Rector: “We make music, it’s a privilege”
In the meantime we have seen her on TV, competing and as a guest in Sanremo, heard in various singles, but from Friday 10 January, after fourteen years, Rettore returns with an album entitled “Antidiva Putiferio” (in the photo in the article , the cover by Flora Sala), new, with a slow release, in the sense that it collects songs already successful in 2022 such as “Chimica” with Ditonellapiaga and “Faccio da me” with Tancredi, in addition to the recent singles”Thelma & Louise” with Beatrice Quinta and “Disco Prosecco” (here in the version with Big Mama), and collaborations with La Sad and Marta Tenaglia. Twelve songs, ideally linked to his 2011 work where he sang that old age is a serious illness that also affects young people: it doesn’t depend on age, it is “the useless agony of the nostalgic”. Characteristically, old age does not concern her. According to her age, she will be seventy next July and, if you didn’t know it, if you just listened to her, you wouldn’t know it. If Annalisa sang “Cielo cabrio”, if Ariete sang “Il senso del difficile”, they would certainly torment us on the radio.
The album brings 80s atmospheres but current sounds. There is disco music, electronic dancing, a production entrusted to Blaek Musk, EggWyte, the PLZ duo, as well as the inseparable Claudio Rego. Donatella Rettore is still the “in reverse” girl who defied the nuns and who at the age of eleven ran away to Milan to see the Stones. He tells it in “I hate everyone”: “I was born different, not even on time, screaming so bad until it hurt. They baptized me without my permission. With what result? I hate everyone anyway!”. “But it means that I’m interested in everyone” he tells us one afternoon in Rome “Indifference does not belong to me”.
Rector, we expected an album of ballads, a return to melancholic song, perhaps like Gabriella Ferri. Instead?
«Instead I’m the usual me, noisy, noisy, a ruckus. I’m still like that and I think there’s a need for it. There’s too much sadness around. These songs are all intertwined like a wicker chair. The common thread is me, real life, which for me has always been metaphysical, mystical”
What do you mean?
«Life revolves around you. When you are young the lace is wider, gradually it becomes tighter, and it is one more reason to celebrate life. Now. Now. It’s not “let’s do it strange” but “let’s do it now”. Which was the slogan of “Lamette”, I play everything with candor and fury».
In “Disco Prosecco” you sing: “It all ends in the Spritz c’est chic”. It doesn’t seem so carefree.
“TO all hours of the day and night, walking around various cities, I see people outside the bar having a spritz. It was supposed to be an aperitif but it replaced the grappa, perhaps to forget the many worries of this period. Anyway, qThis has always been my thing. Songs that make you dance aren’t necessarily silly. I don’t wallow in sadness or lightheartedness. Mine is modern music, of the time that I live in every time.”
It’s the time of social media, but you criticize it.
«There everyone wants to be a star and phenomena without substance are generated. I invite you not to be socially passive but alive from the morning. Take a tour”
We often forget what you have done in your career: “Laiolà” on female sexual liberation, “La Berta” on your Marxist nanny, “Carmela” on the Spanish revolution, “Gaio” and “Splendido shining” against gender prejudices, “Il Patriarch” against patriarchy. If certain things can be sung today, is it also due to you?
«I hope so, I took on some great responsibilities. However, I was upset about certain criticisms because I have never been malicious. Open yes. They often censored me, but why did my “Kobra” create a scandal and not “Il clarinetto” by Arbore? Because it was a woman singing the double entendre. Women have been my great allies from the beginning. They wanted to free themselves, they felt represented.”
Some feminists challenged you.
«I had sung “Il Patriarca” at a rally in Piazza Campo De’ Fiori and they told me all sorts of things because I was dyed blonde and wearing makeup. But to appear busy, someone has to throw a bottle of oil on their head? That closure is over, fortunately.”
On the album you assembled a team of young people, none of them from your generation.
«Some colleagues advised me against it but I hate barriers. And then the young people themselves, when they united in the tribute “ClonAzioni – All crazy for the Rector”, recognized me, made me rediscover myself, therefore they are on my path.”
Lots of women around you.
