Carmen Consoli

It seems like just another evening at Sanremo, that 18th of February 1997. Then a young, black-clad Sicilian singer bursts onto the stage, in trousers and a blouse, with short raven hair. Clutching her electric guitar, she unleashes distortion and scratchy high notes with the aggressive attitude of a true rocker. She's all exuberance and fragility. She's Confusa e felice. A song decidedly out of step with Sanremo, all sharp edges, ups and downs, and oblique melodies. Unsurprisingly, she's eliminated in the Aspiranti Campioni category of the festival's forty-seventh edition, while among the Nuove Proposte a more reassuring love story from Paola e Chiara, "Amici come prima", takes the win. After all, that this wasn't exactly the most forward-thinking edition of the festival would also be confirmed by the Campioni verdict, which crowned "Fiumi di parole" by Jalisse, a group destined to become the ultimate one-hit wonders in the festival's history.

Once the lights go out at the Ariston, though, things change. Because that insistent riff and that sharp, distinctive voice – which only vaguely recalls the style of Dolores O'Riordan of Cranberries – leave their mark. It's not just the originality of Carmen Consoli in front of Sanremo's embalmed audience that stands out, but also the bold, innovative construction of "Confusa e felice". A song that perhaps could only have come out in those lush 90s for Italian alternative rock, with its nervous, jumpy gait and its lyrics narrating the moods and expectations of an approval sought out day after day. In no time, it becomes a hit, as well as one of the year's most successful "slogans".

But that aggressive, unconventional girl was hardly a character crafted in some boardroom for the Festival della Città dei Fiori (where, incidentally, she had already appeared the previous year, again among the Nuove Proposte, with "Amore di plastica", co-written with Mario Venuti). She was a strong, self-aware singer-songwriter who had spent years trying to make her way in her "radiant Catania". Now she had finally made it, and from here on, everything would be smooth sailing.

A Seattle at the foot of Etna

If the 90s were the golden age for Italian indie-rock, Catania was its Seattle. In those years, the city in Washington State, already the birthplace of Jimi Hendrix, had become the mecca of grunge, the movement that sought to bring rock back to its essential, raw energy. Bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and others embodied all the desolation and rage of a new generation, with their scathing anthems and their bare-bones look of flannel shirts, faded t-shirts and sneakers. But even at the foot of Etna, there were those trying to build a rock scene with a clear identity of its own. After all, Catania could already boast a giant of Italian song like Franco Battiato, as well as an interesting "Mediterranean" new wave strand, led by Mario Venuti's Denovo and Luca Madonia. What's more, a new generation of bands devoted to harder, uncompromising rock was emerging: Cesare Basile's Candida Lilith, Giovanna Cacciola's Uzeda, Marcello Cunsolo's Flor de Mal, Orazio Russo's Caftua, Amerigo Verardi's Lula (from Brindisi but produced by Cyclope in the city of the elephant), plus a young Carmen, who had lent her voice to a few Caftua and Lula tracks and had duetted twice with both Denovo frontmen in their solo guises. A movement born within a broader, more complex artistic ferment in a Sicily filled with civic outrage, after being struck to the heart by the season of mafia killings and massacres, which culminated in the 1992 double bombing in Palermo at Capaci and Via D'Amelio, costing the lives of magistrates Falcone and Borsellino and the men of their escorts.

The one pulling the strings of this thriving Catania scene is above all a tenacious record man named Francesco Virlinzi, producer and owner of a label that was, at the time, very popular in the city of the little elephant, Cyclope Records. His determination would be recounted by Domenico Trischitta in the 2008 book "Una raggiante Catania", whose title comes precisely from a line in a Consoli song, "In bianco e nero": "Virlinzi's perseverance and his instinct as a rock desaparecido would lead him to realize his project: to make Catania Italy's Seattle and to introduce the whole of Italy to the most overwhelming musical phenomenon of the last ten years, the girl who sings in pubs and goes by the name Carmen Consoli". Virlinzi would die in 2000 of cancer, and ever since, every year on 28 July, his birthday, a musical memorial is held in Catania in his name.

