Lucio Dalla LP 1st Press RCA Italiana Import 1978 Gatefold Near Mint

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Lucio Dalla LP 1st Press RCA Italiana Import 1978 Gatefold Archival Sleeve
So enjoyable  
The second LP for which he wrote both lyrics and music, Lucio Dalla was released by RCA Italia, and is generally considered among his finest works. It contains some of his most popular songs, such as "Anna e Marco", "Milano" and "L'anno che verrà". "Cosa sarà", written with Ron, is sung together with Francesco De Gregori. The second half of the album features a string orchestra.

Lucio Dalla 4 March 1943 – 1 March 2012) was an Italian singer-songwriter, musician and actor. He also played clarinet and keyboards.

It is pretty hard to find in the Italian discography, most of all when it comes to big singer-songwriters like Lucio Dalla, able to provide clever but still easy-listening pop music, albums that have no fillers. This is one of the best examples. Even if only 40 minutes long, with 9 songs included (i.e. this was typical at the time), the album is like a "best of" at the same level of some great albums of the same era from the likes of Elton John or Neil Young. The minimum common denominator is probably the sound, which is somehow typical of that late '70s Italian songs era. A sound which is rich and warm, heavy and soft at the same time. However each song is extremely distinguished from another from every perspective: lyrics, tempo, melody, tone. While as said every single song here is a jewel, including the nightly and slowly growing Stella di Mare or the moving cinematic Anna e Marco, whose lyrics resonate any Springsteen's Thunder Road, the outlier is one of biggest Dalla's songs ever: L'anno che verrà. The album is also in the middle of Lucio's path from an obscure lyricist with an extreme talent for singing, to a famous Italian pop star, who will later gain recognition also abroad based on more traditionally Italian songwriting. Some elements were already there in the previous Quant'è profondo il mare and will be in the next Dalla. More distant seem to be daring experimental pieces included in the first Dalla's "trilogy" (i.e. Il giorno aveva cinque teste/Anidride Solforosa/Automobili), while here experimental sounds are only functional to the otherwise easily digestible songs. When talking about experimental, also the tempos are often atypical of Italian pop music (i.e. more present in the relevant prog Italian universe) like it can be heard in the stomping La Signora and Cosa Sarà, the latter sung with the fellow "prince" of Italian singer-songwriters Francesco De Gregori. In this album Lucio Dalla also seems to "contain" a bit his incredible voice to make it also more instrumental to the songs, even if it is still quite impossible to cover his precise and at the same time row interpretations.