Tropic, between Neapolitan sea, Pink Floyd and Morricone

If there is an image that crosses the entire new Tropico album, it is the sea, since the title: “Solo and desperate in the wonderful sea”. Not only as a geographical background for those who come from Naples, but as a metaphor of solitude, loss, and set of beauty. “Desperations usually have apocalypse scenarios,” says Davide Petrella. “On the other hand, I wanted this story to have a panorama before him: the wonderful sea, precisely”.

The route that brought Petrella so far is long: already Frontman de Le Striste, in recent years he has signed some of the greatest successes of Italian pop, from Cremonini to Elisa, from Mengoni to Marracash, from Mahmood to Sfera Ebbasta, to Jovanotti and Elodie, was one of the protagonists behind the scenes of the last editions of the Sanremo Festival. With Tropico he found his voice, already expressed in “There is no love in Naples” and “Call me when the magic ends”. With this new chapter he brings his writing in a dimension that is together personal confession and collective thought.

A BOA tour

The heart of the disc condenses two years of life: learning to let go, face the void that remains, put the pieces back together. “It’s the Boa tour of my music to here,” he explains. “I made important pieces of roads with people that I then had to greet, both on a human and professional level. It was a painful war, but finding new awareness and new stopped points was necessary. Without enthusiasm I cannot make music, it is the most beautiful thing I have”.

This tension is also reflected in the sounds: arrangements that alternate Ballates Scarne and full orchestrations, urban lines and more guitar moments. “Lonely and desperate in the wonderful sea”, the title track, opens with a crescendo, while “shipwrecked” builds its structure on dilated beats and synths. In “Morricone” there are arches and winds that evoke epic cinema rather than pop song: “I feel like an orchestra that in the best moment can shoot the director” says Petrella. “Without his name this metaphor would not have had the same effect. I love Morricone madly, he is one of the most brilliant human beings that we had in music”

The featuring

The collaborations see Achille Lauro, who brings theatricality to “For You forever”, Nayt a dry flow in “Erase”, Ghali a cosmopolitan breath in “Pink Floyd”, Bresh the lightness of “returning home”, Calcutta his elliptical writing in “Saturday evening”. “The right evening happens, you’re there to make music and a beautiful thing comes out,” says Petrella. “Calcutta is my brother, with Nayt I found a great feeling, with Ghali I did many things. I brought an audition to Achille. What came out is thanks to both.”

The work lives on two linguistic registers: Italian and Neapolitan. Not as separation, but as an expressive possibility. “There is no separation. The Neapolitan is a language in all respects. Only when the tropic project was born I felt ready to use it and it became an extra weapon”. On the disc the dialect is linked to the most intimate songs (“for life for MME”, “yes nun me it did well cchiù”, “things ca nun saje”), while the Italian supports more universal texts such as “demolishing the bar” or “infinite ways of ruining everything”. But it’s just a coincidence, he explains.

Compared to previous works, “there is no love in Naples” and “Call me when the magic ends”, this album shows a more direct and less mediated writing, it moves rather between songwriting and pop, between personal need and shared language, always full of quotes, more or less readable. “On this album as well as in my precedents there are many references to things I like, from cinema, to art. There is a bit of Pino Danielelike a bit of Murolo, From the, Battistithere is a bit of John Lennon, like the The Strokesthere are many reminiscences of things that still mark you, that you like, that you may have on you when you write that album. “

Pink Floyd’s quote

In “Pink Floyd”, however, there is no echo of the real Pink Floyd: no psychedelic guitars, no suite. The name of the band works as a pop icon, an immediate symbol of evasion: putting their disc means detaching themselves from reality, running away from a bar that always seems the same or from an infinite Monday. Tropico transforms it into mantra – “Pink Fly, Big Fly” – crippling the name to make it pure sound. But immediately overturns the concept: “I don’t speak of escape, but of resistance”, he explains. Not an abandonment of the present, but a way to remain inside us without being overwhelmed by it, opening a mental space that becomes a passage towards a possible elsewhere. With Ghali this tension takes the shape of a song that combines Urban and visionary suggestions, a short circuit between Naples and London.

Sanremo?

The relationship with Sanremo remains that of the author who has already signed songs at the top of the ranking as “two lives” by Marco Mengoni or “ash” of Lazza. As an interpreter, however, Petrella keeps the distances: “I don’t think it is a focus that the artists must chase. It is a boost, a way of promoting in five days. I have nothing against, but I don’t tear my hair to go there. When they make me artistic director, I will go there – jokes. Then more serious adds – if one day it will happen, it will only be with a song of poetry.

From 29 November Tropico will bring this repertoire live: “It is the biggest tour that I have faced to date,” he says. “The following audience is really interested in the project. When they stop on the street I discover polite people, who feel part of this path. I love my audience.”

Latracklist

01. Sola and desperate in the wonderful sea
02. For you forever (feat. Achille Lauro)
03. Happiness does not go
04. For life for MME
05. Shipware
06. Saturday evening (feat. Calcutta)
07. Nun ce thought chiù
08. Delete (feat. Nayt)
09. Life
10. Pink Floyd (feat. Ghali)
11. Demolve to the bar
12. Morricone
13. Return home (feat. Bresh)
14. Things ca nun saje
15. Because I fell in love with you
16. Yes nun me void well
17. For you forever
18. Infinite ways of ruining everything

The dates of the tour

November 29, 2025 – Rome @ Atlantico
04 December 2025 – Molfetta (BA) @ Eremo Club
09 December 2025 – Milan @ Fabrique
December 14, 2025 – Bologna @ Estragon
December 22, 2025 – Naples @ Palapartenope