Wow, that's interesting, The beautiful confusion by Charlie Charles. Well, to be honest, if this album were by someone else, “interesting” is probably not the adjective we would use. We would use “well done”, “professional”, “great workmanship”, things of that kind. And to be honest, “interesting” we would never have thought of using it for an LP which, in short, seems to shout from every angle and every perspective: Sanremo. But lo and behold, the world has turned upside down in the meantime. Sanremo discovered pop in an urban style as a necessary touch-up and tonic, thanks to the aesthetic and compositional care of Dardust and the lyrical care of Petrella; and the urban has discovered that ultimately Sanremo is perfectly functional to what more than anything else inflates the ego of every new generation artist, namely numbers. These two galaxies have united in harmonious ways instead of going to war and looking askance at each other, for the officiating populist Christian Democrat joy of Amadeus and the Conti and of those good or bad devils who are the record companies, always thirsty for successes and triumphs, naturaliter allergic to losers.
The important thing to say, however, at this point is that of all these side considerations, we can pretty much put our hand in the fire, Charlie Charles doesn't give a shit. But absolutely zero. The important thing to say is that The beautiful confusionalthough it is a sensational album sanremo in musical writing, and we repeat, in our opinion it was not written in the slightest in a calculated way to end up on the Riviera dei Fiori and, we add, not even in streaming. Then clearly, the label – in this case Island – hopes for it: on the other hand, if you put Sfera Ebbasta, Ernia, Mahmood, Madame, Bresh, Nayt, Massimo Pericolo and the always splendid voice of Elisa on the album, let's say that the hope of making numbers important on Spotify, YouTube and friends you can't miss it. But, however, however: Charlie Charles' head – and objectives – were and are elsewhere.
It's more important than ever to contextualize this album. It is more important than ever to understand that the flavor of Sanremo on the album does not in fact arise from a paraculism of its creator but, in reality, comes from the exact opposite. Let's rewind the tape. Try to think about it: Charlie Charles in the space of an amen, with the explosion of the 2016 wave, was projected from anonymity to the rank of genius, of absolute King Midas, of an absolute champion of production capable of understanding and reproducing, like no one else, what-works, it Zeitgeist more commercially persuasive, revolutionary, effective, enlightened, incendiary. A burden of responsibility that could either be taken and worn with carelessness and arrogance, profiting as much as possible, or – if one was an honest person – could at a certain point simply make one feel bad, make one very uncomfortable. For Charlie Charles, or rather, for Paolo Alberto Monachetti, it was obviously the second.
In fact, the impression is that he is a person profoundly passionate about music on the one hand, and profoundly honest with himself on the other. A success that is too big, too sudden, too celebrated if you're honest can only turn you upside down. And this happened, as he himself told us two years ago, in what was supposed to be a return with great fanfare with his most famous friends but instead it was just a momentary parenthesis, a small nod to show that yes, he was still alive, and no, he hadn't lost his mind. Or if he had gone away in his head, well, in any case he was ready to return, he was able to return.
From there more silence followed. But feeling The beautiful confusionwe understand why. Beyond the cultured references (to Fellini, ad Half past eightto Toni Servillo who recites a monologue), beyond being in some ways a concept album (the dialogue between himself and himself in Paul), what is to be appreciated is that Charlie Charles has done an enormous job of deconstructing himself and his (too easy) success, and instead of using tricks and gimmicks that shot him into the hyperuranium he has instead chosen to start from scratch, and to study with enormous attention the art of writing music. THE basics in short, high-quality, profound pop craftsmanship. Whether in Italy, like it or not, they have always overlapped in Sanremo. Certain harmonic successions, certain melodic choices, certain attention to dynamics, a certain propensity for emphasis to be used without shame but at the same time with care and only in certain moments are all characteristics that do not belong to the urban world (from which Charlie Charles comes), a world that goes much more straight to the point, but are the heritage of those who respect music and experience it as craftsmanship and profession (which is what Charlie Charles, out of intimate honesty, would like to belong).
In short, this job is anything but a compilation task in which the Re-Midesco producer on duty does what he knows best and, as a guarantee, calls the most famous associates to the microphone for whom he manages to make a hole in the agenda to place a featuring there. The beautiful confusion it is organic, with its own coherence, with its own story to tell, with the recomposition of that fascinating dualism whereby the plot of the emotional, existential and personal pains of the young artist overlaps perfectly with the denunciation of the most cynical and cruel mechanisms of the recording industry. But while in other moments the trapper / urban singer on duty who complains about how bad it is to have become famous is cloying, here instead it sounds perfectly sincere, appropriate, honest.
It goes for Mahmood who warbles “every fucking moment I regret myself”, it goes for Blanco and his “we were just kids in the dark”, it goes for Sfera and “I'll never be as poor as I was when I was a kid / Now that I have a million it doesn't seem cool to me”, all things that heard in other contexts would now make you snort a bit, but Charlie Charles with his music builds a context for us sound and emotional around that makes everything Rightsincere, sensible. A result you can achieve not if you pull out the usual three or four urban tricks with keyboards and drum machines: no, you need to have learned the art of song. Seriously, not hearsay. Hitting your head on it, and the commitment.
For Charlie Charles all this is a bit new, he had to start from scratch. This is why some parts seem a bit naive and rhetorical to savvy ears. This is why the flavor-of-Sanremo. But beyond the defects and half-naiveties/banalities there are still the merits of someone who shows he has things to say, musically speaking; and indeed on the one hand it has on its side the long echo of the King Midas period, which should not be forgotten, should not be underestimated, should not be set aside, but instead of squeezing this period to the point of exhaustion, it sips it to put much more effort into taking a step forward, in understanding how a song, voice and guitar works (Dangerwith Bresh) or voice and piano (Survivorwith Massimo Pericolo), how to enhance a beautiful tone like that of Elisa (in I'll call you love), how to be intimate while also evoking a bit of straight cash (Panic attackswith Blanco). The result is interesting, in some ways almost unsettling, like when you see old-time rockers put on suits and ties to be awarded baronets, but it is still a result that tells of a producer who is here to stay, working hard, and not to instead mooch fame and numbers as long as the boat goes.
There is one thing that we are very sorry about, Charlie Charles: he is obviously too young to have experienced firsthand the last period in which it was clear what was alternative and what was antagonistic, in music, those 90s in which Underworld and Beck ended up in the charts, but one making very hard techno and the other making stretched blues. By giving him advice, we would invite him to study that historical phase better: he grew up in a phase in which either everything was too fast and too punk to stop and reflect, given that there was rap and youth listening to revolutionize, or once you reached the mainstream you suddenly encountered a magna magna in which everyone is friends and everyone loves each other, and the ethical and aesthetic frontiers between underground and commercial simply don't seem to exist. If you are also good at studying the 90s, in addition to professional pop as done now for the The beautiful confusionit's the right time that Charlie Charles brings out a true masterpiece, not just a good, well-made and honest album like now.
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM
