I offer him disco pax with less socialism and more Jesus: the pop disc of Pope Francis

In 2015 Pope Francis came out with the album Wake Up!displacing all music fans of the planet. On Wikipedia it is defined as Progressive Rock, Christian Rock, Pop and Gospel. The result consists of more or less lively bases, with the great speeches of the pontiff who involve you and press you on top: they practically offer them offspoons, but with much less socialism and much more Jesus. In the year of its publication, in December (not random month), it has come to touch the fourth place of the US World Albums of Billboard. Does this mean it's nice? I'm not sure. But what I can do is to deepen the outlines through curiosity, background and hypotheses. Perhaps this is the last possible moment to give a chance to the strangest and most unexpected work produced by Jorge Mario Bergoglio.

The origins

Obviously there is a lot of music dedicated to the popes, especially in the past. But music actually made by the popes? One of the best known examples is Abbà Patera CD published by Sony Classical and produced by Radio Vaticana in 1999 for the Jubilee of 2000. The protagonist artist is John Paul II who recites homilies and sings in Italian, English, Latin, French and Spanish on original symphonic compositions. In the pre-platform era he conquered five gold and two platinum records. The same operation arrives ten years later also with Benedict XVI who records his collection nothing less than at the Abbey Road Studios, with eight tracks performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and sung by the choir of the Roman Philharmonic Academy. Francis follows his predecessors with a wilder and more pop, involving Tony Pagliuca delle Orme, one of the most important exponents of the Italian Prog. The passion of this Pope for music is known and made a sensation, in 2022, his visit to a record shop in via della Minerva in Rome, even if the owner refused to reveal with which record he took home. Once he said, “I love Mozart, of course. His Et Incarnatus est He is unsurpassed, he takes you to God. I like to listen to Beethoven. And then the passions of Bach – Sublimi ». But nobody takes away from the head that may have found the pod single Youth of the Nationwell -known Christian metal band.

Reactions

Strange to think that Pitchfort He reviewed a pope's album, yet it is so. After squeezing it with a score of 5.0 they write: “Wake Up! It is located in an extremely bizarre point between a two -hour mass and a motivational company video ». The journalist Jia Tolentino notes that too often the titles of the songs are more powerful than the songs themselves, like Cuidar El Planesa (Protect the planet) with a revolutionary position on climate change or Iglesia no puede ser an NGO! (The Church cannot be an NGO!). Yet the Chiosa of the US magazine is very sweet and full of understanding: “However, there is something beautiful in this album: the same fact that exists. Pope Francis, already a papal figure more human than any other in recent history, is further humanized by this total musical clumsy, with a confused genre, with a pluralist and good heart […] Pope Chill, a leader of 1.2 billion people, invites you to accept this absurd album like your personal spiritual genesis, your clumsy way of saying: yes ».

How do you listen to?

This is not the kind of album prog that you feel in the car at full volume while you leave for an adventure with your most bearded and scalp friends. But it's not even the pop or rock album you put on a party to warm the spirits. Wake Up! Di Pope Francis has more an ambient and post rock mood, that is, type rós type of South America. In some steps of accordion, organ and trumpet may remember, if you are quite crazy, New Blue Sun by André 3000. The ideal would be to use it as a background for repetitive and obsessive operations, to fall asleep or to make a joke in some pagan and alternative meditation meeting. For those who fear to be converted or to suffer too much episcopal influence, you just have to wait for an instrumental version.

You might like it too …

Each self -respecting platform suggests jobs in some way similar to those you are listening to. From this point of view, one of the most famous Italian works dedicated to the Argentine pontiff is that of the musician from Campania Gigione, entitled Pope Francis And he came out simultaneously with his election in 2013. This album, and single of the same name, fall within the neo -melodic vein of the “Boscoreale Bruce Springsteen” (so he is nicknamed) but without the classic dementia and goliardic infiltrations. Already in the past the singer had written Dear Pope, Madonna with golden curls, Madonna di Pompeii, Santa Rita, St. Francis of Assisi And Padre Piomaking clear the topic treated in the songs immediately. Pope Francis It is a ballad from the end of the evening and from the torch of the phone fired towards the starry sky, the most popular tribute to the Holy Father, straight as the faith should be, without quotations caught with the Gregorian songs or sophistications of any kind. The refrain is an inacalfiable boulder and does this: “Dear Pope Francis you entered everyone in the heart / dear Pope Francis you have already given us so much love / you came from so far / to bring peace between us / dear Pope Francis remain forever with us”. This is Wake Up! These are the unmissable CDs you should add to your collection, in the category “Unexpected sacred music”.