DANIELE LUTTAZZI - Money For Dope

This is a strange record. Strange because it's by an Italian artist yet sung in English; strange because it came out in 2005 but also contains songs written back in the '70s; strange because it's written and performed by a comedian; and strange because, despite being written and performed by a comedian, it's anything but comic.

Fans of Daniele Luttazzi will already know about his omnivorous passion for music (from Battisti to Zorn, from the Beatles to Devo), which eventually led him, back in the late '70s, to found a band, Ze Endoten Control's. A few songs from that experience have survived and made their way onto this record, "Money For Dope", which is - in Luttazzi's own words - an "elegiac musical" in ten tracks, running about 45 minutes.

The liner notes in the booklet are brief but revealing: Luttazzi recalls how heroin, which arrived in Romagna towards the end of the '70s, decimated an entire generation - including one of his dearest friends. That tragedy pushed him, in 1979, to write the song "Money For Dope", a piece quite unlike anything else he was writing at the time (a slice of new wave somewhere between Talking Heads, Joy Division and Gaznevada), which also happens to be the closing track of this record.

So, paradoxically, the making of this musical began at the end, with the nine preceding tracks - composed afterwards - recounting other moments from that friend's life: family, life experiences, love affairs. Let's start from the end too, then, since it's undeniable that the title track is the album's finest moment: minimalist, bleak, chilling. All the more chilling for coming after nine songs that seem to make lightheartedness their motto: some genuinely sound as though they've stepped straight out of a Broadway musical, like "Vienna, Vienna", while others owe a debt to disco ("I Can't Stand It"). Backed by a ten-piece orchestra and a sizeable choir, Luttazzi proves he means business, stringing together a series of tracks that surprise with their variety and flawless construction: the first, "Silence", dates all the way back to 1979, and carries with it all the best of that era's new wave atmosphere. It's as if two parallel journeys coexist here: the girl's, so cheerful and steeped in the joy of life for nine-tenths of the record, abruptly and tragically cut short by drugs; and Luttazzi's own, who, with the loss of a close friend, is suddenly thrust into adulthood.

"Surprising", as we said a few lines back. And the surprises keep coming once you realize that nothing of Luttazzi the comedian survives in this musical venture: because the record really is beautiful, deep and sincere. So much so that there's already talk of a possible tour and a new album as early as next year: what might look like a curious experiment has all it takes to turn into a parallel career.

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30/04/2026