Irene Grandi's musical story has something singular: a recognizable voice, a solid career, yet often excluded from the dominant narrative of Italian music.
Not because it is neglected by the public, but perhaps because, for reasons that are difficult to decipher, it remains on the margins, almost snubbed by that polluted system of iconic names that the market loves to repeat endlessly. “Oro e Rosa” thus offers the opportunity to put his work back at the centre, observing it without nostalgia or discounts.
The album arrives five years after his previous studio work, a period during which Grandi continued to move constantly: tours that recover his roots and his first musical loves with Io in Blues, the celebration of thirty years of career with Fiera di Me, up to international projects such as the musical The Witches Seed, with music by Stewart Copeland.
“Gold and Pink” moves around a simple idea: two colors that belong to the same light: the gold and pink of dawn and sunset. Life is made of passages, of transitions in which one light fades into another. The dawn and the sunset thus become images of this continuous oscillation. Grandi works on these intermediate zones with a measured pop, more attentive to nuances than to special effects. And this is where it really convinces: when it allows fragility and changes in perspective to emerge without forcing them.
We perceive a maturity that does not rely on rhetoric, but on the choice to sing with precision, coherence and without complacency and compromise.
Eleven tracks in which Irene Grandi's style and interpretation emerge in a decisive and recognizable way, nimbly crossing the refractions of pop that have made her a constant presence in Italian music: ballads, more incisive rhythmic tensions, flashes of Eighties electropop, blues suggestions and the indispensable rock attitude. Among the tracks stand out Colorado, with the sharp contribution of Carmen Consoli, and Fiera di Me, with the rhythmic supervision of Stewart Copeland.
The album also sees the participation of numerous composers and authors – some historical collaborators, others new – from Francesco Bianconi, Mario Amato and Carlo Alberto Togni to Daniele Coro, Martina Vinci, Luca Floridi, Niccolò Dainelli, Alessandro De Rosa, Leonardo Marcucci, Jole Canelli, Jampa Capolongo and others.
“Oro e Rosa” is a solid, mature work. A record that does not reinvent Irene Grandi, but brings her back into focus with honesty: a voice that continues to be valid, beyond fashion.
TO LISTEN NOW
Fables – Colorado (with Carmen Consoli) – Proud of me
TO BE SKIPPED IMMEDIATELY
Nothing. It's a record that can be listened to pleasantly. Well done Irene!
SCORE: 7.25
TRACKLIST
Fables
Gold and pink
Colorado (with Carmen Consoli)
In an instant
The dreamed love
Universe
Removals of the soul
Seven
Look
Astronauts
Proud of me
