Now that the Il mestiere della vita era is well and truly over, I can't help but feel dissatisfied with the direction Tiziano's career has taken, and I'm one of the few fans who LOVE the album and consider it one of his best. It's no secret that this was the least successful record of his career, and I fear this trend will only continue, due to various factors both in and out of his control. Since this blog has always been my "Tiziano outlet" (as there are few other places where a non-Italian speaker can discuss him in depth) I'm going to vent about it here.
Artistry. One of the things that always made him special was his songwriting talent. Up until Alessandra Amoroso's Amore puro, both the quality and quantity of songs that he wrote by himself were astounding. Other than his own albums, there were plenty of amazing songs left that went to other artists. Unfortunately, despite his claims to the contrary, I feel that his well is quickly running dry. It's been almost five years since that album and the number of songs since then, on which he has sole writing credit, is six. And this includes songs like "Lo stadio" and "Troppo bene (per stare male)" that are quite weak in the context of his discography. It's a little more if you include the songs where he wrote lyrics over someone else's music, but it is still shockingly low. His song themes are also becoming increasingly repetitive and banal.
There's nothing wrong with co-writing songs, and there are amazing singers who never write at all, but after a decade of being Italy's most prominent and prolific young cantautore, the drought is both noticeable and disconcerting. Emanuele Dabbono is a fine writer, and I can't complain about their masterpiece "Il conforto", but I don't think any fan is ecstatic about their long-term collaboration. You get the feeling that Tiziano needs the creativity of others to jump-start his own, whereas before it all came from him. It creates a distance between who he is and what he is saying in his songs.
Honesty. That leads me to what I think is his biggest problem right now, the lack of honesty, or genuineness. This is something that has been especially jarring this era. The album title Il mestiere della vita was actually quite ominous. He has embraced his career as a job, a profession, rather than his natural state of being. You get the feeling he is now playing a role whenever he sets foot in Italy. He is providing a service to the Italian people, as their go-to singer when it comes to love. It's no longer about him putting his heart on his sleeve.
This lack of genuineness pervades every aspect of his career; his music, his image, his interviews. His songs don't speak to people the way they used to, even though the language is simpler. People could only scratch their heads when he explained the meaning of "Potremmo ritornare". He and Emanuele had different interpretations of "Il conforto". No one but the fan girls are buying this asexual, quasi-hetero thing he has going on in his music videos. In interviews he's often contradicting himself, or exaggerating. For example, in late 2015 he said he had "two albums' worth of songs" ready to be released. Now he's saying he will spend 2018 writing the new album. Actually, he's always saying that he is writing songs. Okay, so where are they?
I don't think it's only hardcore fans like me who are picking up on this. "Tiziano Ferro" the product is too curated now and that makes him less interesting. His personal life is obviously his to protect, and I don't think the way he guards his privacy is an issue. But it's a strange irony that his public persona was more genuine before his coming out. A few days ago while accepting his award he choked up, dedicating it to his American boyfriend and saying he's the reason he feels like Los Angeles is home. That was probably his most beautiful and genuine public moment in years, yet in Italy it went virtually unnoticed.
Relatability. This is something that is less within his control, but that is also contributing to his decline in popularity. His moving to the United States was his choice to make, but I don't think there was any interview this era where he didn't talk about it, repeating the same stuff ad nauseam. I only vaguely cared about it the first time. Most of us Europeans have no desire to live in the US, so it's hard to be excited or relate to his new life there. And the feeling that he's "one of us" disappears the more he is entrenched in that culture. When he lived abroad before (in Mexico and the UK) his schedule was always so full and his career so busy that it didn't feel like he ever left. Now he disappears for months at a time, happily living on the other side of the planet. It is alienating.
Musically this is an issue too. His sound was very Americanized early in his career, but that was when the global popularity of American music was at its height, and why it worked for him back then. Those times are long gone. The Urban vs. Acoustic re-release was for all intents and purposes a commercial and musical disaster. Yet he considers this a preview of what's to come, a new album heavily influenced by American music. I don't know anyone who reacted positively to that statement.
Some of this might he hyperbolic or overly critical, but I definitely think these are all real concerns that he and his manager should think long and hard about before the new album that is scheduled for next year. It's easy to look at the positive signs, as the 2017 tour was his biggest yet and the album still sold well. But they have to recognize that this was because of his superstar status, and not because this album was well received. If being a singer is his mestiere della vita, then he has to see clearly what brought him his success, and continue to be his genuine self and rely on his instinct, rather than commercial strategy and marketing. It's too soon for him to enter the "nostalgia phase" of his career where people only care about his signature songs of the distant past. Even if for some he is already there.
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