It's perhaps no coincidence, then, that the most disruptive Italian singer-songwriter of the last thirty years emerged precisely from that fertile Sicilian laboratory. But it's fair to think that such a talent would have blossomed anywhere in Italy. Because Carmen is a force of nature. Born in Catania on 4 September 1974 and raised in the nearby town of San Giovanni La Punta, she has music in her chromosomes. Her father Giuseppe, in fact, is a great fan of both traditional Italian artists like Domenico Modugno and of the blues. It's he who encourages her to write and sing during her school years. From there, an inexorable progression: at 9, Carmen starts studying guitar; at 13, she's performing in Catania's clubs, struck by her muse Janis Joplin. She plays with bands like Iris Monday and Moon Dog's Party. During this period she also takes part in "Battiato non Battiato", a tribute to her most illustrious fellow townsman, with her own idiosyncratic cover of "L'animale". From this a deep friendship is born, one that would lead the Maestro from Ionia to follow his disciple's path like a kind of artistic father.

In 1994, Carmen then releases "Due parole" (1996), her debut album. A collection of intimate, stripped-back, mostly acoustic songs which, despite their still-raw production, already reveal a restless performer with an impertinent streak, as heard on "Lingua a sonagli". When, three years later, she releases her second album, inevitably titled "Confusa e felice", Carmen Consoli isn't just buoyed by the lingering wave of her Sanremo success, but can also boast solid stage experience, thanks to a long tour of Italy's major cities. The leap in quality compared to her already interesting debut is obvious from the very first notes of the title track that drives the whole record, climbing the charts.

Recorded at Waterbird Studio in Catania with an immediate, "first-take" approach, and with Virlinzi in the producer's chair (supervision handled by sound engineer Luciano Torani, who also plays tambourine and percussion), the album boasts a more electric, dirtier sound than the previous year's effort. Backing Carmen, who sings in an even more nasal, vibrant way while playing guitar and mandolin, are her trusty guitarist Massimo Roccaforte (destined to become her inseparable right-hand man), Leif Searcy on drums and Enzo Ruggiero on bass, plus Alfredo Borzi on cello.

But there's no denying that the undisputed star of the show is Carmen herself, pictured on the cover by Remo Di Gennaro in a red blouse and a bob cut, leaning against a half-open hotel door, as if wanting to symbolically usher the listener into her world. A complex world, made up of highs and lows, exuberance and torments of every kind: romantic, sexual, existential. As if charting a journey of growth, "Confusa e felice" ferries the raw Mediterranean punk girl of her early days into the formidable Cantantessa who would go on to enchant Italian audiences from then on.

Playing a significant role in this journey of growth are the lyrics, which speak of love and disillusionment (the intense "Fino all'ultimo"), but also tackle harder, more uncomfortable subjects such as the Holocaust and Aids. "Ricordo il freddo massacrante i timidi lamenti della mia gente/ ammassati stipati dentro un treno merci" ("I remember the brutal cold, the timid laments of my people/ crammed and packed into a freight train") is the desolate lament of a Jew being sent to a concentration camp in "Un sorso in più", fully aware of what's at stake in his fight for survival ("Ed ho imparato a bere sempre un sorso in più/ di quanto ne avessi realmente bisogno/ un giorno potrei avere sete" – "And I've learned to always drink one more sip/ than I actually need/ one day I might be thirsty"); while the propulsive "Per niente stanca", steeped in acidic feedback, gives voice to all the loneliness and frustration of an Aids patient, with lines of unusual harshness for an Italian song: "Adesso che ho sangue infetto/ Nessuno vorrà più leccare le mie ferite… Adesso che sto in questo inferno/ Angeli, amici e fratelli hanno preso il volo… Ho superato anche l'inverno/ Ed ho pregato a lungo" ("Now that my blood is infected/ No one will want to lick my wounds anymore… Now that I'm in this hell/ Angels, friends and brothers have flown away… I've made it through winter too/ And I've prayed for a long time"). Then comes the terrifying electric explosion of the chorus ("E non sono per niente stanca" – "And I'm not tired at all"), which twists the knife, laying bare a universe of terror and discrimination. A symbolic track, dedicated to a friend of the singer-songwriter who died of Aids and originally titled "Sangue infetto" ("Infected Blood"): it would remain etched in the collective memory, and it's no coincidence that in 2006 Consoli was named a Unicef "Goodwill Ambassador", tasked with spreading the message of the Unite for Children – Unite Against Aids campaign.

