View source for Peerla

{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
{{Infobox album
| name       = Peerla
| type       = Album
| artist     = [[Elio e le Storie Tese]]
| cover      = Peerla_cover.jpg
| alt        =
| released   = 1998
| recorded   = December 1997 – March 1998
| venue      =
| studio     =
| genre      = [[Rock music|Rock]], [[comedy rock]]
| length     = 68:37
| label      = Aspirine<br>[[Sony BMG]]
| producer   = Otar Bolivecic
| prev_title = [[Del meglio del nostro meglio Vol. 1]]
| prev_year  = 1997
| next_title = [[Craccracriccrecr]]
| next_year  = 1999
}}

'''''Peerla''''' is a 1998 studio album by Italian rock band [[Elio e le Storie Tese]], consisting of previously unreleased tracks, like the various opening themes for Italian television program {{lang|it|[[Mai dire Gol]]|i=no}}, and studio outtakes.<ref name=marok/> It was re-released in a digital version in 2000, with the additional track "Tenia".<ref name=marok>{{cite web|title=''Peerla''|url=http://marok.org/Elio/Discog/peerla.htm|website=Marok|accessdate=21 November 2019}}</ref>

In [[Milanese dialect]], {{lang|lmo|pirla}} is a mild insult meaning 'idiot', while {{lang|it|perla}} is the Italian for 'pearl', which features on the album sleeve; the double entendre focuses on the English pronunciation of {{angbr|ee}} as opposed to the Italian {{angbr|e}}.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Elio e le Storie Tese - ''Peerla'' |url=https://www.debaser.it/recensionidb/ID_7804/Elio_e_le_Storie_Tese_Peerla.htm |access-date=20 August 2020 |website=Debaser |language=it}}</ref>

