Hit Galaxy
Pop, 2005
I am ashamed to admit that when I first see the CD cover of Patrizio Buanne’s debut CD The Italian, my hands instinctively reach out to grab the CD even before I know what I am doing.
The photo is straight out of a stereotypical rent boy fantasy, with this sullen-looking and unrealistically handsome young man adjusting his bow tie for a night out at a fancy ballroom. I find myself thinking that I can be that Faye Dunaway-lookalike who owns this handsome young man. From the title of the CD to the sultry images of handsome Mr Buanne lounging around in deceptively casual evening dress disarray, this CD is a most perfectly packaged brand of soft pornography dedicated to people who are into men. I am ashamed that I am shallow enough to purchase this CD without even wondering what kind of music I’ll be buying.
Well, unfortunately for Mr Buanne, the “young, beautiful, but best left silent” stereotype applies very well to him. He uses his serviceable tenor to perform pop songs in some orchestral faux-classical manner that the likes of Andrea Bocelli and Josh Groban make millions selling to poor foolish women like me all over the world. Sure, there are songs in Italian as well as English, but some, like Alta Marea being the Italian cover version of Crowded House’s Don’t Dream It’s Over, are actually standard pop fare hoping to find some deeper legitimacy solely because it’s being crooned out in Italian.
The songs are very listenable and perfect for easy-listening, but Mr Buanne performs as if he’s some machine cranking out the notes. There is very little discernible passion in his delivery and the songs in this CD leave me cold. It’s quite disappointing. I’m hoping for a voice like Josh Groban’s, one that can make me feel shivers of pleasure sometimes even when the voice is singing pure unadulterated sap, but Mr Buanne is too robotic and cold in this CD to touch me in such ways.
Patrizio Buanne is such a very handsome man, I have to admit, but from now on, I’ll settle for looking at him instead of paying him to sing. Some illusions are best left as that – illusions. When this handsome young man opens his mouth, it’s back to Earth I go to sigh in disappointment.
