JOVANOTTI - Safari

Whether we like it or not, the release of the new album by Lorenzo "Jovanotti" is still a major event on the Italian pop music scene. Lorenzo has walked through several generations, always managing to adapt to the changing climate: from paninaro to funky young lad, then the ethnic turn, and finally the hard-won maturity. This is exactly where "Safari" sits, anno domini 2008: the album positions itself as a bridge between the Jovanotti of the last three records and the grown-up Lorenzo who wants to prove he has matured.

His brother's death last summer weighed heavily on the making of the whole album, as can be heard in the single "Fango", featuring Ben Harper on guitar. Despite being on loop across every possible media outlet, it remains an enjoyable song.

The album only half works. Personally, when Lorenzo starts writing syrupy, saccharine love songs ("A Te", "Come Musica"), I'd just hit stop and be done with it: dull, trite, predictable to the point of exhaustion, arranged in the most foreseeable way possible. Then, without any apparent reason, he comes up with something that actually makes sense, and a track like "Innamorato" works wonderfully, in its simple, natural voice-and-piano arrangement.

Maturity shows up elsewhere though, scattered between highs and lows. Starting with the lows, the power-pop that Max Pezzali would gladly swipe on "Mezzogiorno" is a decidedly risky move: on one hand there's a clear will to change direction from his recent work, on the other the song never really seems to go anywhere. The highs are mostly found in the various guest collaborations. So we get a fantastic, thoroughly successful samba of love ("Punto") alongside Sergio Mendes, a frantic, electric rhythm vaguely reminiscent of Negrita ("Safari", featuring Giuliano Sangiorgi of Negramaro on vocals), and finally what's perhaps the best track on the record, "Mani Libere 2008", alongside an aging but still effective Michael Franti, somewhere between mature singer-songwriter fare and unpretentious reggae rhythms, wonderfully danceable.

Songs like "Antidoloroficomagnifico", "Dove ho visto te" and "Temporale" leave things hanging in the air. In the first two, Lorenzo falls back on his well-worn standard formula, stringing together assorted words that conjure up vague places and things, though dressing them up in elaborate arrangements that lean vaguely Capossela-esque and Middle Eastern respectively. "Temporale", on the other hand, shows an electro-funk version of the Lorenzo of "Il Quinto Mondo", with Saturnino towering over everything and a pretty great mood.

Whether or not you like Lorenzo, whether or not he still interests you, he's still standing, and he proves it by writing a couple of genuinely enjoyable, interesting songs. Unfortunately, that's not enough to keep the whole album afloat, dragged down as it is by tracks that are truly dull and lifeless, flat and bland, despite showing a will to grow, to prove that these are no longer the days of "Penso Positivo" (sadly). A passing grade, out of sheer affection.

Worth noting: the deluxe edition includes three extra tracks, among them the fantastic "Come parli l'italiano", which took me straight back to the days of "Jovanotti for president".

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07/02/2008