Pino Daniele: 10 years without him, his most beautiful albums to listen to

Ten years from his disappearance, seventy since his birth. 2025 provides the perfect excuse to continue celebrating the talent of Pino Daniele. A singer -songwriter capable of telling private feelings with poetry and angrily social discomfort and collective frustrations. Love, bitterness, inequalities, beauty: Pino Daniele was a brazen musicianrevolutionary, capable of contaminating Neapolitan tradition (and language) with jazz, blues, funky and rock.

The opportunity to recover his cultural and artistic legacy is the documentary Pinedirected by Francesco Lettieri and arriving in Italian theaters from 31 March to 2 April 2025. A story that, thanks to the collaboration of the musical critic Federico Vacalebreexplore a Pino Daniele still little known, through never widespread videos, backstage, unpublished musical, personal notes and testimonies of friends and colleagues, including international ones. In PineIn fact, there are interviews with many artists who have collaborated with the Neapolitan singer -songwriter, including Fiorello, Jovanotti, Vasco Rossi, Fiorella Mannoia, Loredana Bertè and Eric Clapton.

Pending the projections of the documentary, Let’s go over the most beautiful records by Pino Daniele. Starting from the assumption that selecting only a few albums in the large discography of the Neapolitan artist is not an easy operation, these are our choices (NB the following list is in purely random order. We have given up a priori to make a ranking).

Black in half (1980)

One of the most important records of the history of Italian music, the third of Pino Daniele. Black in half It is a masterpiece in which the Neapolitan dialect, Italian and English mix and rely on musical arrangements that hold rock, blues, Italian melody and Latin rhythms together. Dedicated to Mario Musella of the Showmen, the disc hosts immortal pieces as I like it or blues, Quanno chove, And I know cuntendo ‘e sta’ And Appocundoriaamong which the multifaceted and contaminated soul of Naples moves.

Go mo ‘(1981)

The perfect synthesis of Neapolitan powerwith an extraordinary band composed, among others, from James Senese, Tony Esposito And Tullio de Piscopo. The brazenness of Yes i know my waythe SAUND of the sax of Night that goesthe instrumental wealth of the funky of That you fuck you: songs symbol of an album that brought Pino Daniele on European sceneconsolidating the experiments of taramblù. A lethal mix of tarantella, rumba and blues that a few months after the album released 200 thousand people to party in Piazza Plebiscito, singing Have You Seen My Shoes.

Pino Daniele (1979)

The favorite of your reporter (even if this should not be said). The second album of the same name by Pino Daniele contains Enough na jurnata ‘and sunthe song that All the evils of the heart can cure. If you also add the generational anthem to this Je so ‘crazythe sparkling phrasing of Chillo is nu good guaglione and the gem Who holds’ or seathe choice to insert this album on the best list is soon explained. This is where the Neapolitan soul blues It takes shape, staging a new musical language, capable of speaking to the heart and belly of a city in struggle between tradition and modernity.

Earth Mia (1977)

Is the disc debut which, as always happens with the great artists, is immediately an expression of talent. My land shows us a pine Daniele twenty -two years oldalready able to write an eternal poetry like Napu’è – Manifest song of the Neapolitan city – and to mix an original fusion between the sounds of the Mediterranean and overseas atmospheres. An intimate and powerful album, whose protagonist is Napleswith its vulnerability and its authenticity.

Latin Mascalzone (1989)

Fruit of the collaboration with Bruno Illianois one of the favorite albums by the same author. Mix the acoustic with electronic inserts years Eighty. Among the strongest songs, the overwhelming Jungle, Anna will come – dedicated to Anna Magnani -, La Gitana ‘A hope is only if And Sambaccussìan example of how you can write an original love song, outside the canons dictated by Italian sentimentality.

And Sona Mò (1993)

We assign the role of “bonus track” on this list live records better successful than Italian music. And sona mò was recorded live a Cava de ‘Tirreniin the province of Salerno, between 22 and 23 May 1993. On stage, together with Pino, Antonio Annona on the keyboard e Carol Steele to percussion. In front of them the public, involved and dragged by the classics such as When, ‘O scarrafone And What satisfactionplayed in acoustic dress. An album that, in addition to the emotion felt in listening to an almost perfect concert, returns the love of a people towards one of his most loyal spokespersons.