Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
From the peaceful north Italian town of Asti, Conte pens all of his own material, smokily growling as he hops from asymmetrical narrative to jaunty rhyming couplets. This bumper 20-track retrospective embraces most of his special interests, sometimes involving specific topics, as with "Gelato Al Limon" and "Hemingway" (the latter boasting surely the most sensitive kazoo solo ever). Driven by Conte's marching piano, his constant bandstand companions play for the dancers, intent on recreating a kind of mocking town hall pomposity, all the better to capture a peculiar flavour of pert 1920s jollity. Conte can be described as a sophisticated primitivist, his words reading like minimalist poetry, suggesting intangible images with sparse strokes. He details bittersweet, fatalistic tales of wind-lashed, street-corner romance, usually infused with a love-hate longing for vanished youth. The mixture of 80s and 90s numbers reveals a marked consistency of style, from the apparent simplicity of "Max" to the odd dying-80s production of "Dragon", so irritatingly compulsive. "Under The Stars Of Jazz" hisses with sibilant scatting, Conte performing an impromptu trombone impersonation, then, he'll up the tempo for the half-ridiculous theatrical romp of "Quadrille". This is a set to savour, constantly unearthing hidden depths. --Martin Longley
CD Description
Consider him the Anti-Hanson. Paolo Conte's music is guaranteed not to appeal to anyone under the legal drinking age, and that's probably as it should be. This collection of tunesby the Italian singer/songwriter is full of the kind of passion and thoughtfulness that can only come from a long life fully lived. At the age of sixty, Conte, though he'd been known in Europe as a songwriter since the '60s and as a performer since the '70s, was virtually unknown in America, with most of his catalogue available only on import. One listen tothis domestic compilation should convert American ears.
Conte can be pigeon-holed any number of ways; the Italian Leonard Cohen, Asti's Serge Gainsbourg, Jacques Brel ala Roma.While all these comparisons are apt, Conte's sound is uniquely his own. He combines traditional Italian styles with international influences (French, German, Argentinian) as well as American genres (blues, jazz, dixieland, boogie-woogie), weaving it all together to support his dark, emotive lyricism. Incidentally, the Surgeon General would like you to know that extended doses of Paolo Conte can lead to chain-smoking, whiskey drinking and nocturnal brooding in dimly-lit cafes.