan, and, just like in the old days, in December all three find themselves at the Barbican Hall in London, this time as spectators at the concert where Sparks perform their masterpiece "Kimono My House" live to celebrate the album's 40th anniversary. In between, just to keep things interesting, Enrico ends up in hospital for intestinal surgery to deal with a dangerous case of peritonitis.

But Ruggeri's wheel keeps spinning faster and faster, despite everything and everyone. In 2015 and 2016 respectively come out Pieces of Life and An Incredible Journey, which, by the author's own admission, are two albums made on autopilot, with the usual flashes of inspiration but with an underlying weariness that surfaces more than once. From the first album, which also comes with a bonus disc featuring reworkings of some of his past hits, we should mention "Tre signori", with which he appears as a guest at Sanremo in what is a tribute to Gaber, Jannacci and Faletti; from the second, "Il primo amore non si scorda mai", with which he reaches double figures in terms of appearances at the 2016 edition of the Sanremo Festival. The song, more than decent, places fourth, and here too it's presented alongside new tracks and further reworkings of already well-known songs.

Lettera dai Decibel

In 2017, what had seemingly been simmering for a few seasons finally happens, and a significant artistic upheaval bursts into his career. We already mentioned above the Sparks concert in London for the 40th anniversary of "Kimono My House" in 2014: well, that turns out to be the exact moment a fire thought long extinguished is reignited, and indeed, just before Christmas 2016, news breaks that Decibel are back together and that the following March they will release a new album, complete with a supporting tour.

Thus comes out Noblesse Oblige, the first album under the Decibel name in thirty-seven years. Thirty-five, to be precise, if we count 1900, the 1982 album marking the band's split, which saw Silvio Capeccia take the reins of the project while Ruggeri set off on his successful solo career. "Paradoxically, what was innovative and original a few decades ago is even more original and innovative today, because we have to consider that most of the music we listen to today is made with virtual instruments, with sampled sounds performed on computers. So as Decibel, in order to stay ahead, we decided to look back", is how Silvio introduces this new and disarming musical venture.

The reunited trio serves up a one-two punch that's nothing to scoff at, bringing back the old glories without ever tipping into nostalgia: the first single "My My Generation" sounds like a genuine statement of intent, somewhere between Ultravox-like grandeur and a litany of tutelary deities, a sort of conceptual sequel to "Thank You" by early Chrisma (in order: David Bowie, John Cale, Lou Reed, Talking Heads, Roxy Music, Sparks, Sex Pistols, Stranglers, Clash, Devo, Nico, Mink De Ville, Rolling Stones, New York Dolls, Who, Iggy Pop, Ramones... shame about the Cars, who narrowly missed the cut), while "Noblesse Oblige", with its bohemian swagger, convincingly asserts the proud decadent aesthetic of an elite that refuses to compromise. Not everything runs smoothly though, as the tracklist includes a few passages that feel somewhat out of place, probably swallowed up by arrangements that lean a bit too "Ruggeri-esque", and yet two bonus tracks from the "deluxe edition" serve as a mini-compendium of the album: "La corte del principe" stands out, and the new version of "Pernod" is deeply moving (unlike the forgettable reworkings of the classics "Contessa" and "Vivo da re", also offered in English), taking on real meaning thanks also to the closing cameo from Pino Mancini, the great guitarist from the Punk days, dug up from who knows where.

A special mention is deserved by the box set in the "Superfan Limited Edition", limited to a thousand copies and sold exclusively on Amazon. An ideal collector's item for anyone longing to get their hands on Punk on vinyl (the debut album, whose original pressing now fetches anywhere between 350 and 500 euros, and which this hapless writer, for some unfathomable reason, sold for pocket change some thirty years ago), the vinyl reissue of the second album and of the first 45, "A mano armata/Indigestione disko", as well as Noblesse Oblige on both CD and vinyl, plus other tempting bits and pieces.

The loose ends still to be tied up take shape in the follow-up to Noblesse Oblige, released under the title L'Anticristo in 2018, again under the Decibel banner and with another appearance at the Sanremo Festival with the song "Lettera dal Duca", a heartfelt tribute to tutelary deity David Bowie, performed during the duets night alongside none other than Midge Ure, frontman of Ultravox, who will also take the stage for a handful of dates on the tour that follows.

