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Customer Reviews of Storia Di Un Minuto

This is just the beginning
PFM has always earned that well-deserved reputation as being one of the greatest prog rock bands to come out of Italy. So much so they they eventually received American exposure thanks to recording on Greg Lake's own Manticore label and recording in English. Prior to Photos of Ghosts, the band's music was sung entirely in Italian, and only released in Italy, on the Numero Uno label. What's amazing about Storia di un Minuto is it's their debut, and the band's sound is already defined. Many other bands needed to take two or three albums to really take off. For example, the debut by Banco del Mutuo Soccorso showed potential, but was marred by substandard production. Their following two albums (Darwin! and Io Sono Nato Libero) were obvious improvements and showed them at their full potentional. For a more "mainstream" prog band, look at Yes, it wasn't until their third album (The Yes Album) that they really began to take off. For PFM, they got it right the first time! And Storia di un Minuto shows that. "Impressioni di Settembre" is that pefect example, showing a nice blend of folk and classical, with that Italian touch. Synthesizers play a role here. The song was originally released as a single the year before (1971), probably to tie people over while they get finished with Storia di un Minuto. "E` Festa" is one of the more popular cuts here, and more so when it was re-recorded in English on Photos of Ghosts as "Celebration". This original is arranged a bit differently, especially the middle part. There's the gloomy "Dove... Quando (Part 1)" dominated by vocals, acoustic guitar, and harpsichord. "La Carrozza di Hans" is one of my favorites, an adventurous number going through many different changes, with jazzy passages with almost Jethro Tull-like flutes, to more acoustic passages, laid-back vocal passages. "Grazie Davvero" is often regarded as the album's low-points, mainy turned off by the "cheesy horns". I happen not to be bothered by them, and actually find it yet another pleasant peace, especially the acoustic sections. Hard to believe a band pulled off such a great debut like this. If you like this, be sure to pick up their following album, Per Un Amico. Truly a must have for those in to Italian prog, or to start your Italian prog collection.

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PFM's first and best studio album
As you probably know, PFM is an Italian progressive rock band. This is their first album. All lyrics are in Italian. The sound quality is excellent. The album is 35 minutes long.

I think this is the best of PFM's studio albums. It is lusher and more melodic than later albums. It is also a bit more mellow. The later studio albums are also very good, but this one is less pretenious and bombastic (the only real problem with any progressive rock music). I especially like the second half of the CD, starting with the jazzy Dove part II.

I had a copy of the LP for a long time. But, it was always hard to enjoy because of the defects in the LP. PFM's label, Numero Uno had poor quality pressings. It is wonderful to hear the changing dynamic range and the quiet passages without having to endure the constant pops. This is especially true at the beginning of the album with the almost silent intro.

Note that E'Festa was reworked with English lyrics, called Celebration and added to the Photos Of Ghosts album. Photos of Ghosts was a remixing of PFM's second album Per un Amico with English lyrics. Impressioni di Settembre was also redone with English lyrics, changed to The World Became the World and became the title track for that album. The rest of the album The World Became the World is a reworking of PFM's third album, L'Isola Di Niente.

To try to make PFM more appealing to the English speaking world, Pete Sinfield (from King Crinsom fame) rewrote many of PFM's songs with English lyrics. But, the whole thing was silly. Like Yes, much of Sinfields lyrics are meaningless. So what different does it make if you get lyrics in Italian you can't understand, or lyrics in English that don't say anything.

PFM had a completely different sound in concert. Only about a third of a PFM concert was devoted to songs that were already on the studio albums. The rest was these incredible, high energy jams. The best album to get is the 4 CD set, Gil Anni Live 1970 to 1981. If you can't get that, then go for Live in the USA (also called Cook).

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PFM's first album lush, pretty, but lacking intensity
This is PFM's first album (1972), entirely in Italian. As another reviewer termed it, this recording is lush, at times even ornate, as well as innocent and mellow. A far cry from the rocking band that Americans were later introduced to. The difference between this album and "The World Became the World" is like the difference between ELP's first album and "Brain Salad Surgery", or between the King Crimson songs "Moonchild" and "Red". There is not a tremendous amount of "rock" here; other than "E Festa", you never hear the drum kit for more than a minute at a time. I have at least a dozen PFM albums by now, and this one is not among my favorites. While it's pretty and well-played, I prefer a rocking PFM. "E Festa" (which you may know better as "Celebration") loses its intensity by having Di Cioccio's drums badly undermixed. I prefer the "Photos of Ghosts" version of the song, and I like "Impressioni di Settembre" better in its later incarnation as "The World Became the World". Only the ending of "La Carrozza di Hans" gives a hint of the prog-rock workout this song eventually became in the PFM live set (check out 1998's live "www-pfmpfm-it" or 2002's "Live in Japan" and you're likely to be much more impressed with this song). While the woodwind quartet on the intro of "Dove...Quando" is nice, the full orchestral brass section playing an atonal arrangement on "Grazie Davvero" is too much for me. "Dove...Quando-parte II" is all over the map, going from rock to semi-classical, then out of nowhere jumping into a jazz vamp. On my scale, this is a 3-1/2 star album, good but not great.

(1=poor 2=mediocre 3=pretty good 4=very good 5=phenomenal)