Ariete - Young Adults in the 2020s

Over the course of the 2010s, a breath of fresh air developed along that almost entirely straight stretch of asphalt running from the Rome of Niccolò Contessa to the Latina of Edoardo Calcutta, continuing even further south, toward the Naples of Liberato. The Pontina could be renamed the "it-pop highway," having already earned notoriety both for its high rate of car accidents and for its nerve-wracking, never-ending traffic jams. Along that two-lane road, rendered obsolete by time and the growing number of cars, talent can be found pretty much everywhere: getting off at Aprilia, turning toward the sea in the direction of Anzio, a small world of charming seaside restaurants and hydrofoils ferrying tourists to the Pontine Islands, at the end of the decade a very young singer-songwriter, still a teenager, began writing her first verses. Her name is Arianna Del Giaccio, but many are coming to know her by the moniker Ariete.

After a brief stint on X-Factor (all things considered, probably for the best that she didn't make it past the bootcamps…), in November 2019 she released her first single, "Quel bar," followed the next month by "01/12": these were her calling cards, sent out into the world, which quickly became something of a cult phenomenon in the Roman music underground, her first steps, with Arianna tackling, with tender simplicity, subjects that many of her peers recognized as their own. These bedroom recordings were soon picked up by the attentive radar of Bomba Dischi, one of the most experienced labels in the it-pop field. And so Ariete quickly set down, on her debut EP Spazio, her realistic accounts of dependencies (a title like "Pillole" says it all) and listless days passing by, brightened only occasionally by love affairs that inevitably burn out too fast. Complicated loves, all declined in the feminine, unstable affections, creeping malaise that at that age seems invincible, indelible.

Those in their twenties can't help but fall for these lyrics, feeling they speak directly to them; those who are fifteen jot them down in their diaries and turn them into anthems to wave in front of their peers; those in their forties or fifties feel a protective instinct kick in toward a teenager who could be their own daughter. Yes, Ariete ends up winning over even the older crowd too, those who'd like to offer her advice on resolving conflicts and facing the toughest choices, the adults who can appreciate how much of Calcutta lies between the lines of "Amianto," and how much reverberating 1980s influence hides behind the Cure-style guitar over the four-on-the-floor beat of "Avrei voluto dirti." Also worth noting are the inevitable influence of the urban-hip-hop scene and the featured appearance of Drast of gli Psicologi on the track "Riposa in pace."
Spazio came out in May 2020, in the thick of the pandemic, during the first lockdown; there was no way to take these songs on tour, and there wouldn't be for months, but somehow they spread anyway, becoming an invaluable asset for thousands of young people confined to their homes by decree. Meanwhile Ariete kept writing and doling out short songs that captured, with great effectiveness, the daily life of Covid-generation teenagers—kids who don't always want to conform to the crowd, who have a real hunger to live, to discover the world, to share experiences, to make mistakes, to fall in love, yet who are marked by a creeping malaise that refuses to go away.

In September, Ariete appeared on gli Psicologi's single "Tatuaggi," and in December, just before the awful year of 2020 came to an end, her second EP, 18 Anni, was released—a decisive step forward from the tracks, already quite sharp in truth, found on her previous work. The title track stands out, quickly earning the coveted status of generational anthem. There's a lot of early Calcutta in Ariete's writing and expressiveness, in the way she builds lines in which many teenagers can see themselves reflected, recognized. Six new vignettes unfold, portraying protagonists who show a need for sincerity yet struggle to relate to others, who suffer from loneliness and are in perpetual search of great love, yet tend to withdraw into themselves, feeling hemmed in, feeling lost. Hyper-realistic stories that turned Arianna into one of the most beloved singer-songwriters among those in their twenties.
Little fragments of listless post-adolescent everyday life. Twenty years of living, the most recent of which spent amid nights not worth remembering, lousy parties, creeping malaise, relationships that fell apart too soon, small and large failures recounted with tender simplicity, against a backdrop of endless metropolitan loneliness, blank pages to fill with words and intense emotions, telling the story of a generation that craves sincerity. Kids desperately seeking the definitive love story while at the same time showing great instability and difficulty relating to others, hardly helped by the sterile world of social media and a pandemic that distanced them even further.