What we have here is a tight record, sometimes jagged, sometimes more refined, which doesn't skimp on references to the guiding stars of decadent rock (telling is the intro of "Choral In E Min", likely a nod to the always under-cited Klaus Nomi), but also doesn't shy away from asserting a distinctive style that has, over the years, influenced the new generation of Italian art-pop. Take, for instance, the Mott The Hoople-style boogie of "Baby Jane", a perfect snapshot of the emptiness instilled by new social models in an all-too-common youthful archetype, paired with the glam stomp of "15 minuti", which - echoing Warhol - reflects on the lack of self-respect that drives so many to sacrifice their own dignity for a vain shot at the spotlight on the most tasteless of talk shows. "Sally Go Round" musically evokes both the Beatles of "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds" and the Cockney Rebel of "Tumbling Down", while lyrically it recalls the unsettling stories told by Peter Gabriel in "Nursery Crime" ("The Musical Box"?), in its tragic, detached portrayal of childhood psychosis. And it's into the raw hell of drug addiction that the decadent "Acid Queen" descends, a song with a languid, slightly Lou Reed-esque gait reminiscent of the "Berlin" era, while the driving synth-rock of the title track digs forcefully into the secret chambers of today's groupthink.

The ever-present vintage keyboard flourishes from Silvio Capeccia are the real extra edge on otherwise fairly ordinary tracks (“La città fantasma,” “Lo sconosciuto”), just as the backing vocals paired with the hieratic Fulvio Muzio add a touch of class to the successful festival entry “Lettera dal Duca” and the sparkling “La banca” (indeed, but “is the crook the one who robs the bank, or the one who works there?”).

The album closes with a classic ballad straight out of Enrico's solo repertoire (“Buonanotte”), tremendously effective for the poignancy of its lyrics and for the trumpet solo by longtime collaborator Davide “Billa” Brambilla, brought back for the occasion and never so inspired and touching. If the goal was to deliver a musical message without frills, combining immediacy with generous doses of creativity and craft, L’Anticristo fully achieved it, with the quiet charm of a classic taste that, rightly, couldn't care less about trends while still embracing modernity.

A true revolution

In the summer of 2018, a nasty scare disrupts the summer tour and threatens to jeopardize Enrico's career, when he is diagnosed with a vocal cord edema: in truth, for some time his lively live shows had been raising a few eyebrows, due to a voice growing increasingly hoarse. The tour is halted and Ruggeri has to undergo surgery that literally forces him into silence for two months, spent fearing he had lost not only his health but also his precious and only tool of the trade. Thankfully the danger is averted, and things go back to a normality that allows for no real breaks.

Anyone who thought Decibel was just a parenthesis and that his solo career would carry on unshaken was wrong. The 2019 album Alma brings to light developments too significant to go unnoticed. What had seemed like a mere impression to the most attentive observers now becomes a certainty, because the new album's line-up no longer includes some of his longtime collaborators, such as multi-instrumentalist Fabrizio Palermo and drummer Marco Orsi, but above all the man long considered his artistic partner in crime for thirty-five years, Luigi Schiavone. Since we're not in the gossip business, we can't say for certain whether the split was due to personal reasons or purely artistic ones, but the fact remains that Gigi's departure caused some bewilderment among the fan base, which since then – more or less quietly – while remaining loyal to our man, has harbored a faction (if we can call it that) that has never fully come to terms with the end of the partnership.

In place of Schiavone on guitar we find the talented young Paolo Zanetti, who had already featured in the double Frankenstein experience, while Fortu Sacka (real name Fortunato Saccà) joins permanently on bass – a historic figure of Italian hard rock who had already taken part in various projects in Ruggeri's orbit over the years, and whom we've seen credited and on stage with the latest incarnation of Decibel. Alma rides the wave of renewed enthusiasm sparked by the experience with the original band and marks a clear break from the two previous solo records. Here too, as in The Wheel from 2010, we find a good mix of singer-songwriter craft and elegantly shaped pop rock: special mention goes to the single “Come lacrime nella pioggia” (co-written with his son Pico Rama), a heartfelt reflection on the vanity of human affairs, and “Un pallone,” a duet with Ermal Meta that recounts with great sensitivity and poetry the sad condition of child labor and its ruthless exploitation. And then there's the heartfelt tribute to Lou Reed with “Forma 21,” which its author describes as follows: “It's one of the best songs I've ever written. It describes the moment of Lou Reed's death. The sun streams through the windows of his home and he, supported by Laurie Anderson, performs forma 21, a Tai Chi movement that represents ascension toward the sky. I too have seen people die, and the last expression one makes is one of wonder, perhaps at the place they're approaching.”

