MADAME - Disincanto

It would have been easy to write off Madame as a flash in the pan, blessed with remarkable success at a very young age and destined for oblivion within a couple of years. Almost eight years on from the single "Sciccherie" that first drew attention to her, though, she has built a career with few parallels among her peers. In an Italian scene that chews up and spits out names and careers at a frantic pace, Francesca Calearo has managed to carve out a different path, not without difficulties. Winner of two Targa Tenco awards at just 19, having passed through Sanremo twice while still finding her feet, she even treated herself to co-writing the winning song at the 2024 Ariston festival, "La noia" by Angelina Mango. With her second, ambitious and explicit album, "L'amore" (2023), she made her intentions as a songwriter clear: no guests, and plenty of new directions to explore in search of her own voice.

This third album, "Disincanto", sees her return after a couple of years of lower media exposure, and it seems to strike a balance between the first two chapters of her discography, helped along by production helmed by Bias.

That we should brace ourselves for an album capable of standing apart from the sludge of mainstream pop-rap was made immediately clear by the title track single, "Disincanto": an electronic r'n'b tune that sounds like a manifesto of independence from other people's expectations.

Io non vivo più con sotto le istruzioni

Tutto ciò che so spero che mi abbandoni

E sono mie, le bugie che mi hanno detto sono mie

Il male e il bene sono solo fantasie

Introspection and reflection on one's own identity are also central to the following track, “Come stai?”, a sort of sequel to “Voice” that lightens the beat toward more danceable territory, set against spectral synths. It explicitly recounts the crisis triggered by sudden, overwhelming success, the reorganization of her own life, and the effects of the public's morbid interest.

Do you want to know how I made the most of my success?

Do you want to see what my life is like now, I've got

All things I don't think you're interested in

A partner, a dog, a slower life, and no

In two years I haven't written a single song, you know

I spent weeks in a treatment facility

And I don't get up without psych meds

No, I'm not a great example to get attached to

One of the two tracks featuring guests, “Volevo capire”, brings in Marracash, another artist who has chosen to follow a wholly personal path. A more straightforward song, with a chorus that gets stuck in your head without giving up on its message. Far more tormented is “Ok”, with its bitterly ironic title, a parade of postcards from distress undercut by a rather weak chorus. The narrative of her own journey is also central to the more melancholic “Rosso come il fango”, worthy of the pen of the aforementioned Marracash.

She also finds room to strike hard at the hypocrisies of today's music business in “Mai più”, where references to other artists lurk alongside some pointed accusations against the music press (“To the one and only magazine covering all of Italian rap/ That charges thousands of euros for an article and a half” – spoiler: she's not talking about us).

The more singer-songwriter-oriented side of her has been scaled back, but it resurfaces in the elaborate, if brief, “Bestia”, where she also proves to have grown vocally and interpretively: opening tentatively over a piano, it turns into a dance and takes shape as a refined nu soul confession closed out by a trumpet.

The album's throwaway moment is “Puttana svizzera” with Nerissima Serpe and Papa V, an outrageously explicit slice of pop-trap (“Lately my throat's seen coke and pills/ You'd think I only eat Müller yogurt”), out of place and unnecessary. It's the most kitsch concession on an album that otherwise narrates and digs deep into the soul, even when recounting her relationship with her mother in “Allucinazioni” or reconstructing a therapy session in the closing “Grazie”, a moving reflection on her own pain:

I've internalized my pain so much

That I can never find it as authentic as it was when it was born

As soon as I reach out my hand to touch it

Something pushes me away, and it's me doing it

I felt so alone I wanted to go mad

To hear voices, even if imaginary ones

But it's not that serious, no, it's not that serious

Compared to the world, my life is extraordinary

In a glut of albums that feel more like playlists, "Disincanto" stands out brilliantly for its cohesion, distinguishing itself because it has something to say and finds the words, and the sounds, to say it. The disillusionment of the title marks an arrival into adulthood, which means coming to terms with one's own traumas, psychopathologies, betrayals, and changes. A rare, almost unique example of personality on our urban scene, a distinctive voice with a singular perspective.

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23/04/2026