==Songs==
* "Introducing prof. Magneto" is a short dialogue starring Elio and guest "vocalist" Luca Mangoni, referencing [[X-Men]] villain [[Magneto (Marvel Comics)|Magneto]] but actually about [[magnet]]s.<ref name=marok />
*"La donna nuda" (English: "The naked woman") is a parody/rewrite of "[[I Want a New Drug]]" by [[Huey Lewis and the News]], with a new lyric about a naked woman who seduces passengers on a [[bus]]. The parodic remake, which, like all other [[Cover version|covers]] by the band, was only performed live because Lewis never authorized it (and, indeed, the band never asked for any authorization), includes several references to "[[Ghostbusters (song)|Ghostbusters]]" by [[Ray Parker Jr.]], already present in Lewis's original.<ref name=marok/>
*"La cinica lotteria dei rigori" (English "The cynical lottery of penalty shootouts") – a typical expression of Italian sport journalists<ref>{{Cite web |last=Radogna |first=Fiorenzo |date=24 December 2016 |title=Quelli che sbagliano il rigore. Dybala non è solo: 10 campioni e il dischetto per nemico |url=http://www.corriere.it/sport/cards/quelli-che-sbagliano-rigore-dybala-non-solo-10-campioni-dischetto-nemico/i-fuoriclasse-macchie-rigori_principale.shtml |access-date=20 August 2020 |website=Corriere della Sera |language=it}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=July 2018 |title=Le squadre che hanno fatto i Mondiali. 2018 Russia: la squadra di casa che non ti aspetti |url=http://www.lundici.it/2018/07/le-squadre-che-hanno-fatto-i-mondiali-2018-russia-la-squadra-di-casa-che-non-ti-aspetti/ |access-date=20 August 2020 |website=L'Undici |language=it-IT}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Battisti |first=Carlo |date=5 July 2016 |title=La lotteria dei rigori non è una lotteria. |url=https://carlobattisti.com/2016/07/05/la-lotteria-dei-rigori-non-e-una-lotteria/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170316011124/https://carlobattisti.com/2016/07/05/la-lotteria-dei-rigori-non-e-una-lotteria/ |archive-date=16 March 2017 |access-date=20 August 2020 |website=CarloBattisti.it |language=it-IT}}</ref> – was the closing credits theme for the 1995–1996 season of ''[[Mai dire Gol]]''. It is about the elimination of [[Italy national football team]] from the final game in the [[1994 FIFA World Cup]] after the [[Penalty shoot-out (association football)|penalty shootouts]]. The first part of the song features a football-themed parody of "[[Alpini songs|Il testamento del Capitano]]" (English: "The captain's testament"), a traditional [[Alpini]] choral chant from [[World War I]], quoting the three footballers who missed their penalties as fallen heroes and comparing the team's football field defeat to an utter defeat in war.<ref name=marok/> The second part, completely different, is a 1930s pastiche sung by the band in [[Close and open harmony|close harmony]] in the style of [[The Andrews Sisters]], but still with parodied lyrics from "Il testamento del Capitano" and other Alpini songs, and it ends with the title line, shouted out by guest "vocalist" Luca Mangoni.
*"Help me" is a live cover of a song by [[Dik Dik]] about an [[astronaut]] named McKenzie, who gets lost while travelling to [[Jupiter]] and fails to communicate with Earth, except for some faint cries of "Help me" followed by long silences.<ref name=marok/> The otherwise serious, dramatic song is turned into comedy when the astronaut, played by Mangoni, responds with profanities to the sung chorus. In the last four lines, McKenzie's ship explodes and his wife tells his young son not to miss him, as he was not his real father, since she is a [[Prostitution|whore]]. These last lines are sung on a similar melody to [[Stefano Rosso]]'s 1977 song "Una storia disonesta".<ref name=marok/> 
*"Nessuno allo stadio" (English: "Nobody at the stadium"), was the opening theme from 1994 ''Mai dire Mondiali'' – a special edition of ''Mai dire Gol'' dedicated to the 1994 World Cup – and it was originally released on a single. It is about the World Cup itself and the [[Americans]]' complete lack of interest in it. The lyrics mention [[John and Lorena Bobbitt|Lorena Bobbitt's husband]] as someone who, for obvious reasons, cannot have even the least bit of interest in soccer, and [[Wilfred Agbonavbare]], the goalkeeper from the Nigerian national team, as someone who may actually become famous as a result of the small amount of relevance given to the event. The song includes a musical and lyrical quote from [[Renato Carosone]]'s 1956 USA-mocking satirical song "[[Tu Vuò Fà L'Americano]]" and two lines sampled from [[Aleandro Baldi]]'s 1994 song "Passerà", who won the [[Sanremo Music Festival 1994|1994 Sanremo Music Festival]]. Keyboard player Sergio Conforti (a.k.a. Rocco Tanica), who inserted the sample, named it as his favorite element in the song, and slightly manipulated it in order to obtain a similar effect to [[Annie Lennox]]'s [[Delay (audio effect)|delayed]] voice singing "watch me walking / walking out the door-door-door-door-door..." toward the end of "[[Would I Lie to You? (Eurythmics song)|Would I Lie to You?]]" by [[Eurythmics]].<ref>{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=|title=Nessuno allo stadio|url=http://marok.org/Elio/Discog/ness2.htm|access-date=20 August 2020|website=Marok|language=it}}</ref>
