Adriano Pappalardo

For me

he was a thief

with him

I used to steal almonds

and you can

call it an obsession

but to me it was

a dear little vandal

Anchored to the string of pop hits of the Seventies, the Apulian singer Adriano Pappalardo was mainly kept under the wing of Numero Uno and RCA: radio hits like “È ancora giorno”, “Ricominciamo” or “Non mi lasciare mai”, relegated to a mainstream, populist notion of the Italian pop song, are hard to forget – whether that's a good or a bad thing. And yet Lucio Battisti, the towering figure of Italian pop and still a reference point for a new generation of singer-songwriters, believed from the very start in the manly potential of the performer: during the break-up of his partnership with Giulio Rapetti, aka Mogol, which took place in 1980, the singer-songwriter from Poggio Bustone reinvented himself through studio experiments that lively echoed the tail end of the new wave movement. Even Pappalardo brushed against the melting pot of genres contained within these “waves”, lending himself to an unusual game of mirrors orchestrated by Battisti in collaboration with the Roman poet Pasquale Panella.

Coming off an unconventional style of writing built on apparently nonsense, near-surreal lyrics, Panella had until then often used various pseudonyms to deliberately throw off the listener: just think of Vanda Di Paolo, Duchesca and Vanera, names that turn up in the credits of works like “Vocation” (It, 1979), the recording debut of the underrated pop-rock singer-songwriter Enzo Carella, and “Effetto amore” (RCA, 1981) by New Perigeo, the soft-jazz incarnation of the historic outfit Perigeo.

Meanwhile, in 1982 “Immersione” was released on Numero Uno, a peculiar experiment that boasted the presence of veteran English producer Greg Walsh, best known for having previously worked on Battisti's last albums featuring Mogol's lyrics, and jazz-fusion guitarist Ray Russell, who had already arranged records for London folk singer-songwriter Bill Fay (“Bill Fay”, Deram, 1970; “Time Of The Last Persecution”, Deram, 1971). Built around a mannerism that's at times cold and marginal, the record was snubbed by critics, and the public poorly received Pappalardo's turn towards a minimal, up-to-date electronic sound: yet the people behind the project didn't give up, and in 1983 they completed the lighthearted “Oh era ora”, entirely produced and arranged by Lucio Battisti.

Introduced by a curious cover by photographer Arpad Kertesz and graphic designer Antonio Dojmi, depicting an invisible figure holding a bulky shopping bag, the album opens with the romantic intro “Signorina”: wrapped in the rhythmic bass of Fabio Pignatelli and the nostalgic keyboards of Maurizio Guarini – both straight from the ranks of Goblin. What's disorienting is the ambivalent relationship between lyrics and music, both reduced to a stripped-down harmonic structure. Amid dreamlike imagery and a clever arrangement, the track shows a Battisti in excellent shape, giving voice to a Pappalardo we'd never heard before, far more forceful and distinctive than on his previous work.

The ironic AOR of “Vanessa Moda Gaia”, tinged with top-shelf synth-pop, takes on a more relaxed, carefree pace: the memorable refrain, topped by towering hard rock guitars, rings out in unison thanks to an emphatic vocal performance from Pappalardo, among his very best; a keyboard interlude follows. Somewhere between Seneca and Francis Mocomber, “Breve la vita felice” dodges bullets of hermetic verse piled up on circus-like wordplay. Among the most enigmatic lyrics of the concept, the track remains downright incomprehensible even after repeated listens; and that's exactly its fascination. The playful “Puoi toccarmi tutto a me” closes out side one.

Side two opens with one of the darkest tracks in all of Italian new wave, “Caroline e l’uomo nero”. A constant breaking of the fourth wall – “Questa è una canzone registrata, è chiaro, esatto, giusto o no?/ Non facciamo scherzi, niente versi, per favore e dopo stop/ parlo chiaro o no?/ qui c’è il coro: Caroline!” – brings out soaring synths in a top-tier arrangement, one that could easily travel abroad and hold its own against international productions.

On the other hand, “Questa storia” brings back to the surface the monolithic fragment of a friendship. Panella's melancholy lyrics are given weight by Pappalardo's emotional delivery, as he recites images (the green of Rome) and feelings (even the ruins make you smile) once lived through, belonging to a past made ever more solid by statuesque memory. Caught between cognitive dissociation and the loss of identity, “Io chi è” acts as the album's chimera, a genuine gem waiting to be rediscovered. The album closes with the title track, literally a shopping list set to lyrics. Although the creative distance from the previous songs is obvious, the track stands out for its playful, easygoing nature.

Among the most obscure corners of the catalogue, “Oh era ora” resurfaces like a sudden downpour in the middle of the Sahara desert, proving how the figure of the “lightweight performer” can rise above the average standard, much as it did for Matia Bazar, Donatella Rettore, Ivan Cattaneo, Alberto Camerini, Nada and many other representatives of the genre in Italy. 

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23/04/2026