You Should Listen to Måneskin, Even if You’re Not Italian
Especially now that they’ve won the 2021 Sanremo music festival…
In times like these, when narcissistic pop stars claim bands don’t exist anymore, it is important to think about where such a comment could stem from. Leaving aside the fact that Adam Levine lives in an odd bubble where his is the only pop “rock” band in existence (yeah, he also stated a few years back that rock is dead), I kind of get where he’s coming from. Fact of the matter is that if you look at Billboard’s Hot 100 or UK’s Top 40, there are no bands. And these two charts have been steering the music industry for longer than half a century. Everyone that has a music taste outside of these two charts, knows there are other genres, other artists, and music that is often of much greater quality. It’s no secret, however, that Billboard and the Top 40, or actually the countries behind those, have had a massive impact on the way a broader range of music is being created and consumed worldwide. Without getting into too much detail, I could give you one example, and that is the fact that a great portion of any internationally popular music style nowadays is written in English.
Now, don’t think I am that ignorant, that I don’t understand why this happens. It is natural for musicians to want to reach a broader audience, and writing in English is the perfect tool for this. But it’s 2021, Billboard Hot 100 and UK’s Top 40 have started to lose their relevance a long time ago thanks to Soundcloud, Spotify, and YouTube, among other online platforms. We now know independent artists can become popular without following the old classic road of having a hit in the charts. This means that the music scene is becoming more diverse than ever and old standards are vanishing.
Which brings me to my point… Måneskin is an Italian rock band that I am absolutely obsessed with! And you should be too, regardless of the fact that they don’t always sing in English, have not been in the global charts, and are not being pushed by Spotify in their non-country-specific playlists. I’m Bulgarian. Even though I lived in Italy for some time and can understand some basic Italian, I don’t understand enough to submerge myself into the lyrics of a song, the way I would if it were written in Bulgarian or English, or maybe even German… since it is the only other language I speak. But you get where I’m getting at — there’s something in this band and their music that is so good that even if their lyrics were an Italian song form of a refrigerator user manual, I wouldn’t care. The thing is, their lyrics are actually just as amazing as their music, and once you’ve translated them and know what their insanely talented singer Damiano David is singing about, your connection to their art is complete. It’s not simply some Italian song anymore, it’s about three and a half minutes of pure bliss.
Måneskin must be one of my luckiest random finds on YouTube. About two years ago I decided I needed to broaden my musical horizons and train my ears to appreciate music in different languages. It’s not easy to find a good fit, since each country has its own specific style of pop, which locals enjoy, and if that’s not your cup of tea, you don’t really know how to look for what you’d like. In any case, I had a few Italian songs I liked listening to and YouTube picked up on that and suggested Le parole lontane to me. I was dumbfounded by the melody, it instantly caught my attention and carried the emotion of the song so brilliantly, that I did not need to understand what the lyrics meant. The video on its own was so different than anything I had seen before. The vintage setting with its warm tones is contrasted by colder hues that imply the sadness of the story. I had already listened to it a few times before even caring to search the translation of the lyrics.
I mean come on… That’s just hauntingly beautiful.
I’ve been a huge fan of this band ever since I listened to this song. They have two albums so far that I have listened to back to back way more times than I’d like to admit. That’s why I was super excited when I got to know they would participate in the 71st edition of the Sanremo music festival. That meant new music and I am all for it. Their song Zitti e buoni (Shut Up And Be Quiet) stood out like a diamond in the rust to me among all other entries to the festival and I promise you, I did my best not to have a biased opinion! But there just seems to be this sort of template for the Sanremo song, which Måneskin completely violated, and thank heavens they did. Their song differed greatly in music and message, their stage presence was unique and provoking, they were simply rock stars.
I am writing this a few hours after I found out Måneskin had won, which means they will be representing Italy in this year’s Eurovision contest. If you’re European, you most likely know this contest and you have one of two possible opinions — you either love it or hate it, there’s no neutral stand possible here. And funnily enough, no matter if you hate it, or love it, it is most likely for the exact same reasons — it is an over-the-top, borderline trashy, highly political music reality show. I’ve personally grown to love it in the last few years, but I add one more reason to the list above — across a sea of generic songs, there are always a few that stand out, and Eurovision is often the only platform to give these artists the publicity they deserve. And that brings me so much joy.
I am happy Måneskin will get the exposure they need to reach a broader audience in Europe, and why not globally? It shouldn’t matter which language you sing in when you’re so talented that you evoke the right emotion in people even if they don’t understand a word of the lyrics. That’s just simply great art.