Between the autumn of 2019 and the spring of the following year, we even find him on Rai Uno as a prime-time host alongside Bianca Guaccero on “Una storia da cantare,” a seven-episode show-format series recounting the history of the singer-songwriters who shaped Italian music. Enrico handles himself with considerable authority as a showman, somewhat less so as a performer of a few songs, probably paying the price of a live broadcast experienced in the double role of host and singer.

2022 brings La rivoluzione, the second solo album of this new era, which takes a more overtly rock-leaning direction. Brilliantly produced by the duo Fortu Sacka and Sergio Bianchi, it features a duet with Francesco Bianconi. Enrico sums up the meaning of the record with his usual wit: “La rivoluzione is many things, nothing in the way of barricades. It's the story of the gap between our teenage dreams and real life, with a particular focus on my generation, which is a very peculiar, very literary generation. It's the generation that saw the Piazza Fontana bombings as children, the armed struggle, the arrival of heroin, AIDS, and epochal changes – we went from the phone token to WhatsApp. So there's a lot to tell about my generation.”

This too is a solid album, benefiting from the fresh energy of new artistic partners, among whom we can't overlook Massimo Bigi, Ruggeri's former tour manager with a passion for music who, as it turns out, nurtured that passion so well that at 62 he released his debut album, “Bestemmio e prego,” under our man's wing. On La rivoluzione his name appears as co-writer on half the songs, and there's no doubt his contribution played an important part in the album's success.

Enrico Ruggeri's now well-established second youth reaches its peak in 2025 with La caverna di Platone, again with the same team of writers and the same production. Even with a vocal register increasingly leaning toward Waits-like territory, roughened by the cigarettes that occasionally cause him trouble on stage, the album offers a handful of songs that pair his usual mastery as a lyricist with musical landscapes that in many cases rival the best of his catalogue. La caverna di Platone is an album made of sharp edges and disenchantment, of deeply uncomfortable themes and unusual memories, of attentive glances at reality that turn into romantic glimpses toward another reality, one more longed-for than attainable. “Gli eroi del cinema muto” is the melancholy reflection of the unconscious that, like Bowie's “Sons of the Silent Age” (yes, precisely from “Heroes”), recalls that part of humanity poisoned by the side effects of a misguided notion of progress and perhaps buried by the world's sudden upheavals, while “Il poeta” is the red thread linking Oscar Wilde to Pasolini, passing through Ezra Pound and all those free thinkers who pierced consciences with their pen only to be repaid with scandal and disgrace.

“Zona di guerra” and “La bambina di Gorla” shine a light on today's and yesterday's forgotten, with the latter recalling one of the many “mistakes” typical of every war, when in 1944 the Allies, missing their target, bombed the “Francesco Crispi” elementary school in Milan, causing a massacre of children. To the list of uncomfortable lyrics must be added “Das ist mir wurst,” an epic, decadent waltz – and for that reason in Sparks and early-period Decibel territory, co-written with Silvio Capeccia – which becomes a passionate call back to the Europe that once was, a cradle of art and civilization light years away from today's Europe of banks, multinationals, and centers of power.

“Il cielo di Milano,” with its brisk pace, is a snapshot of the bustle of a metropolis where “you can't see the sun,” ever more frantic and remote, torn between poverty and the good life; while more intimate themes surface in the title track (love as an illusion that's nonetheless worth living) and in “Come prima più di prima,” a sequel to the glances Ruggeri has cast in the past at the female world, observed from within. In “Il problema” – like “Il cielo di Milano,” marked by an inspired uptempo – we find the sardonic disenchantment of the early Ruggeri in a kind of Totò-style “'A livella” reread in earthly contexts (“..maybe you find yourself alone with your head in your hands, or else pampered by whores and courtiers/maybe you have no money left or your wealth is extreme, either way you live out your problem”), but the real news here is stumbling upon “Benvenuto chi passa da qui,” a track written and performed entirely by his son Pico Rama (no Ruggeri record can be recalled without at least one unreleased song bearing his own name, and yet here he's “only” on backing vocals) which at first catches you off guard with its naïveté, but with repeated listens becomes a small oasis of innocence amid tracks that, in various ways, explore – through poetry and narrative – inner worlds, glimpses of the past, and present-day realities.

The song that closes the album is the one likely to stir up some unease among the fanbase: “Arrivederci addio” – one of the most beautiful and intense tracks on the record – whose love story, sketched with his usual skill, hints that this might truly be… “the last song.” Will it really be so? Hard to say. What's certain is that such an exit from the recording scene would be worthy of a major artistic career that – this much is certain – will nonetheless carry on live on stage, and in the countless other projects with which the ever-restless Rouge has accustomed his audience.

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