*"In te" (English: "Within you") focuses on [[abortion]]. It is a live recording of a cover of [[Nek]]'s same-titled debut single from the same year. The song itself is absolutely identical in music, lyrics and arrangement to the original version. The comedic element is in the actual performance: the singer is Mangoni, who deliberately sings a full tone higher than the original version in order to sound even more strained than Nek.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Aborto/In te |url=http://marok.org/Elio/Discog/aborto.htm |access-date=21 August 2020 |website=Marok |language=it}}</ref>
*"Urna" is a live recording of the same-titled song from ''[[İtalyan, rum casusu çikti]]'' in a softer arrangement promoted by bassist Nicola Fasani (a.k.a. Faso). He had repeatedly vented his discontent with Elio's [[Heavy metal music|heavy metal]] arrangement on the previously released studio version.<ref name=marok/>
*"Balla coi barlafüs" (English: "Dance with the morons"), the opening theme from the 1996–1997 season of ''Mai dire Gol'', is a [[Cover version|cover]] of [[Richard O'Brien]]'s "[[Time Warp (song)|Time Warp]]" from ''[[The Rocky Horror Show]]'', with completely rewritten, satirical lyrics about [[Umberto Bossi]] and his failed attempt, in early 1996, to rally up a [[Human chain (politics)|human chain]] from [[Polesine]] to [[Monviso]] in order to symbolically block the course of the [[Po (river)|river Po]].<ref name=marok/> The [[Music video|video]] is faithful to the corresponding scene in the [[The Rocky Horror Picture Show|1975 film adaption]] of O'Brien's musical, here starring Elio as Riff Raff, [[Marina Massironi]] as Magenta and Giacomo Poretti of [[Aldo, Giovanni e Giacomo]] as the Criminologist/Narrator; the video also featured [[Daniele Luttazzi]] and [[Sabrina Ferilli]] as Brad and Janet and the rest of the cast from ''Mai dire Gol'' in various roles from the film.<ref>{{Cite AV media |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HF6T4siw6w8 |title=Mai dire gol - Balla coi Barlafus |date=25 July 2018 |type=Television production |language=it}}{{cbignore}}{{Dead Youtube links|date=February 2022}}</ref>
*"Agnello medley" is identical to the same-titled track on ''[[The Los Sri Lanka Parakramabahu Brothers Featuring Elio e le Storie Tese]]''. It is a [[Medley (music)|medley]] of four [[Christmas music|Christmas songs]] (in order: "[[White Christmas (song)|White Christmas]]", "[[Silent Night]]", "[[Tu scendi dalle stelle]]" and "[[Jingle Bells]]"), sung by Elio over an improvised and almost completely off-beat [[drum solo]] by drummer Christian Meyer, without any other instrumentation. Upon its original release, the medley was deemed "horrific" by fans.<ref name="marok2">{{Cite web |title=The Los Sri Lanka Parakramabahu Brothers Featuring Elio e le Storie Tese |url=http://marok.org/Elio/Discog/thelos.htm |access-date=23 November 2019 |website=Marok |language=it}}</ref>
*"Il concetto di banana", the opening theme from the 1995–1996 season of ''Mai dire Gol'', is the original recording of "Lo stato A, lo stato B" from ''İtalyan, rum casusu çikti''. It is a sarcastic comparison of good footballers ("champions") and bad ones ("bananas"), stating that the latter ones are bound to cause their teams' demise. The original opening theme ended with a sample of "St. Tropez twist" by [[Peppino di Capri]], which was omitted from the CD version for copyright reasons.<ref name=marok/>
*"Christmas with the Yours" is the same-titled song on the band's 1995 charity single.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Christmas with the Yours |url=http://marok.org/Elio/Discog/xmas.htm |access-date=21 August 2020 |website=Marok |language=it}}</ref>
*"Giocatore mondiale" (English: "World Cup footballer") is identical to the same-named song on ''The Los Sri Lanka Parakramabahu Brothers Featuring Elio e le Storie Tese''.<ref name="marok" /> It is a satirical song about Italians' passion for football that cause them to forget all of the nation's problems (workplace accidents, homicides, architectural barriers, etc.). Three lines in the song are performed by [[wheelchair]]-bound singer-songwriter [[Pierangelo Bertoli]] as a parody of his own involvement in a [[public service announcement]] about architectural barriers. The song includes the first four bars of "[[La Cucaracha]]" (played by Tanica as soon as the lyrics mention [[Luca Cordero di Montezemolo]], here satirically referred to as "Luca di [[Moctezuma II|Montezuma]]"). The recording dates from 1989 and it was originally produced as the opening theme for Gialappa's Band's very first comedy show, on radio, titled ''Quasi Gol!''.<ref name="marok2" />
