A superior taste: Piergiorgio Pardo in Naples for the presentation of the new book

On Friday, September 22nd, at 18.00:20 p.m., at the Iocisto Bookshop - Via Cimarosa XNUMX (Piazzetta Aldo Masullo) - with Donato Zoppo as moderator, Piergiorgio Pardo will present his new book, Un Gusto Superiore: il cantautorato progressivo italiano dal beat al bit (Crac Edizioni).

In this new work, the Milanese journalist explores the relationship between progressive rock and singer-songwriter music, two seemingly opposing worlds that have found numerous opportunities for intersection, dialogue, and fusion over nearly half a century. Morgan, Eugenio Finardi, Iosonouncane, Ivan Cattaneo, Colapesce, and Amerigo Verardi are just a small selection of the names he interviewed.

Piergiorgio Pardo writes for Billboard Italia and Ondarock, is part of the music editorial team of Radio Popolare, as well as creator and host of programs and podcasts for Radio Raheem Milano. He has collaborated with L'Essenziale and Blow Up, has published various titles on music and youth cultures such as Conoscere le Controculture giovanili (1997), Le Video Generation (2000), Il Cyberpunk (2001), A Young Person's Guide To King Crimson 2.0 (2017).

A passionate and insightful text in which the author comprehensively explores the unique phenomenon of Italian progressive songwriting: "It is intended to be a book that opposes classification and encourages curiosity. It brings together musicians from the past, present, and future, famous and unknown, loved, hated, or simply snubbed by critics, of all ages."

In this new book he brings together two areas he has studied over the years, trying to underline the transversality of the experiment: "If we replaced the word “cantautore” with “songwriter” and the word “progressive” with “ambition,” the names and records mentioned in the book would remain the same.

Pardo has tackled a wide range of artists, over 200 records by both popular and esoteric names: from Lucio Battisti to Gino D'Eliso, from Franco Battiato to Mario Barbaja, from Alan Sorrenti to Mauro Pelosi. All share a different vision of song, encompassing political themes, visionary languages, and existential narratives born of their times.

The book contains interviews I'll never forget, even for the moments they happened. Iosonouncane is there, in the only interview given during the pandemic, when IRA was still a secret.

There's all the clarity of Amerigo Verardi and the humanity of Eugenio Finardi, ready to tell his story and share his wonderful humanity. There's a Morgan in top form, amiably discussing songwriting; there's the last interview of a splendid Maurizio Monti; there are the stories of Jenny Sorrenti, Ivan Cattaneo, Gino D'Eliso, Fabio Zuffanti; Colapesce's statements on Enzo Carella; Alessandro Fiori's Tuscan tales; and the reserved and stateless ones of Andrea Laszlo De Simone.

These are just a few names that come to mind, but leafing through the book, all these encounters, along with the others that inspired so many of its pages, come back to life, and I hope the reader feels the same way."