Snob

Paolo Conte. What can I say? Some people call him the Italian Leonard Cohen. No, he's even better (in my opinion).

Love it!

“Me, deceived by the sun / I glimpsed you in the street…” (“Incontro”)“Ah, what a lovely dream, a woman is with me / she has the aroma of coffee…” (“Donna dal Profumo di Cafe”)“Everything is big in Argentina, melancholy … / with scuffled shoes in Buenos Aires…” (“Argentina”)Snob is a pretty good but not outstanding album by Italian singer, piano player, songwriter and national treasure Paolo Conte. The songs are all written and performed by him with a backup group that is smaller or larger depending on what a song needs and includes at different times violin, bass (electrical and acoustic), accordion or bandoneon, trumpet, tuba and French horn, various reeds (clarinet, soprano, alto, tenor and baritone sax, and bassoon), guitar, ukulele or baglamas (you all know what a baglamas is so I won’t waste your time explaining it to you), typewriter, drums and percussion. Musical color is important to a Paolo Conte album because he builds his songs out of the simplest materials, sometimes wisps of song and singing. Mood is all, and Conte not only sings, he plays comb and tissue paper, kazoo, and makes sounds like a trombone to enhance mood. When it works, there’s nothing better but here it just almost works. The problem is similarity. The music on this album is too much like music on earlier albums and his iconic songs. (This album’s “Donna dal Profumo di Caffe” is less than “Gelato al Limon” or “Sotto le Stelle del Jazz.” “Incontro” is no match for “Happy Feet” or “Gli Impermeabili.” And there’s nothing to match the earlier “Via con Mi,” “Come di” or “Aguaplano.”) Nothing much new happens here and that leads to lack of attentiveness on the part of the listener. Again, it’s not a bad album –just not an essential one.(A baglamas is a long-necked bowl lute, like a high pitched bouzouki.)

The old man, the witty Italian songwriter, is at it again with a new album whose title, Snob, is itself funny. This album is less introspective than those of a few years ago, returning to the form most of us encountered in that Nonesuch anthology of 1996. Paolo Conte strings associative, sometimes poetic phrases together in his tunes, allowing us to fill in the gaps. This time, thankfully, the lyrics are included in package notes in Italian and in English. Conte plays piano, hums his own horns, and has an orchestra for interludes and accents. The music is continental, nostalgic of more elegant, more optimistic times of yore, like the 1950s, as mentioned in the song Tropical. His voice is strained loud whispering and full of wisdom and experience, imagined or otherwise. The second track, Woman with The Aroma of Coffee, speaks more about rich and dark Italian coffee than the love of a woman. "Argentina" conjures our romantic notions about Buenos Aires and sexy tangos. Fandango, which is associated with Spain, does not have a flamenco sound, but it does have flamenco sentiments and the lines are indeed poetic: "if you forget me/sleep and the stars will tell you what you want/what you want to feel. The foxtrot Encounter is next, with touches of romantic longing. His Maracas is his impressions of Cuba -- "half baroque, a sort of collage, part Alhambra mostly garage" -- with an appropriate Cuban beat. And then there is Miss Soap who is "Miss supple philosophy/platonic, but also physic-al!/yes, physic-al, allergoric-al!/as she waltzes and/overacts and struts" And so forth. This album is simply wonderful.

Immancabile nella propria discoteca

Musik von Paolo Conte - man liebt sie oder nicht. Der Stil im Album Snop ist anders aber immer noch so spantan und einfallreich wie früher. Man muss überlegen in welchem Alter Paolo Conte das Album erstellt hat. Hut ab - ich hoffe ich bin in dem Alter auch noch so kreativ und offen für Neues wie er. Ich hoffe er bleibt uns noch lange erhalten mit seiner ausergewöhlichen Musik.

Ce dernier CD est un petit bijou. Tout y est: poésie, humour, créativité, générosité, exotisme, couleurs musicales. Une telle capacité d'invention et de renouvellement à plus de 80 ans, c'est un petit miracle! Et pour ne pas apprécier cela, il faut être singulièrement … snob!

Wonderful music, which just gets better the more you play it. I'm a big fan of Paolo Conte, and in my opinion, this long-awaited CD is one of his very best. Lots of memorable music, with a bit of a world music influence, but as always, beautiful.

Paolo Conte… unico