Review: ANNA CASTIGLIA - "Like" (Track by track)

In the Italian discography there are artists* who shine. Lyrical talents, melodic sensitivity, vocal and instrumental qualities, experiments and overall vision.

Anna Castiglia is part of this category, standing out for a fresh, refined and rich musical offering.

Its peculiarity lies in the ability to blend different musical genres: from pop and Italian songwriting, through song-theater, up to Brazilian suggestions, swing, R&B and jazz nuances.

The result is a multi-faceted, elegant and sophisticated sound blend that envelops the listener in a soft and fluid musical journey. Everything is embellished with a warm voice and a lyric capable of telling life with lightness, irony, metaphors and a touch of romanticism. But never, not even for a moment, does Anna seem banal or obvious.

The artist from Catania follows in the wake of the great singer-songwriters of her land, recalling the style of illustrious compatriots such as Carmen Consoli and Levante, but enriching everything with her own, decidedly contemporary sensitivity. There is also a nostalgic and retro nuance in her that recalls the touch of Ornella Vanoni, capable of combining strength and delicacy, passion and introspection.

What is most striking is the quality of her music, played and experienced deeply (Anna is also a musician as well as a singer), far from the easy patterns of commercial hits or the trends imposed by mainstream radio. His participation in The X Factor was not fully understood by the television audience, probably because his style is outside the most predictable circuits. But it is precisely this independence that makes it unique.

Behind his large glasses, now a distinctive sign of his look, lies a personality capable of engaging, exciting and surprising.

Anna, behind her big glasses and big eyes, centrifuges you, cushions you, softens you and softens you.
This is not just a new promise of Italian music, but a complete artist, who has a lot to say and, above all, to give.

Listen to it, really. You won't regret it!

TRACK BY TRACK

“I like it”, more than an album, at a conceptual level it can be defined as a collection or, even better, a playlist, because there is no concept or even coherence, but the varied coexistence of distant and different songs, both for the musical genre, therefore also the type of writing (ranging from Latin, to pop, to singer-songwriter) and for the period in which they were born, some date back to five years ago, others a few months before the production phase. It seems like chaos, but it is a sort of family tree that serves to present itself completely to the public, with all the musical, stylistic and conceptual branches that the artist has developed to date.

I like: it is the song that gives its name to the album and that opens the listening, because it is seen as a declaration of intent and bearer of a fundamental message: exposing yourself, with a concert or with an album subjects you to the judgment of others, because music is made two, artist and audience, but we must always keep in mind that we cannot please everyone, and above all, that we must like ourselves even before pleasing. Thus, it becomes a samba list of all the references and listens that I like and on which I base my music.

AAA: soften me, cushion me, soften me are the imperative requests of a broken washing machine, one of the old ones, abandoned in a house for away from home, which every now and then gets stuck and refuses the softener, which remains to rot in the drawer, while the laundry, without cuddly, it came out hard and odorless. However, the protagonist of the song asks for help and repair because she doesn't want to end up in scrapyard, over the acoustic and electronic sounds of a hysterical centrifuge.

The churches are closed: a little swing, a little Gypsy, with a thousand stylistic switches, it talks about the closure of churches (which actually happened for the first time during the pandemic) placing it on the same level as bars or, even better, theaters and all places that were stopped in that period and taking away its exclusivity and sacredness. But there is a veiled criticism of the conceptual closure of the Church, which in form and history is much more similar to the penalized theatres.

The same ones: a love song with 70s sounds. It talks about nostalgia and memories that fit delicately and rarely between the commitments of a hectic life until exploding in the final modulation with the crying of the strings and the delay of the voice that dissolves in space .

Salt inside: the salt I'm talking about is that of tears. Definitely an engine and also what gives us character, but if accumulated or in excess, we need to release it to make the taste sweeter. Pop and R&B sounds.

Internal organs: an anatomical bossa that talks about what we have inside, that is, organs and above all impulses that suggest to us how we are, but we are continually bombarded by external education and the models we follow. It is an invitation to listen to us and ask ourselves what, of what we wear culturally, really belongs to us and what,
instead, we inherited from a manual that was too old.

Too much city: a pop/rock ballad about invasive, gray and rainy cities. But even in these days you can find shelter, a canopy of clear skies.

Ephemeral: Allowing ourselves to be deceived by the beauty of the sunset is what matters to us when a relationship ends. Ephemeral talks about the superficiality of a love that is now over and too much so
delicate, a love that caresses you but doesn't bite you and in this case the caresses symbolize weakness and the bites symbolize passion. A delicate but total anesthesia.

SCORE: 7.80

I like it – Rating 8.00
AAA – Rating 8.00
Whitman feat. Ghemon – Rating 8.00
The churches are closed – Rating 7.50
The same ones – Rating 7.50
U mari – Rating 8.00
Present participle – Rating 8.00
Salt inside – Rating 8.00
Internal bodies – Rating 7.50
Too much city – Rating 8.00
GHALI – Rating 7.50
Ephemeral – Rating 8.00