Damiano David is becoming more and more pop

The choice, at this point, appears clear, precise: that of Damiano David da soloist consists in taking a step to the side compared to the Maneskin, on a permanent pause. If it was already clear enough with “Born With a Broken Heart”, in which the singer of the band of “Zitti e Bononi” transformed “into Harry Styles, with a video à la” La La Land “, is substantially”, it is even more so listening to it “Next Summer“.

The angular sounds of the Maneskin, between the Lasso di Victoria De Angelis laps and the Schitarrate by Thomas Raggi, are just a distant memory. At least for now. “Next Summer”, of which the Roman singer had offered an anticipation already last October on the occasion of a showcase in the Club Le Poisson Rouge of New York, is a ballad characterized by softer, acoustic sounds, which in certain melodic lines also comes to remember those, memorable, of the Abba (try not to think of “The Winner Takes It All” when he sing “SO Many Things. I Didn’T Say Before You Threw It All Away “, in the first verse), before leaving in.A refrain that could come out of any song by Sia, Selena Gomez, Benson Boone or Dua Lipa.

Moreover, the authors are the same: Damiano signed the piece together with Jason Evigan, Mark Schick and Sarah Hudsonamong the most requested hitmakers in the Music Biz d’Oltroceano, already behind the planetary successes of – among others – Katy Perry, Justin Bieber, David Guetta. Nothing new actually: the names of Hudson and Evigan already appeared in the “Rush!” Credits, the album that the Maneskin sent to the shops in 2023, after the world exploit with “shut up and good”. But if in the band the pop ambitions of Damiano, who has never made a secret of having a soul more to be a pop star than to Rockstar, were stemmed by his companions, now the singer has decided to remove the handbrake.

It was he himself, a year and a half ago, even before the break of the Maneskin, who confided in an interview with the US Youtuber Allison Hagendorf that he wanted to show how much there was authentic in his role in the band, pushing himself beyond the “compromises” necessary to “work four brains together”. And so if Victoria De Angelis joins, even if only for a cameo, ai Duran Duran In their cover of “Psycho Killer” of the Talking Heads, and who knows that the “duet” seen at the Sanremo Festival is not re -proposed at the Circus Maximus of Rome on the occasion of the two concerts of the band scheduled for 15 and 16 June, For Damiano “the time has come to say: ‘That’s who I am’“.

There is an emblematic passage, in the lyrics of the song. Before the refrain, Damiano sings: “But now I’m dancing to a band / with all the demon in My Head“What exactly does it mean?” At first listening, the song talks about a youthful love, an unrequited summer love story. But at a deeper level, he reveals a much wider reflection – he explains about the text – is a metaphor for life: how Sometimes we can be prisoners of ourselves, our fears, our insecurities, our inability to change. Our inability to see the world and life from a different perspective in the crucial and decisive moments of existence. “In short, everything returns. Or at least, so it seems.