Zucchero's sixth studio album, Miserere was his first to reach the American audience. Released internationally in 1992, it features 12 original tracks written in Kenya, London, Dublin, Liverpool, New Orleans, and Camargue, France. A close listen to the album even today will astonish the most unfaithful and skeptical listener with Zucchero's maturity and down-to-earth raw feeling, and with its simple messages and an amazing degree of grooviness. Miserere gave Zucchero the opportunity to test himself in the American market and the confidence to support his fiery live shows. The title track, a duet with Maestro Luciano Pavarotti, is a compassionate, if slightly weird and cool, tribute to the end of 19th-century Italian opera tradition. --Ernesto De Pascale