Music and burnout: artists against the recording system
Rancor cries “Enough”: enough of the hits, the streaming, the bad feats, the remixes, the playlists, the video clips, the bots, the sponsors. Toe in the sore in “Hollywood” criticizes an industry that focuses everything on appearance and not on substance: «I am as you want me / I dance so splendid, light / but inside I fall to pieces». Nayt in “Writing” uses very harsh words: «To me the music industry in Italy sucks… 99% of the public is passive». And then there’s Madamein “Never Again” – read also: From Guccini to Madame: the “poisoned” songs against the industry – defines the industry as a «horror factory». Four different artists, all of the new generation, who in their respective albums, released in the same period, indulge in confessions and accusations aimed at the music biz, denouncing its mechanisms, pressures and dehumanization. A clue is a clue, two clues are a coincidence, but three clues are proof. Here there are even four clues. It’s as if an entire generation of artists were saying the same thing: something doesn’t work anymore. And the songs have become the first site of this rebellion.
The crises
That the pace of the music industry has become unsustainable has long been no longer a mystery. This is confirmed by the crises experienced by Sangiovanni And Angelina Mangotwo of the most popular faces of new Italian pop, both overwhelmed by the weight of a success that arrived too quickly and was consumed at an even greater speed. It was February 2024 when Sangiovanni, a few days after the end of the Sanremo Festival – where he had ranked second to last with “Finiscimi” – announced the stop to concerts and the postponement of the album. «Sometimes you have to have the courage to stop. I can no longer pretend that everything is fine and that I’m happy with what I’m doing», he wrote on social media. A message that struck because it broke the image of the young, winning, always smiling artist that the public had come to know since the days of “Amici”. Behind millions of streams, platinum records and adoring fans there was a boy exhausted, crushed by expectations and the continuous need to perform. A few months later Angelina Mango, another talent who blossomed in the most popular school in Italy, also stopped. And his case made even more noise because it arrived at the moment of maximum media exposure: the victory in Sanremo, the Eurovision Song Contest 2024, the album, the concerts, the promotion, the television appearances, all concentrated in the space of just over a year after the explosion at “Amici”. A frenetic pace. Then the silence. A sudden withdrawal that many have read as the symptom of not only physical, but emotional and mental tiredness. When she returned, a year later, she did so by surprise releasing the album “Caramé” and singing: «Maybe it’s just the end of my first act, now I just want to live». Baltimore in 2021 he won at just 20 years old X Factor. It seemed like the beginning of one of the many Italian pop fairy tales of recent years, but that wasn’t the case: «After. I wasn’t given the chance to take my time to mature humanly as an artist”, he said in our interview.
Artists too fragile or system too toxic?
At this point the question becomes inevitable: Are today’s artists too fragile, incapable of withstanding the pressure of success, or is it the system that has become truly toxic? The temptation to dismiss everything as a generational issue – kids who are more sensitive, less used to hard work, unable to handle the weight of fame – is strong. But it’s probably also superficial, boomer-ish. Because yes, it’s true, pressure in the music industry has always existed. Today, however, it seems to have taken on a new form: continuous, invasive, all-encompassing. Once upon a time, success was achieved above all on stage, in the studio or on television. Today, however, it accompanies artists at every moment of the day, through social media, streaming numbers updated in real time, algorithms, comments, the constant need to remain visible. It’s no longer enough to make music. You need to produce content, ride trends, continuously nurture your online presence. Under penalty of exclusion from the debate. Eddie Brock after the success of “Non è mica te” on TikTok, he took part in the Sanremo Festival directly among the big names, with “Avvoltoi”. He placed last. Before participating in the Festival he had announced the dates of a long summer tour, which was however deleted: «Some dates were not selling as much as we ultimately expected, because it happens», he admitted, without hiding behind a finger. And launching his new single “Bel Friday” he made it known, alluding to the ruthless mechanisms of the music biz: «I don’t hope it goes viral, that it breaks streaming, but that it excites you».
The dark side of contemporary success
In a market that devours everything quickly, even the time to grow, make mistakes or simply breathe seems to have been reduced to a minimum. Ask Blancowho in “Piangere a 90”, the song that marked his return to the scene after a long recording silence, the one in which he had holed up after having moved in a few months from his bedroom to the stages of the stadiums in Rome and Milan, with a participation in the Sanremo Festival and one in the Eurovision in between, sings: «I have touched the sky, and the finger gets cold / I have not signed for a live life». And again: «I don’t feel the shiver anymore, now I have a bruise». It is within this context that the accusations of Nayt, Madame, Rancore and Ditonellapiaga acquire a deeper meaning. Theirs do not seem like simple provocations or individual outbursts, but the collective story of a generation that is starting to show the dark side of contemporary success. A generation that not only contests the commercial logic of recording, but the human price that those logics risk imposing.
