“What happens in the city” by Vasco, listened to again 40 years later
«It was a period of internal evolution and also of mental confusion. And music, once again, proved decisive in saving my life. Writing, playing and recording the songs put my priorities back in order, it pushed me forcefully to rediscover myself”, says Vasco Rossi, rewinding the tape of forty years’ memories. June 9, 1985. The new album by the rocker from Zocca arrives in music stores, not yet the king of the stadiums that we know today – the first concert at San Siro is still five years away – but already a phenomenon of Italian pop culture. It’s called “What’s happening in the city” and arrives two years after the exploit of “Bollicine”, the album which – after the passage to the Sanremo Festival with that “Vita spericolata” destined to become a generational anthem – in 1983 had consecrated Vasco Rossi as a star, attracting attention worthy of an artist with that status. For better or for worse.
From criticism to prison
Yes, because now of that «handsome, rather ugly idiot, unsteady on his legs, with the smoked glasses of a zombie, an alcoholic, a “high” drug addict», as the critic Nantas Salvalaggio had defined the Emilian singer-songwriter commenting on one of his appearances on TV, everyone is talking. Young people love him: of that «generation of upset people without saints or heroes» which marks the 80s is the perfect singer. For him they queue outside discos and record shops as soon as one of his albums comes out. But in an Italy that is still bigoted and moralistic for the media, Blasco is a negative, non-educational model. Opinions on his figure had further polarized a year before the album’s release, when on 20 April 1984 the voice of “Vita spericolata” ended up behind bars. Two carabinieri approached him in a nightclub in Bologna, then together with him they went to Casalecchio di Reno, where he lived and played with his band – the 1985 band includes Maurizio Solieri and Massimo Riva on guitars, Claudio Golinelli on bass, Lele Melotti on drums, Ernesto Vitolo on piano, Fio Zanotti on synthesizers – inside a warehouse. The rocker had handed himself over to the officers twenty-six grams of cocaine in your possession. Taken to Pesaro prison, he spent 22 days in prison, of which 5 in solitary confinement. An experience, that of prisonwhich in the following months would inspire the lyrics of “What happens in the city”. «Of course you’re a great phenomenon too, to get caught like that», Vasco will sing in “What is there“, written a few days after being released and chosen precisely to open the album, with an iconic sax solo played by Rudy Trevisi. Forty years after its publication, “What happens in the city” has just returned to the shops for the “40th Rplay Edition” series, in the form of a box set containing thealbum remastered from the original tapesan unreleased song (i.e. the new version of “Bulle di soap”, one of the nine songs originally included on the album), a book-interview by Gianni Poglio with over 100 pages of exclusive and unpublished photos from the time and a card to access the exclusive contents. The mixes from the original multi-track tapes were carried out by Maurizio Biancani, already co-producer and sound engineer of the album.
The themes of the album
Individualism, rudeness, cult of wealth, confusion and respectability: these are the main themes of the songs, between disillusionment and new awareness. Ultimately, it’s all contained in the lyrics of the song that gives the album its title: «What happens / what happens in the city? / there is something / something wrong / look there, look there / what a mess / look there, look there / how rude», sings Vasco. Verses that still sound very relevant today, forty years later, because – he says in the book-interview – «the world has always been upside down, but now we are completely upside down. Everything is blatant, shouted, thrown in your face without regard and power shows itself exactly for what it is, without modesty and without shame». As for language, “Cosa trova in città” was a turning point that paved the way for great classics such as the subsequent “C’è chi dice no” of 1987 and “Liberi liberi” of 1989: that of songs such as “Toffee”, “Tomorrow yes, now no”, “T’immagini”, “Dormi, dormi” is a more mature Vasco, who in his thirties talks not only about his desire for redemption but the anxieties of a generation, in an Italy that basks in the hedonistic television and consumerist boom: «It was all an evolution, I started from the songwriters, I am a songwriter, then I tried to find a new language, instead of using the acoustic guitar and the ballad as a tool to express myself I began to use rock, the group, the band but always with the spirit of the songwriters. I tried to “tighten” it and say everything in one sentence. I thought people didn’t have time to listen to everything.”
Curiosities
“What Happens in the City” sold well 600 thousand copieswhen records were actually bought. It remained in the charts for 29 weeks, without the support of a leading single: in fact, no 45 was taken from the album. «A sensational result, the result of a promotional tactic that totally went against the trend of the recording strategies of the 1980s: the objective is not to promote one song at a time, but to bring to life the experience of listening to the entire work», recalls Rossi. Some curiosities: the guitar in “Toffee” is played by Dodi Battaglia of Pooh, who two years earlier had also played in “Una canzone per te”, in “Bollicine”. “T’immagini” Vasco had thought of presenting it in competition at the Sanremo Festival the previous year: it would have been his third participation in the event in a row, after that of 1982 with “Vado al massimo” and that of 1983 with “Vita spericolata”. In the end he thought better of it: he would never go back to the race. In the handful of years after the release of “What’s Happening in Town,” its story would become mythological.
