The review of But I am firethe new album by Annalisa.
“He will embrace her, cheer her up, lift her up, if she ever falls. She will defend, she will always be a diamond and he will be light.”
If you remember this song it's because you know Annalisa Scarrone for a long, long time. More precisely since he was a competitor in Friends and enchanted everyone with his voice between covers of Mina and first steps into the world of “grown-ups”.
His hair was such a bright red that it made us envious, almost as if it were flames, a look that was still innocent but all the desire and desire to take a bite of the microphone and the record.
From her debut on Amici to her pop renaissance: Annalisa's journey up to “Ma io sono fuoco”
Those were strange years Nali (this is her nickname), in which there were dozens of changes and evolutions, partly because it was not possible to find a clear direction in the sound and partly because both she and the market were not ready to “love” each other.
The small flame, however, remained lit and everything was done to make it flare up, even passing through sudden and strange gusts of wind (Avocado Toast remains a mystery of his discography to this day).
It didn't like it, the public didn't take it into consideration and the results didn't arrive, but at a certain point here was the epiphany directly from England: Dua Lipa.
When the then little Dua, a rising star of world music, exploded, we realized that it could be intelligent to exploit the presence in the same label to put the two girls in contact and make them collaborate. And so it was in 2016 with Used To You.
Perhaps that was the moment in which everything changed within Annalisa and around her, because the following album (Bye-bye) rode the “dual-fishing” wave, exploiting the visual and musical hook and strengthening it as much as possible, to the point of using the same font as the debut album by Dua Lipa to create the writing “Annalisa”.
In those years the first important collaborations arrived, the first truly successful summer hits but, above all, a key figure arrived in the staff: Stefano Clessi.
There is no doubt that since the arrival of Clessi onwards things have changed, the results and the choices made speak for themselves but, beyond the merits that a single person may have, the real change was that of Annalisa on a human level.
She was no longer the twenty-year-old from Amici, she was a woman over 30 in the midst of maturity and personal ambition after years of apprenticeship, who chose to use every possible weapon to become what she is today: the woman with the highest number of certifications in Italy.
Being in the right place at the right time with the right mind and the right people is a concatenation that cannot just be luck. Luck is created, especially in worlds like that of the recording industry, and Annalisa his fortune was created when he published Bellissima, Mon Amour, Lonely Girl, Euphoria, Short Stories And Sincerely in rapid succession over the course of three years.
The sound had finally arrived, the direction had been understood and Annalisa he had fulfilled his destiny: to become a superstar of Italian music with full merit, taking advantage of all the weapons available.
The curious thing is that the change came on the wave of natural elements and grammatical conjunctions: And then we ended up in the vortex (air), But I Am Fire (fire).
To help them achieve success, Mother Nature also took action and I would say that nothing more could have been done.
“But I am fire” is the journey into Annalisa's emotions
After the entire history, in brief, of the career of the biggest Italian pop star (today) we arrive at this album and the continuation of the musical journey that began three years ago with And Then We Ended Up In The Vortex.
It is worth underlining that it is a continuation from a musical point of view because it continues in the wake of electronic, dance music with 80s inspiration, but there is a marked difference from a textual point of view.
Annalisa developed the idea of creating, to all intents and purposes, a similar concept album where we face a journey through the hardships, told with the right amount of irony without ever exasperating things and concepts, of a woman who faces the world and people.
A journey that starts with Dependsa song where you are overwhelmed by anger and resentment but which then fades and becomes melancholy in St. Mark's Square. Then the controlled, conscious but also ironic anger towards the male gender (and not only) returns Male, Exhibitionist.
We return to thinking and reflecting seriously Poisoned and to face other emotional stimuli to the point of almost feeling the need to have a shoulder, aFriend who knows how to support you and who, looking from the outside, brings into focus everything that has been experienced, this emotional carousel.
Throughout the album, reading the lyrics, one almost perceives a sense of gratitude in being a woman but without ever letting this concept lead to a sort of toxic feminism, because at the end of the day, negative experiences happen but are always focused on specific people (men), often defined as “without dignity” due to their actions.
It is an album in which Annalisa chooses to let off steam and put her experiences on paper to remember what she has experienced, what she has faced, to be able to channel all this anger and throw it out once and for all but without forgetting it, because it is only through absorbing the trauma, not hiding things under the carpet, that we can move forward.
The national and international musical inspirations are very strong
If we exclude the lyrics and talk about music, composition and arrangements, given that the album is almost entirely danceable, with the exception of three songs, Annalisa and her collaborators have chosen to take many different ideas and inspirations to create the 11 tracks.
There is a strong presence of Lady Gaga on more than one occasion (Disappointed it's kind of Born This Wayto give an example), just as the presence of is felt very much Donatella Rector in Exhibitionist or that of Donna Summer And Moroder in Emanuelaor again The Weeknd in Nails And I am (especially here the guitar sound of the song is taken up Sacrifice but also the pad of Open Hearts).
Many inspirations, even clear ones, but conveyed with respect and not with that feeling of imitating someone or something. There is awareness, here too, in every little step and choice made.
Annalisa's maturity album or new step towards eternity?
It's the album in conclusion, this one by Annalisa seems to be the fulfillment of a journey that began in 2022 and which found its natural evolution and end(?) with these 11 songs, waiting for a future that who knows what it may hold.
Anything could happen and Annalisa, in this journey through emotional and professional joys and pains, knows well that one cannot and must never stop changing, always keeping faith with one's own character.
The real question, placed more as a curiosity with a future perspective, is: what is the stylistic feature of Annalisathe one of recent times or the melodic one from the past that has been put aside?
Can these two worlds be combined in the future or will we continue to listen almost exclusively to the uptempo version, except for a few commercial songs like St. Mark's Square or Short StoriesOf Nali?
We'll never know until we touch the future and, probably, she doesn't know either, so there's nothing left to do but enjoy these 11 songs in which there's little room to get depressed but plenty of room to let off steam and do it well.
VOTE: 7½
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐½
Best songs: I Am, Friend, Disappointed
Worst songs: Poisoned
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM
