Baustelle Elvis album review by Anna Ida Cortese.
“You must have chaos within yourself to give birth to a dancing star” Friedrich Nietzsche
Portraits of contemporary decadence, what if the world fell? I move a little further… we dance rock’n roll and we return to the roofs of the houses to sing (reference to the video of MILAN IS THE METAPHOR OF LOVE). The chaos of the burning world is reflected throughout the songs providing the listener with a clear emotional map of the present.
elvis, ninth album, of the Baustelle tell about ours “time to forget” to put it in their own words. Decadence has been a characteristic feature of the band since the beginning, each album has explored the transience of existence from many points of view and their discography would seem almost like a bildungsroman from youth to maturity.
Those who met them twenty-three years ago will recognize the themes and writing, the exploration of different genres but retaining their style baustellian: affirm profound truths with decidedly cheerful rhythms, to dance and with a decidedly vintage breath.
Elvis is the album of maturity, full of experiences also of solo paths Francesco Bianconi And Rachel Bastreghi.
Let’s start with the name Elvis, a rock icon that doesn’t leave much room for interpretation. A rock star who carries a series of messages, a elvis code imprinted in each song, portraits of small provincial stars looking for love predominantly. In the background, as a connection between the various songs, there is the noise of a radio tuning in and sometimes there are real and proper extracts of “real life”, screams, laughter and explanations in dialect, this allows us to think of the record as a extract from the stories of the present, it concerns us all, we are all involved in this narrative.
On the musical level there is an evident change of course, we are in America in the 70s but also in England and we also sink into blues notes… a change of sound, remember that the two chapters of Love and Violence they were decidedly pop with the synthesizers dominating everything else.
The first thought listening to the record goes to their third album The underworld in which a series of portraits of existential malaise, suicide and other contemporary evils were offered. In 2005 there was a portrait of the world in crisis and there was Milan… in 2023 that story returns, with a more accentuated bitter disillusionment but in rock’n’roll time.
The story of the disc starts from here, from the macrocosm of cities to get to the intimacy of relationships.
Let’s start from Milan.
MILAN IS THE METAPHOR OF LOVE. A cry of partisan resistance, a song that confronts us with a political and poetic truth.
Milan is the metaphor of love
Of everything that changes, of life that goes on
Alone against the world of fascism and squalor stands
All the meaning is in the verb to stay, it recalls the somewhat precarious Hungarian “to stay” but which is the meaning of life and of love itself. The precariousness of every feeling and of spending time with the awareness that they must be lived and crossed. THE Baustelle they are 18 years older than A ROMANTIC IN MILAN and they are perceived… the portraits of the city are cruder but more real, the romanticism is in being crumbling, in describing a city full of contradictions but alive and pulsating.
From Milan we move to Brianza to be precise in a strip club, and it is a pity not to pronounce the whole title: GRAN BRIANZA LAPDANCE ACE OF HEARTS STRIPPING CLUB.
Lina Wertmüllerin my opinion, would be happy with this title, the song is about a love story between a customer and a stripping club dancer.
Girl of the night you ever sleep
How many drooling Elvis will you hug
Here are a number of takeaways about the perspectives of love, obsession and complexity that come to mind: THE REFORMATORY SONG, LOVE AFFAIRE, MADMOISELLE BOYFRIEND but also COUNT THE WINTERS, BETTY, AMANDA LEAR and we could mention many others because we know that love is a Baustellian theme par excellence. What changes now? Change the intensity of the gaze, the punctuality of the writing of Bianconi and musical themes that remind us of Bob Dylan and the Stones to name a few but also the blues that accompanies some songs.
From Brianza we return to Milan… and observe JACKIE.
The song titles of the Baustelle, from their beginnings, are often personal names, this helps to imagine individuals to make them exist. As JACKIE you see her walking down a street in Milan…
Jackie
What ever you will wear
What other life
Maybe
What other star
He is a she, a Drag Queen who perfectly knows how to juggle one life and another, dies and resurrects, invents and masters her existence. And we need her or rather that life to invent and resurrect.
And speaking of changing your life… there is LOS ANGELES
Head over heels superstar
And waitress in some bar
They invade Ukraine
While you look at the sky distracted
You dream of kicking it and living in Los Angeles
A complicated relationship with the bombing of Ukraine in the background which however remain in the background. Eventually we get used to everything. THE AGE OF AQUARIUS in the disk Love and violence he said
You get used to everything, to pain, to the seasons
To the story, to the calendar
In the end, History with a capital S is a great frame that we often forget taken from our unhappy existences… LOS ANGELES it is a story at the end of the line but with the hope of a better life elsewhere. We, in our wanderings, are always looking for our own LOS ANGELES.
Also OUR LIFE it tells of a relationship, a maturity of feeling that has surpassed romanticism, it is a feeling that resists and exists despite everything. A ballad that surprises us on the final cantata with a change of melody.
End of the summer of our lives:
Only unlit cigarettes seem to be left
And a gigantic nothing
A dose of madness and surrealism in the piece BLUES CEMETERY BETA-BLOCKERS. The only text that is not written only by Bianconi but also from Rachel Bastreghi. A decidedly successful mix of music and lyrics, the refrain to sing on the street or even in the disco is very catchy. A sax solo is also fine… in short, the funniest piece on the record.
According to the Intolerant Cemetery Blues Beta-blockers
I can’t stand dictators, lovers and all singers anymore
LET’S GO TO THE RAVES here in my opinion comes a bit of moralism, the song talks about this need for fun at all costs to fill an inner void, I don’t agree much with the thought of the song but the text certainly gives us a trace of the present. It is the opening track of the disc but the least successful of all.
Lonely monsters we force ourselves to concerts
Beach party to drink and fuck
To never look deeply
Inside us.
A passage that instead deserves attention and in-depth listening is THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN, a secular prayer, a paradise made of memories to cling to when everything collapses, images, relationships. A list of words that trace the life of the writer… but that tell of all of us because in those words we are all with our respective stories, we live them and make us melancholy. Here the pen of Bianconi sinks into a serene melody that opens up to visions of the images it tells.
HEART it’s the song that brings into focus an inner complexity, very intimate and takes many listens before it traps you inside. An interpretation of Rachel Bastreghi which deserves applause, thus closes the disc and leaves you with a bitter feeling.
Heart
In a bubble of the past
In hotel
In the House
On the cross
I had abandoned you
I recognized you
Child inside me
I conclude my story with the first single released in January, the first song listened to by everyone, AGAINST THE WORLD (I talked about it here)
Being against the world and having it on you instead
In four hundred square meters of parquet
Having listened to the whole disc I think this song is the bridge to prepare us for the new musicalities of the disc, they will probably be divisive but one thing is certain the Baustelle they are alive and are perfectly in line with the contemporary, in their own way but they are there.
TOP SONGS: MILAN IS THE METAPHOR OF LOVE – GRAN BRIANZA LAPDANCE ACE OF HEARTS STRIPPING CLUB – OUR LIFE – CEMETERY METABLOCKERS BLUES
VOTE: Eight 1/2
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐✨
baustelle elvis tracklist
1. We go to raves
2. Against the world
3. Our life
4. Milan is the metaphor of love
5. Jackie
6. Los Angeles
7. Cemetery blues beta blockers
8. Gran Brianza Lapdance Ace of Hearts Stripping Club
9. The Kingdom of Heaven
10. Heart
The article Baustelle “Elvis” Ten pieces that talk about a collapsing world… dancing rock’n’roll comes from All Music Italia.
