Nuovi eroi

Nuovi eroi sounds like those albums that are born with the urgency to try something new, but without losing sight of the path already traveled. The song that gives the album its name —and later became its calling card— has that epic feel that Ramazzotti knew how to weave between catchy melodies and lyrics about overcoming obstacles, as if each verse were another step in a race that never stops. What’s interesting is that, listening to it today, it doesn’t sound like a calculated product designed for success, but rather like the recording of someone discovering what they can do with their voice and their ideas. The album version, for example, includes an extra minute of instrumental passages that weren’t in the single —a detail that gives it the depth many songs of the era didn’t dare to explore.

Recorded between Il Cortile and Excalibur studios in Milan, the album was released in 1986 with a key producer: Piero Cassano, who had already worked with Ramazzotti on his debut and understood how to balance pop with the rock edge that was beginning to define his style. The single Adesso tu not only won the San Remo Music Festival that same year, but also dominated the charts in Italy, Switzerland, and Austria —something that wasn’t common for an Italian artist at the time. What’s curious is that the entire album replicated that success: it was the first of eleven consecutive Ramazzotti albums to reach number one in Italy, a record that speaks to consistency rather than a passing trend. Even in the CD edition, they added four tracks from his first work, Cuori agitati, as if to remind the public that this wasn’t a leap into the unknown, but a natural evolution.