Selections Hold Back Italian Singing Star

If he picked the right songs, enriched them with subtle instrumental passages and experimented with his country’s rich musical heritage, Italian singing star Eros Ramazzotti could be unstoppable on this side of the Atlantic.

But as he demonstrated in a monochromatic show on Monday at the Universal Amphitheatre, he hasn’t reached that level yet. What you got instead was a great-looking guy dressed in black, singing a bunch of silly love songs with the sublime backing of a superlative band.

The concert had its positive points. Ramazzotti’s voice has the distinctive qualities of an Elton John, and he has the humble, likable attitude of a Phil Collins. His battery of talented musicians worked hard throughout the evening to woo the crowd.

The show’s insurmountable problem was the quality of the songs. A handful of numbers was enough to exhaust Ramazzotti’s stylistic devices. And once the few crunchy surprises were unveiled, once you got used to the loud drum intros and the snappy sax solos, there was nothing else new on the horizon.

By the time the singer, who performed mostly in Italian but also in Spanish, returned for an encore of “Tierra Prometida,” the show had repeated itself to death--though the singer’s hard-core fans, clearly enjoying this rare opportunity to see their idol in a live setting, didn’t seem to care.

The show’s highlight actually came an hour too early. Ramazzotti’s super hit “Cosas de la Vida,” which he recently rerecorded in English as a duet with Tina Turner, is a sexy slice of Euro-pop with heavy guitars and a catchy hook, and it was a formidable moment at the amphitheater.

Otherwise, you could clearly understand why this brand of pop has not dazzled American audiences yet. Unless Ramazzotti returns to his Italian roots (like his countryman Lucio Dalla) or pushes the genre’s corny aesthetics to the max (in the manner of the French group Air), he will remain too colorless to gain wider recognition.