WORTH A LOOK?: ****
If winning May’s Eurovision Song Contest in front of 183 million viewers wasn’t enough, Italy’s Måneskin had a top 20 hit with the victorious Zitti e buoni in the UK – and then followed it with 2 top 10 successes.
- Read on for reasons including how London’s live music gig scene was key to the band’s success
In fact if you were looking for the 1st Eurovision-related act to have 2 top 10 UK singles at the same time and thought it might be ABBA, you would be wrong.
Måneskin hold both this record and are also the 1st Italian act ever to do so, not bad at a time when their home country beat England in the Euro 2020 football competition.
The highest charting of these 3 very recent UK hits is the English language pick here which showcases the impossibly swaggering lead singer Damiano David, half Danish bassist Victoria De Angelis, guitarist Thomas Raggi and drummer Ethan Torchio in a fresh new light.
We mention De Angelis’ heritage because it must have informed the band’s choice of name, which is Danish for ‘moonlight’.
The band are interviewed in Rolling Stone this month and explain that before writing their 2021 album, Teatro D’ira: Vol. 1 (Theater of Wrath), the quartet moved to London to experience what it’s like to be a part of a real music scene. ‘In London, there’s so many concerts every night. We had the chance to see many different bands, and that gave us a lot of inspiration,’ De Angelis explains.
‘[The video above] is about sex and how you [express yourself] sexually,” she adds. “The song is about feeling free to be whoever you want and there’s no right or bad things. We wanted to show that in the video.”
There’s a fluidity about the band which seems to be striking a chord with the more interesting members of their vastly growing fanbase. ‘When we were younger, we were not that confident or sure about ourselves, but we had the chance to grow up together and support each other,’ David tells Rolling Stone. ‘We want to share our experience with our fans, and we try to encourage people to be who they are. Everyone should have the right and possibility what they want to share or what they want to be without being judged or sent away.’
For us they’ve come so much further than when they were 2nd in 2017 X Factor Italy. While their Franz Ferdinand, Red Hot Chilli Peppers and White Stripes musical touchstones are not ones we cling too tightly, any band as sexy and with the nerve to sing ‘a mother f***ing monster searching for redemption’ deserves both our respect and applause.
We think Måneskin are the moonlight that’s going to shine longer – and longer still.
monstagigz 
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