*"Sabbiature" [literally "sandblasting", but here intended as ''insabbiature'' - "cover-ups"] is the first of two [[protest song]]s by the band on ''Peerla''. "Sabbiature" is an incomplete live recording made during the band's set at the 1991 edition of ''Concerto del Primo Maggio'' [''First of May Concert''], a one-day music event organized by Italy's leading [[trade union]] [[Italian General Confederation of Labour|CGIL]]. In its early editions, the Concert was a legitimate [[music festival]] event featuring short sets by very prominent Italian and international [[Rock music|rock]] acts ([[Iron Maiden]] performed in its very first edition, in 1990); over the following years, it gradually turned into a showcase for exclusively Italian [[Independent music|independent]] and politically committed acts, most of which had little or no relevance in Italy's musical panorama and were gaining short bursts of fame by, indeed, participating in the event. (This trend was later mocked by Elio e le Storie Tese in their 2013 song "Complesso del Primo Maggio", from ''[[L'album biango]]''). In 1991, not-yet-star Elio and his band appeared in the event and ended their set with "Sabbiature", a completely improvised performance over an extremely simple two-chord backing track, essentially consisting of Elio delivering a very long list of wrongdoings and misgivings by politicians and other prominent figures at the time, most of which were either considered unimportant or totally overlooked by governmental bodies.<ref name=marok/> [[RAI]], the official broadcaster of the event, tried to censor the band by physically unplugging their onstage amplification and interrupting the performance with a cut to an outro by journalist Vincenzo Mollica, whose voice is featured on ''Peerla'' as cut-up samples. According to fans' recollections, Elio went on with an emergency microphone and no instrumentation for about one minute longer than the recording on ''Peerla'', before leaving the stage as the audience was starting to [[Booing|boo]] him.<ref name=marok/>
*"Ameri" and the following track, "Sunset Boulevard", are taken from the band's 1994 single "Nessuno allo stadio", released for that year's edition (set in the U.S.A.) of FIFA World Cup and named after track 5 on ''Peerla'', also the main track on the single. "Ameri" is a parody/free rewrite of [[Toto Cutugno]]'s 1990 song "[[Gli amori]]", which earned him the fourth of six second-place classifications in Sanremo Music Festival. Elio's parody lyrics target popular sport journalist and broadcaster Enrico Ameri, as well as [[Claudia Mori]] and [[Dori Ghezzi]], claiming that the latter's profitable music career with [[Wess]] was cut short by Italy's [[Racism|racist]] attitude toward her black musical partner.<ref>[https://elioelestorietese.it/canzoni/ameri-gli-amori/ Song lyrics on the band's official website]</ref>
*"Sunset Boulevard" is a song about a retiring footballer who is repeatedly invited to "hang [his] boots", but he refuses to comply. [[Backing vocalist]] Daniela Rando and "Christmas with the Yours" star Graziano Romani are featured throughout, singing in the choruses and each getting one solo line. The song quotes one line from [[Riccardo Cocciante]]'s 1980 hit "[[Cervo a primavera]]" and one from "Vedrai, vedrai" (1967) by [[Luigi Tenco]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Nessuno allo stadio |url=http://marok.org/Elio/Discog/ness2.htm |access-date=21 August 2020 |website=Marok |language=it}}</ref>
*"Gli occhiali dell'amore" (English: "The glasses of love"), a live recording from 1990, is a parody of [[Mina (Italian singer)|Mina]]'s style (originally intended for her to sing),<ref>{{Cite web |title=Not Unpreviously Unreleased 'Nt |url=https://www.marok.org/Elio/Discog/not.htm#Occhiali |access-date=21 August 2020 |website=Marok |language=it}}</ref> about an insecure boy who would need a pair of glasses to "see" his love for a girl he is fond of, later expanding the concept into a discussion about actual glasses.<ref name=marok/>
*"Puliletti blues" (English: "Bed cleaner's blues") is an improvised [[12-bar blues]], recorded by Elio shortly before "Tapparella" (from ''[[Eat the Phikis]]''). The lyrics are about a "poor man's" version of a blues song and about the structure of such a song, with Elio underlining that the song uses four chords instead of the traditional three.<ref>{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=|title=Puliletti Blues|url=https://elioelestorietese.it/canzoni/puliletti-blues/|access-date=21 August 2020|website=ElioeleStorieTese.it|language=it}}</ref>
*"Ti amo campionato", performed by the band live-in-the-studio during an episode of ''Mai dire Gol'' (in 1998), is very similar to "Sabbiature" in that both songs consist of improvised lyrics over an obsessively repeated, simplified backing track. Here, Elio focuses on wrongdoings (mostly corruption and referees' mistakes) in Italy's soccer championship, and the backing track is strongly reminiscent of [[Robert Miles]]'s 1995 hit "[[Children (composition)|Children]]".<ref name=marok/>
*"Tenia" (English: "Taenia"), only included in the reprint of the album in 2000, is a live parody/rewrite of [[Michael Sembello]]'s 1983 hit "[[Maniac (Michael Sembello song)|Maniac]]", about [[Taenia (flatworm)|the titular worm]], the diseases caused by it and various way to get rid of it.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Tenia (Maniac)|url=https://elioelestorietese.it/canzoni/tenia-maniac/|access-date=21 August 2020|website=ElioeleStorieTese.it|language=it}}</ref><ref name=marok/>

