Per tutte le volte che...

Recensione album

Former Amici di Maria de Filippi contestant Valerio Scanu's second album, Per Tutte le Volte Che..., boasts the chart-topping smash hit title track with which he won first place at the Sanremo Music Festival in 2010. "Per Tutte le Volte Che...," penned by Amici di Maria de Filippi affiliate Pierdavide Carone, is more or less typical of the album as a whole. While none of the other songs is quite as strikingly beautiful as "Per Tutte le Volte Che...," there's a lot of otherwise ear-pleasing music here. Like Scanu's previous releases, the six-track Sentimento EP and his seven-track eponymous full-length debut, Per Tutte le Volte Che... is unfortunately brief, clocking in at a mere nine tracks in just under 35 minutes. Fortunately, what's here is generally good, if not great. Four of the nine songs are penned by Saverio Grandi, an Italian pop industry veteran who wrote "Ricordati di Noi," the Top Ten hit from Scanu's previous album. "Indissolubile," "Quando Parlano di Te," "Mai Dimenticata," and "Miele" are credited to Grandi here. Other songs are credited to fellow Italian pop industry veteran Kaballà ("Credi in Me," "Così Distante") and Italia's Got Talent affiliate Simone Annicchiarico ("Il Dio d'America"). Scanu handles all of this material with an ease that belies his youth. In fact, he sounds almost too at ease here on Per Tutte le Volte Che..., an album that would benefit from edgier material. While Scanu began his recording career with a broad range of material on his debut EP, which found him singing in English as well as Italian and performing contemporary R&B and pop/rock as well as power ballads, on Per Tutte le Volte Che... he sticks with the type of middle-of-the-road Italian pop that's all too familiar to those who follow Amici di Maria de Filippi and other such casting shows. He's good at it, to be sure, but at the same time, it's a shame to hear a charismatic 19-year-old like himself stuck with such grown-up music when he could be letting loose with a playful pop style better suited to his age.