Like many other protagonists of that fortunate national season in the 90s – following in the footsteps of historic acts like CCCP/CSI, Litfiba, Diaframma, Marlene Kuntz – Carmen decides to sing in Italian, even though her songs are unmistakably rock, in the most Anglo-Saxon sense of the term. Thanks also to its melodic, Mediterranean character, Carmen Consoli's rock thus pairs with a strong, personal language, far from the clichés that plague Italy's mainstream popular tradition. A lyrical universe steeped in a restless, nervous, paranoid spleen, which reaches its peak in the anxieties of the uneasy "Uguale a ieri", a sincere confession of a love story fading into dusk ("Ora che il giorno invecchia tra le mani/ Non è rimasta un'ombra da inseguire/ Ed ho paura di restare sola/ Di restare uguale a ieri" – "Now that the day grows old in my hands/ There's no shadow left to chase/ And I'm afraid of being alone/ Of staying the same as yesterday") and in the biting ode of "Venere", which mercilessly mocks the tedium of a long relationship: "Fortunatamente da giorni è finita la lenta agonia dei tuoi fiori/ sto ancora rimettendo la nostra ultima cena romantica" ("Fortunately, days ago the slow agony of your flowers ended/ I'm still throwing up our last romantic dinner").

A journey into darkness that "Blunotte" – clearly inspired by Joni Mitchell's "Blue" – best represents, with its torments carved into the frail acoustic frame of guitars and strings, recounting the effort it takes to connect with others: "Forse non riuscirò a darti il meglio/ più volte hai trovato i miei sforzi inutili…/ come se non bastasse aver rinunciato a me stessa…/ E non ho fatto altro che sentirmi sbagliata/ e ho cambiato tutto di me perché non ero abbastanza/ E ho capito soltanto adesso che avevi paura" ("Maybe I won't manage to give you my best/ many times you've found my efforts useless…/ as if giving up on myself wasn't enough…/ And all I've done is feel wrong/ and I changed everything about myself because I wasn't enough/ And only now have I understood that you were afraid"). An open-hearted confession, candid and pulsing, one of the emotional peaks of the album. In the same vein is the intimate "Fidarmi delle tue carezze", which betrays all the insecurities and risks involved in trying to open up to another person, overcoming one's own mistrust.

Here too the conditional form "vorrei" ("I would like") recurs, appearing often throughout the album's lyrics: "Vorrei tentare", "Vorrei offrirti le mie mani", "Vorrei parlare con la tua bocca", "Vorrei riuscire a guardare con i tuoi occhi", "Vorrei rimediare", "Vorrei sentire il calore delle tue mani". Behind that conditional often lies the fear of loneliness, a sense of inadequacy, the bitter fruit of repeated romantic disappointments.