== Track listing ==
# "Introducing prof. Magneto" – 0:26
# "La donna nuda (I Want a New Drug)" – 3:40
# "La cinica lotteria dei rigori" – 1:21
# "Help Me" – 3:56
# "Nessuno allo stadio" – 3:39
# "In te" – 5:44
# "Urna" – 3:46
# "Balla coi barlafüs (Time Warp)" – 2:25
# "Agnello Medley" – 2:48
# "Il concetto di banana" – 1:20
# "Christmas with the Yours" – 5:54
# "Giocatore mondiale" – 5:11
# "Sabbiature" – 5:40
# "Ameri (Gli amori)" – 4:19
# "Sunset Boulevard" – 3:50
# "Gli occhiali dell'amore" – 2:39
# "Puliletti Blues" – 5:05
# "Ti amo campionato" – 6:44
# "Tenia (Maniac)" – 3:45{{efn|Included only in the 2000 re-released version.<ref name=marok/>|name=|group=}}

==Personnel==
* [[Elio (Italian singer)|Stefano Belisari as Elio]] – lead vocals, flute, occasional bass
* Sergio Conforti as Rocco Tanica – keyboards
* [[Cesareo|Davide Civaschi as Cesareo]] – guitars
* Nicola Fasani as Faso – bass
* Paolo Panigada as Feiez – sax, guitar, keyboards, bass, backing vocals
* Christian Meyer – drums
'''Guest musicians'''
* Mangoni – vocals on track 6, backing vocals on tracks 2 and 4
* [[Curt Cress]] – drums on tracks 12 and 17
* [[Pierangelo Bertoli]] – vocals on track 12
* [[Aldo, Giovanni & Giacomo|Giacomo Poretti]] – vocals on track 8
* Marina Massironi – vocals on track 8
* The Los Parakramabahu Brothers – vocals on track 9
* Naco – percussion on track 9
* Graziano Romani – lead vocals on track 11, additional lead and backing vocals on track 15
* Daniela Rando – additional lead and backing vocals on track 15
* Sandro De Bellis – African percussion on track 15

==Footnotes==
{{notelist}}

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

== External links ==
*{{Discogs release|1916291|type=album}}
*{{AllMusic | class= album | id= mw0001948355 | label= ''Peerla'' | accessdate= 22 August 2015}}

{{Elio e le Storie Tese}}

{{Authority control}}

[[Category:1998 albums]]
[[Category:Elio e le Storie Tese albums]]