Buon giorno, I am Fabio

Part how-to guide, part love song compilation, with After Dark, Fabio provides everything the listener might need to seduce a beautiful woman. But what do I know about seducing women? If any woman succumbs to this sort of schmaltz, than neither her, nor Fabio should respect themselves in the morning.

The tracks mostly alternate between Fabio describing his feelings on various romantic topics and late-80's, early-90's slow dance songs. Topics of discussion include, the perfect date, films, tropical islands, humor and slow dancing. If Fabio's strategies for seduction actually work than I am sorely disappointed in the dating standards of straight women. It reminds me of one of those family sitcoms. Every series like that has an episode where the teenage son is head over heals for some girl. The son then proceeds to whip out every romantic cliche in the book. He carefully plans the date, the romantic dinner by candlelight, the make-out music, perhaps he even pencils a mustache onto his upper lip. In the end, the boy ends up doing nothing more than thoroughly embarassing himself. If Fabio wasn't already such a ridiculous character, this album might embarrass him.

Of course, that analysis assumes that men are the target audience of this album. On further reflection, I think the target audience may actually be teenage girls. I don't mean it's advice for teenage girls, It's fantasy material for teenage girls. The giant pecs and flowing golden locks riding in on a white stallion fantasy. In fact, the very same fantasy supplied by the romance novels that made Fabio famous. I think we may be on to something here.

Her caress is my command

By far the best part of this album comes on track 7, entitled Fabio: On Surprises. "I like nothing better than to surprises my lady with a plane ticket, a toothbrush and her bikini.", he begins. His favorite destination, he says, is the Maldive Islands. Of course later in the track he says "We need no clothes, no money, just each other." It's not entirely clear if wandering around a predominantly Muslim country in the nude with a toothbrush is advisable, particularly a country that just last year experienced violent riots in the capital city demanding political reform from their strongman president-for-life. I know that when I get caught in a riot, I'm thankful that I have pants on.

Standing out head and shoulders below the rest of the album, is, surprisingly, track 16, entitles I Like You, You Like Me by Barry White. Now understand, I like Barry White. I own his best-of CD and I'm telling you, there's a very good reason that this track didn't make the cut. As the title suggests, the whole song (which Barry mostly speaks, rather than sings) sounds like a love letter from one 12 year old to another. This further adds credence to my hypothesis that this album is intended to fuel teenage, female sex fantasies.

This is a hell of an album. I wouldn't reccomend using it to seduce anyone but, if you and your significant other and looking for a good laugh, I highly reccomend it. My boy & I were nearly in pain from uncontrolable convulsive laughter when we listened to it. Lucky for us, someone has already conveniently violated the copyright on this album. Check it out for yourself. For the record, I paid money and own a legitimate copy the CD. I wouldn't dream of denying Fabio his due.

Ciao