Chinsongs: Matia Bazar

I earlier reminded myself to tackle the Matia issue.
Two things first: The title of the album should have been "Presuntuosa" (Pretentious), and Matia Bazar deserve an entire website devoted to in-depth analysis of their work. Their legacy in the Italian Pop music has remained virtually unmatched, even if the current incarnation of the band tries hard to wipe away any good memory.
Where to begin? Matia is an abyss of contradictions. For years the band produces standard TV saccharine fare and is notable only for the pre-Mariah multi-octave pitch of singer Antonella Ruggiero and a vague taste for not-horrid arrangements, although too often verging on "exotic". I clearly remember an archaic form of video filmed for "Mister Mandarino" where the entire band dresses as Chinese rice-pickers and Antonella, heavy on eyeliner, doing a hapless "asian" dance. As if such cheese couldn't be topped the video was used as closing credits sequence for "Domenica In", our very own Sabado Gigante.
Then one day, they wake up and decide to be edgy and educated, act bored on interviews, cite Tuxedomoon as a reference, hook up with a certain Milanese Architectural intellighentia: Memphis, Alchimia, and their offsprings: videomakers StudioAzzurro, fashion designer Cinzia Ruggeri. Too much to handle, right? No, those were the Eighties... a magical realm of creative optimism, and total disregard for concepts like "bad reputation".
MB dive straight into it... tentatively at first, with the album "Berlino Parigi Londra", where they naively explore the charm of both dropping geographical references and moving robotically in shiny suits. Then in 1983 "Tango" is released. Music snobs are puzzled: it's obviously a guilty pleasure but they like to hum to it. But buying a Matia Bazar album? No way.
The Matias enbark on a year-long tour that features extravagant video shows and an angular stage design by Alessandro Mendini. They want attention, and somehow get it. They wanna establish themselves as serious musicians too, so, out with anything that smells humorous, in with drama and sequencers. And the occasional synthesized Orchestra Hit.
1984 sees the release of "Aristocratica" where all the stuff in the attic is crystallized in "The Matia Bazar Aesthetics": please check out the awesome album cover and lyrics of the homonymous song:

Voglio le mie tasche piene
e sangue e ferro e sabbia nelle vene
l'oro e l'eresia
profondo rosso obliqua simmetria
ed una nave orientata la prua
in alto mare a liberare.
Aristocratica
occidentale falsità
Dove arriva la fantasia,
un punto immobile di malinconia
mutabile assoluto
cemento armato trame di velluto
ed il pianeta chiede di lei
della sua vita un po' bandita.
Aristocratica
frammento senza gravità
per te laguna veneziana
per te notte transilvana
per te una carezza vera
nella macchina del tempo di una sera
per te mezza luna egea
per te sindrome europea
per te sogno non finito
mezzo cielo che si tocca con un dito
Oggi vado a gonfie vele
tra falso e vero tra Caino e Abele
frontiera d'incoscienza
morbida griglia fredda d'innocenza
ed un soffio di nostalgia
in aria esplode e un'eco si ode.
Atistocratica
rumore sordo di città
aristocratica, aristocratica
per te proibito fior di loto.
Per te lanterna dell'ignoto
per te orgia di profumi
la mia storia che si spegne dentro i lumi
per te maschera di giada
per te olografia di strada
per te batuffolo di lana
la paura di un tranquillo fine settimana.

For non-italian readers I would love to point out the last four lines (but the rest is not less worthy):

"For you, Jade mask
For you, street hologram
For you, wool tuft
The fear of a quiet weekend."

Huh? Ooh, you so smart, mister mandarino. Ooh me love you long time. You go on...

"Aristocratica
western falsehood
where fantasy reaches,
an unmoving point of melancholy
absolute changeable
reinforced concrete velvet lattice
and the planet asks about her
about her life, a bit outlaw.
Aristocratica
gravity-less fragment...."

Fear not nonsensical lyrics, ye ambitious songwriters. This is 1984, there won't be another chance.

The next year our heroes release "Ti Sento", their biggest international hit (even the Pet Shop Boys love it) and start crawling back in the sad hole from where they started and where they are today.

Download Matia Bazar: Aristocratica