«Sisterhood to the bitter end, but not only that. I like to bring forward certain topics together, and I like to discuss them at my age. On my album they all created a great one smiletrue, interior.”
The most indie is Marta Tenaglia in “Ventilatore”. For the first time take a piece of others. Why exactly this?
«I’m not a lyricist, I’m the author of my world, with a strange language, all mine, but I find Marta fantastic. His is a piece in an absolutely Rectorian style, dark as only I know how to be. They don’t understand everything, but my dogma is always love-death.”
“Malamocco”, your “Sweet Dreams”, is very rectorian.
«Nobody wanted to let me do it because they didn’t understand it. All my irony is in it: the annoying mosquitoes that kill you, make you scratch and create discomfort are a metaphor for anti-vaxers, religious fundamentalists, those who shoot, etc.”
You have been antidiva for a long time: a displaced family hosted by very proletarian peasants, a socialist father happy that you performed at the Avanti and L’Unità festivals. Never bodyguards. Concerts in community centers.
«I have never been one for bubbles, yet it was very easy to take me for a capricious diva. I used to play on it. I wanted to be a comedian, but since women weren’t recognized as having a sense of humor, I was seen as a man-eater or presumptuous. Then for goodness sake, I had my moments.”
Make “Beepolar” with La Sad. Depression is a theme dear to young artists.
«In my experience, the peak phase is the one that led me to make the most mistakes. Success is a whirlwind, if you lose your sense of reality you’re screwed. The beautiful thing is that young people today realize it, they are aware. They think: “I’ll come first” and they talk about it.”
You were one of our first singer-songwriters. Is it difficult to get recognized?
«At first the press defined me as “De Gregori in a skirt”, and then it was De Gregori himself who advised me: “Write what you want, never think about whether others will like it or not”.
The other great advice came from Lucio Dalla.
«He gave me a shepherd’s crook and said: “Mena, boy!”. He knew I would have to make my way. Lucio called me to open some of his concerts when I was still a minor, from him I learned this curiosity towards young people. And also by Franco Battiato, an anti-star. He, the cultured master, came to see me, the fashionable singer, in concert. It was a very important gesture.”
Other support came from Tina Anselmi…
«Here I am! Partisan relay, first woman to become minister of the Italian Republic, she was my neighbor in Castelfranco Veneto, a special person. He complimented me even if he didn’t know my songs. “Regardless,” he told me, “I support the young people.” We Italians missed a great opportunity: we should have made her President.”
You fully experienced 80s London. You were a Blitz Kid, you met Steve Strange, Bowie, Adam Ant. Good times?
«Fantastic. No one aspired to be the same as the other. If you were an ordinary guy, the Bouncer wouldn’t let you in. In the evening, in gay clubs, I was almost always the only woman present. They let me in because they mistook me for trans. But those were moments. I wouldn’t mind being 25 now. ANDBeing young is always beautiful.”
Ever musically nostalgic?
“No. If anything, I’m sorry that music has become practically free, exploited, not fairly paid and considered. I advised my girls and boys not to become too good, to seek imperfection, otherwise they risk no longer communicating, singing to each other. I say: you’re doing something wrong, there must be some blood coming out of somewhere.”
Don’t you see too much homologation?
«There is also experimentation, if you look for it. I remember that in the 80s everyone missed the 60s and I replied: “But then, what are we for exactly?”. It’s 2025 and it’s right that young people reclaim their place, their importance.”
Have you tried going to Sanremo this year?
«No, I have never loved the race. The first time I made a mess. It was 1974, I was wearing “Hair loose”, but the verse was slow and I was so bored that I skipped it and went straight to the chorus, throwing the orchestra out of time.”
What’s in your future?
«A tour starting in May, a documentary on my life, even if it deserves more of a film. You know what fun! Then I have the show “Now or Never” broadcast from Saturday on Rai1, a format in which I completely find myself, done my way. I really want to help young artists. I don’t know how to give directionsI’m the first to be instinctive in music, but I can give support and some points of view”
Type?
«There is success, but there is no failure. Because we make music. We create. The fact that we generate something that wasn’t there before is already a success, a privilege. The fact that others don’t understand it is part of the program.”
