ELODIE - Mi ami mi odi

Just an hour with me

Don't tell me that you love me

I don't need you to talk if you can use your hands

If you want we can tie ourselves up like in shibari

Just for twenty-four hours, just until tomorrow

After the brief clubtape "Red Light" (2023), the definitive statement of her new identity as a dancefloor panther, this fifth studio album from Elodie arrives with a few extra expectations attached. For those who were pleasantly surprised by the continuous-mix format that had already worked so well on "Ok. Respira" (2023), the hope was to see that scratchy, uninterrupted formula developed across a whole album. In reality, though, there's been a partial step back on that front, and this "Mi ami mi odi" ends up essentially split in two.

The sensual, come-hither lyrics still fuel a highly groove-driven electro-pop, over which Elodie moves bold and self-assured, in a kind of extended self-empowerment anthem that takes up the first half of the tracklist. At the center of it all, once again (and unfortunately?), are relationships, sex, passion - in other words, the theme that underpins almost all danceable pop in Italy.

But Elodie has character, and her tone oozes sensuality right from the opening "Odio amore chimico", before getting even more explicit on "Thaurus", which features rap sections. She closes out an ideal crescendo with the sizzling "1 ora", brazen and built around a chorus with filtered vocals and a bass line pushed to the front, and then with the even more charged-up "Di nuovo", featuring another curious chorus, this time built on a nursery rhyme that's definitely not for minors.

The continuous mix of the clubtape is gone, but this opening section still holds together with real stylistic continuity, and when it comes to an end, with a build-up that seems destined to explode into techno or trance, the arrival of "Mi ami mi odi" feels fairly anticlimactic: Dardust delivers a track similar to the other productions he's written for Elodie, especially "Andromeda", and it takes a full minute to regain the right energy, betting everything on the obsessive nursery-rhyme chorus.

The second half of the tracklist seems to lose its bearings a bit: "Cuore nero" is a more introspective track but also a less powerful one, with strings and piano that are far too predictable and a more subdued rhythm that draws more attention to lyrics that don't exactly shine with poetic flair. Much the same can be said of "Dimenticarsi alle 7", livelier but bogged down between aching strings and full-on clichéd romantic lament; incidentally, we'd already heard it at Sanremo.

The already-released "Black Nirvana" sounds all too similar to how the singer sounded a few years ago, see "Guaranà" (2020). From the danceable continuum we move into a more muddled playlist effect, one that would at least require some strong tracks toward the end too: instead what we get is an outdated electro-pop-rap number like "Muah", with lyrics that come off more ridiculous than titillating, and above all an almost inexplicable pair of duets - a very 2000s-sounding two-voice R&B track like "Feeling" (feat. Tiziano Ferro) and the half-conscious, half-emotional pop-rap titled "In grado" (feat. Lorenzza), pretty thin stuff when you've got Madame and Nayt at your disposal. The album arrives completely deflated at the closing "Raro", leaving the listener wondering where exactly it lost its way.

Elodie has become a pop powerhouse, thanks to a screen-filling image, a string of hugely successful singles, and live shows that draw plenty of fans while also splitting opinion on social media. The dance-heavy, sweaty, sensual, explicit side of her has been considerably amplified on "Ok. Respira" and especially "Red Light", while here it comes through somewhat weakened but still perceptible in the album's first half. After that, between already-released hits, off-brief duets, and what feel like mainstream pop industry leftovers, it becomes hard to defend. The single "Yakuza", featuring a barely-bothered Sfera Ebbasta, makes the tracklist limp even more and makes you miss "Margarita", which was incidentally a bit more fun and lighter than this umpteenth Latin-tinged pop-trap number with its references to crime, other people's envy, housing blocks, handcuffs, and of course carpe diem. The title seems to want to force us to pick a side outright, but to the alternative posed by "Mi ami mi odi" our answer here is "it depends".

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12/08/2025