Blanco and Madame, returns between crisis and rebirth: the playlist
In the last three years they have stopped. No releases, few appearances, lives that flowed away from the music. Now Blanco and Madame they’re both back on the scene and they did it with records that talk about that time: what happened, what changed and what remains. On the one hand there is “Ma'”, the new album from the voice of “Brividi”, born slowly, crossed by crises and a clear desire to put the pieces back together. On the other hand there is “Disincanto”, the album with which Madame dropped certainties and filters, seeking a more radical form of freedom. Two different paths, but with the same starting point: the need to stop to understand how to move forward. They are the ones who conquer the virtual cover of playlist dedicated to the most important Italian pop releases of recent weeks, between exposed fragilities, changes and new awareness: a meeting point between two returns which, although distant in sound and writing, find themselves in the same urgency to tell each other without shortcuts.
Blanco’s return: between crisis and rebirth
“Ma'”, the album that marked Blanco’s return three years after the previous “Innamorato” and the two concerts in the stadiums of Rome and Milan, is not only a new recording chapter, but the result of a complex human journey, made up of experiences, changes and personal growth. Away from the spotlight, Blanco has chosen to slow down, to live and then tell. «It took me a long time because I wanted it to be something that truly represented me, not only in a specific moment but also over time, as a person. In the past some songs were very related to the age I was living. Today I changed. This album was born more slowly: I built it calmly, living a lot. And in my opinion you can hear it, because it is a record that has lived a lot», he said about the album, underlining how it was born with a different, more authentic rhythm. No longer songs derived from a moment, but tracks that reflect a broader and more lasting vision of oneself. Hope remains at the center: even when the lyrics move between fragility and confession – as in the song dedicated to the mother – the message is never one of surrender. For Blanco, music becomes the most direct language to say what words alone cannot express: «In general what I want to bring out from the album is always hope. The message must be positive, not one of total despair. However, I am someone who looks at the song as a whole, not at individual phrases, because isolated they can be misleading, a bit like taking a title and cutting it in half. In reality each sentence is linked to the other, and the following one completes the meaning of the first one. That song is undoubtedly a confession to my mother, but it is also the way in which I am able to express myself better. I can express myself better with music than with words. It’s a bit strange, but that’s how it is, there I can be more direct.”
Madame: “disenchantment” as liberation
A parallel path, but with different nuances, is that of Madame, who returns three years after “Love” with a new awareness contained in the project “Disenchantment“. If Blanco seeks the light in the crisis, Madame embraces disenchantment as a form of freedom. In her new songs she sings: «I no longer live with instructions underneath. Everything I know I hope abandons me», a declaration of rupture with expectations, with rules, with everything that limits identity. The return is not only artistic, but also personal. In “Thank you”, the artist openly addresses the topic of obsessive-compulsive disorderrecounting the experience of hospitalization. It is a courageous choice, which moves his music beyond entertainment: «Madame is not just entertainment», he sings, and he demonstrates this by putting his own shadows to music. Yet, even here, a tension towards the light emerges: “I hope that those who listen find their own disenchantment, free themselves”. Fragility thus becomes a shared space, in which those who listen can recognize themselves and, perhaps, heal.
Change as a common thread
Those of Blanco and Madame are two different but converging trajectories: both pass through silence, both return with a more aware voice. On the one hand the rebirth of Blanco, who slowly builds a more solid identity; on the other, Madame’s disenchantment, which dismantles certainties to find a more authentic freedom. In the middle, a common thread: music as an instrument of truth. And a message to be read between the lines of the songs, which sounds like an invitation to accept pauses, crises and transformations as an essential part of the journey – personal and artistic. Because, as both demonstrate, sometimes it is precisely in silence that the most powerful return is prepared.
