Ditonellapiaga

If with “Miss Italia” Ditonellapiaga wanted to express her discomfort at feeling “out of place” in today’s society, the grotesque legal dispute over the album’s title—brought against her by Patrizia Mirigliani—certainly gave her an extra reason. For days, “Miss Italia” risked having to change its name for some inexplicable reason, until (today) the Tribunal of Rome finally dismissed the appeal. “What a nuisance!”, one might comment, quoting the Sanremo hit that forcefully boosted the profile of Rome-born Margherita Carducci, class of 1997. A virtually perfect track, towering well above the dismal average of this Sanremo edition, with its acid-house groove driven by a Roland TB-303 analog synth, its sardonic list of conventions to despise, and a performance that is both ironic and sensual.

Third place in the final Ariston ranking, a triumph in terms of listens—especially on the radio—strong critical acclaim and, last but not least, first place awarded by OndaRock readers in our Sanremo poll. A near-plebiscite further reinforced by her success in the covers night alongside TonyPitony thanks to a delightful rendition of “The Lady Is A Tramp”. Everything seemed to fall perfectly into place in Ditonellapiaga’s universe: sounds, look, music videos, choreography, dance routines, gags, interviews. Not a single misstep.

And yet, beyond the objections raised by the beauty pageant organizer, the statuesque Roman singer still has to contend with the pitfalls of her role. Ditonellapiaga is, in fact, the kind of artist constantly poised between opposing risks: drawing the ire of haters, the skepticism of music critics, the nerdy snobbery of industry insiders, or conversely becoming the object of generic adoration from those same groups. Celebrated and awarded after her successful Sanremo duet with Rettore at the time of “Chimica”, winner of the Targa Tenco for Best Debut Album in that same year, 2022, with “Camouflage”, she seemed to have gradually slipped off the media radar and become vulnerable to rejection by the establishment. A second album, “Flash” (Dischi Belli/Bmg, 2024), far less fortunate than its predecessor despite features with Coma_Cose, Gaia and Fulminacci, was followed by a long silence punctuated by a few cameos (including with Elodie and Ornella Vanoni on the cover of “Ti voglio”) and TV appearances, just enough to signal she was still active.

Margherita Carducci does not hide the difficulties she has faced, and the causes are fairly clear, also considering the authenticity of her persona. Beyond a moniker that is not exactly accommodating, there is her ironic language, her love for pop that sidelines the “hardliners”—those who don’t dance, don’t laugh, don’t get emotional. Then there is a songwriting identity so precise and defined that it can at times feel repetitive, paired with a heterogeneous production palette that may unsettle more passive or prejudiced listeners. Add to that a rowdy Roman spirit and a charismatic femininity steeped in Hollywood and shabby chic imagery, complete with a Veronica Lake/Jessica Rabbit hairstyle, which has earned her the adoration of the LGBTQIA+ community but also plenty of gratuitous misogyny. Finally, her explicit progressive stance has drawn attacks from conservative keyboard warriors.

Against this backdrop, in “Miss Italia” Ditonellapiaga chooses to stay true to the project’s core identity, amplifying its defining traits starting from the strongest tracks of her second album—“ILY”, “Mary” and “Non resisto”, created in tandem with Roman songwriter and producer Whitemary—and pursuing a path of intelligent, sharp, intrinsically millennial electronic pop. It is inhabited by genuine anger, awareness, but also an irresistible sense of humor. Here, words, languages and allusions are handled with finesse, blending high and low, urban metaphors and mass intelligibility. Thus “Miss Italia” is not just the title of a beauty queen, but above all a cliché: that of “the winner, the perfect woman, someone who never makes mistakes and embodies an absolute idea of success”, as she explained in interviews. A figure gradually brought back to a more fragile dimension, as in the title track—a biting reflection on image construction in which the Miss figure is emptied and questioned (“The luckiest one, a miss/and you can play with her heart/ she’s a doll/ who covers a tear with concealer”). And when she sings “give me a razor blade in front of the mirror”, the mind inevitably returns to her muse Rettore in “Kamikaze Rock’n’Roll Suicide” mode.

Written and composed entirely by Ditonellapiaga together with Alessandro Casagni, who also handles production, “Miss Italia” confidently presses on the dancefloor button, with straight kick drums, layered vocals and choruses, without ever lapsing into self-serving hedonism. Rather, it stands as a full-fledged statement of intent: from the opening electropop of “Sì lo so”, where she self-accuses in her own way (“Yes I know, I’m a liar/ A bastard, but it’s none of your business”), to the driving “Tropicana Hotline”, which skewers contemporary gossip with a biting approach reminiscent of Mara Redeghieri in “Memobox” (Ustmamò), to the disarming nursery rhyme of “Bibidi bobidi bu”, in which Margherita revisits the moment she had to redefine her direction, clashing with the music business to avoid being crushed between pop ambitions and alternative impulses: “I’d like to make pop, avoid the flop/ Yet I always see myself stuck on the sidelines”.

Relief from the tension comes with “Hollywood”, the album’s only ballad, released as the second single and built around piano, voice and strings, with a suspended Lana Del Rey-like atmosphere interrupted by the intrusion of trip-hop beats and a tighter, near-rap metric, clearly recalling certain 1990s productions. The lyrics reveal an obsessive love that leads to self-erasure, to the point where even self-recognition becomes difficult.

And while more introspective tracks like “Prima o poi” and “Io” adopt a more intimate tone—between accepting change and attempting to piece oneself back together after a fall (“I’ve got no nails left to dig my own grave/ I don’t feel like going in circles anymore, I’m done/ with hitting rock bottom/ I’m broken and slowly putting myself back together”)—“Le brave ragazze”, featured in the soundtrack of the film “Notte prima degli esami 3.0”, in which Ditonellapiaga made her acting debut, returns to 2010s dance sounds in an attempt to recapture the (lost) lightness of adolescence.

“La verità” closes the album with a straight kick and a club aesthetic reminiscent of Myss Keta, only seemingly carefree, with an underlying melancholy that finds its only outlet in dance, and a mantra-like refrain repeating: “Don’t stop crying babe (and there’s no way to avoid it)/ Always feeling misunderstood”.

Perhaps she could have pushed further, but “Miss Italia” marks a significant step forward for Ditonellapiaga, giving grounds to hope for an even brighter future and restoring her as a central figure in Italian pop music.

13/04/2026