After the title track, the song that gets the most radio airplay is "Venere", a driving pop-rock number in which Carmen overturns aesthetic conventions, turning the Goddess of beauty into a cripple, flying in the face of every cliché about women as objects: "Triste annoiata e asciutta/ Sarei la tua Venere storpia" ("Sad, bored and dried-up/ I'd be your crippled Venus"). An irreverent jab at Botticelli's Venus, the ultimate expression of Consoli's unconventional streak in 1997, which warns against stopping at appearances and urges digging deep to truly find "La bellezza delle cose" ("The Beauty of Things") – a ballad set to the steady strum of acoustic guitar in which she confesses once more with lines like "Non hai mai sentito dire/ Che la bellezza delle cose ama nascondersi/ Ed è forte quello che ho dentro/ Distante dalla mediocrità/ Ho rischiato di perdere tutto per non subirla" ("Haven't you ever heard it said/ That the beauty of things loves to hide/ And what I have inside is strong/ Far from mediocrity/ I risked losing everything rather than submit to it") – and is so weary of industry insiders asking for easier, more accommodating lyrics that she responds with the provocative choice of singing a song backwards, that "Bonsai#2" which closes the tracklist and, despite its unusual form, would be belted out by audiences at concerts. Bewildering lines like "Oderc ni em/ Len oim eroma/ Rep etra/ Is eroum", read backwards, make sense as: "Credo in me/ Nel mio amore/ Per arte/ Si muore" ("I believe in myself/ In my love/ For art/ One dies"). A declaration of impatience in the name of artistic freedom. It would remain her mantra for her entire career, even at the cost of giving up easy successes within her reach.

Women of the 90s

But "Confusa e felice" would prove just as successful. Released on 19 April 1997, it debuted at number six on the charts, going platinum with over 130,000 copies sold. The second half of the 90s, after all, was a favourable era for women in rock, with international stars in the field such as Sinéad O'Connor, Tori Amos, PJ Harvey, Björk, Sheryl Crow, Alanis Morissette, Dolores O'Riordan, Fiona Apple, Aimee Mann. A stellar generation that came together to reclaim the stage (and the audience), in defiance of the music business's sexism, with a touring festival awash in pink, called Lilith Fair, led by the indomitable wagon-master Sarah McLachlan.

At the same time, it was the golden age of new Italian rock – more or less alternative – considering that an underground band like CSI unexpectedly topped the Top Ten with their "Electrified tabula rasa". The definitive seal on a collective explosion, with the rise of acts like Afterhours, Massimo Volume, Ùstmamò, Marlene Kuntz, Bluvertigo, Subsonica, Almamegretta and more. A scene that until then had been sustained almost exclusively by independent labels and which was now finally starting to attract the interest of the majors as well.

In this favourable context, "Confusa e felice" added one more certainty, and no small one: Italy too had its own rockeuse, its own PJ Harvey. And it would fall to the stage to provide the proof: the successful tour to promote the album would also see another guitarist from Catania, Santi Pulvirenti, join the line-up, coming from the noise outfit Plank and destined to become a pillar of the Consoli sound. A sound that, from here on – just like that of the ex-punkette from Dorset – would undergo a gradual evolution towards singer-songwriter territory, moving away from the rock angularity of her early work.

Carmen herself would also go through many emotional ups and downs, from the unexpected nervous breakdown she suffered right after her first successes to romantic turmoil, from the death of her beloved father to the difficult decision to have a son (Carlo Giuseppe) in London through artificial insemination. But nothing could dent the shell of a personality unwilling to compromise. Recognition would come late for her too, with the Targa Tenco award for Best Album of the Year for "Elettra" (the first woman ever to win in the Club's history). Even more flattering was the review the New York Times dedicated to her shows in the Big Apple: "Carmen Consoli is a splendid combination of rocker and intellectual. A voice full of pain, compassion and strength." A milestone that adds to numerous others achieved by the Cantantessa: the first Italian artist to take the stage at Rome's Stadio Olimpico, the only Italian to take part in the celebrations marking the anniversary of Bob Marley's death in Ethiopia, as well as headliner at Central Park and author of three consecutive sold-out shows in New York. As Damiano Pandolfini writes, "someone will always be nostalgic for the old Carmen, the one who howled Confusa e felice into the wind like a madwoman, the one who limped through Mediamente isterica amid odd time signatures and tortured electric distortion, or the one who fell into the grip of a fluctuating hormonal Stato di necessità at the mere sight of a white coat, but time doesn't seem to have worn her down all that much; far from both the pompous neo-melodic pomp of the Ariston and certain strands of Italian indie, she sails a sea all her own, with her bittersweet folk-pop songs in an electro-acoustic vein, always marked by a voice unmistakable among thousands." Today, certainly less confused, perhaps even happier.

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03/08/2025