LIBERATO-Radio-Liberato-album-2026
May 9th has become a civil anniversary and Liberato returns to preside over this date.
“Radio Liberato” is the fourth studio album which, however, already in the title signals a deviation from the past: none Liberated IVno continuation of the numbered saga that had built an almost Ledinzeppelin-like expectation.
A deliberate choice. Also because “Radio Liberato” It's not an album of unreleased songs, but a reinterpretation of the material from the first project.”Freed” with a few additions and some scattered jokers.
It might feel like a breakup. In reality it confirms the method, no promotion, no interviews, no news, with the addition of a new conceptual framework, that of pirate radio, which however produces the opposite effect to the one declared. Music that should exist free from any superstructure ends up generating more hype and anticipation than any traditional marketing campaign. The paradox is now structural, and Liberato knows it.
I like the disco playlist, as I've always liked Liberato, but this time something jars.
The most successful part is the pure musical one: Mahmood singing in Neapolitan su IntostreetIosonouncane which crosses the nine minutes of the album in an ethereal and experimental way Gaiola taking it elsewhere, the Modeselektor remix on Guagliaò which moves the song towards European club culture without forcing it together with the other remixes of the album.
And then Calcutta again which he rereads I'm waiting for you to love you and Sara Gioielli who joins Nothing with that vocal presence that doesn't need a lot of space to take up a lot of it. Up to this point the curatorship makes sense, there is a logic of elective affinities and the connections work!
Then the record becomes contaminated and the project changes nature. Stefano De Martino hosts the pirate radio in the intro and finale. Maria Esposito reads Alexander the GreatAlberto Angela lends her voice to Sibilla Cumana, Serena Rossi, Valerio Lundini and Stash from The Kolors complete a list that at a certain point stops being artistic casting and begins to resemble a Saturday night variety show. Each of these names brings with it an audience, a recognisability, an Italianness.
Liberato is dismantling the boundary between underground and prime time, or that boundary has already dissolved on its own and he simply acknowledges it.
The cover of Trap Queen of Fetty Wap renamed Naples Queen it is the most honest gesture on the album but also the riskiest one: taking something from others, Neapolitanizing it and making it a new object. It was already the driving force of the beginning, that ability to make American trap speak Neapolitan, and here it returns as a conscious quote of itself.
De Martino as a radio host opens up a question that no one pretends not to ask: will we see him at Sanremo 2027, with De Martino on the Ariston stage? It would be the perfect short circuit between the most famous ghost of Italian music and the most followed television show in the country. Will he be in one of the Sanremo “packages” with the long-awaited “Liberato IV”?
In the end, Pulcinella's secret is this: everyone knows who Liberato is, or thinks they know, and the only one who claims not to know is me, but perhaps I'm fine with that and continue to be fascinated by the mystery even if in the long run all things get boring and Liberato knows this too!
TO LISTEN NOW
Naples Queen – Intostreet – Guagliaò – Me staje appennenn' loved
TO BE SKIPPED IMMEDIATELY
Nothing. Once again the album works even if something truly new is missing!
SCORE: 7.50
TRACKLIST
Intro
Goodbye
Naples Queen
Intostreet (by Mahmood)
Alexander the Great
Nothing (by Sara Gioielli)
Gaiola (by Iosonouncane)
Sibyl
Oi Marì (DJ Python remix)
Guagliaò (Modeselektor remix)
Nun ce penza (Yu Su remix)
Sorceress
Yes you (Fenoaltea remix)
Me staje appennenn' loved (of Calcutta)
Vuje me facite ascì pazz'/Finale