The eternally sulky Ariete looks inward and tries to decode herself and what surrounds her, so sharply that it feels like standing in front of a mirror. The small cult following from the Roman underground is turning into a full-fledged musical idol, and the spark is lit with her first true album, Specchio, released in February 2022, by which point the singer-songwriter had already lined up a string of sold-out shows for what would become the record's promotional tour. Sold out for the two dates scheduled at Alcatraz in Milan, sold out for the two planned at Atlantico in Rome—prestigious venues, where the artists who matter play. The pandemic left behind a huge hunger for live events, for occasions to be together, to build community, and what better occasion than a concert?
Inside Specchio are eleven short, incisive tracks, new introverted hyper-realistic narratives in which the protagonist is her, Arianna, but which actually represent the entire universe surrounding her. While the already well-known "Club" stands as the album's most representative moment, a careful ear should also be given to certain musical choices that introduce pleasant discontinuities, in particular the arpeggios of "L," which recall certain very XX-like atmospheres, and the beats that ripple through the movements of "Avviso." Elsewhere the atmosphere stays more minimal, as in a "Spifferi" carried solely by the soft notes of a piano. There are two featured collaborations, which fit perfectly into Ariete's world: Madame reaches out to her on "Cicatrici," Franco126 accompanies her on "Fragili."

Having started out at a disadvantage, needing to carve out her own space right in the middle of the pandemic, in 2023 Ariete saw her popularity grow exponentially thanks to her appearance at the Sanremo Festival, with a song—"Mare di guai"—written for her by the ace pairing of Calcutta and Dardust. A bit apprehensive during her performance on opening night, Arianna gained confidence in the following appearances, and even more so in the weeks that followed when she showed up as a guest on numerous TV programs, sparking great curiosity among those who didn't yet know her, perhaps because of her extremely shy way of presenting herself, that of someone who would like to pour out her whole world all at once but never quite manages to go all the way, a victim of incurable introversion.
This is the moment when the transformation from chrysalis to butterfly can be said to be complete, from a small cult favorite of the Roman independent underground to the mouthpiece (of at least part) of her own generation. Now considered in full one of the most interesting and promising new names in young Italian singer-songwriting, one of her unreleased tracks, "Avviso," was even included in FC 24, a football-themed video game distributed by EA Sports. By the time summer was over, all the conditions were truly in place to launch her second album into orbit.

La notte, released in September 2023, cements a style that is by now perfectly distinguishable, heightened by a narrative centered on the fragile stories of everyday life and the never-simple interpersonal relationships of a twenty-year-old girl. Everything remains strictly declined in the feminine, love stories included, a trait that, while making the lyrics a touch repetitive on one hand, helps consolidate her status as a generational icon on the other. The result is yet another snapshot, coherent and realistic, able to effectively represent the days, thoughts, emotions, words, hopes, dreams, broken loves, and discomforts of her peers. Unlike most figures in the it-pop scene, however, Ariete confirms her ability to somehow win over the hearts of older listeners too, a situation that puts her in a position to aim, over time, for bigger success than many of the peers she's drafting behind.
Lines like "sei solo un letto disfatto da un'altra persona" or "quattro del mattino e non so chi sono" express an existentialist poetics tinged with abandonment and disorientation; musically, on the other hand, the melancholic streak remains strong and decisive. The endless acoustic sweetness of "Rumore," the minimalism of "Le cose che ho fatto per piacerti," the piano gently accompanying the moving unfolding of "Quattro inverni" certainly set a mood steeped in spleen, but among these eleven tracks there also emerge the danceable pop of "Un'altra ora" and "Nostalgia," along with at least a couple of instant classics, the kind that will stand the test of time. Not only the already-mentioned and far too underrated "Mare di guai" (the song she brought to Sanremo), but even more so "Un'altra ora," unspooled over a synth-pop carpet that winks at the 1980s, finally delivering a little bit of carefree lightness as well.

Three years later, in October 2026 Ariete returns to the scene with her long-awaited third album, Everyone Goes Home, a project born after a period away from the stage spent processing her personal growth, decoding the end of adolescence, and searching for her own inner balance. Whereas in her early work the singer-songwriter from Anzio had given voice to the everyday insecurities of an entire generation, her bedroom-pop now embodies a far more conscious path of maturation: the teenager of her first EPs definitively gives way to a "young adult" capable of looking inward, of forgiving and forgiving herself. On the cover sits a suitcase, inside it is Ariete's whole world, and she herself is there too, curled up, an entire home inside a suitcase. An image that perfectly mirrors the album's thread, the exploration of the concept of "home," understood not simply as a physical, geographical space, but as an intimate refuge, a safe and comforting harbor, made up of loved ones, hard-won self-awareness, and a deep acceptance of one's own identity. It opens with the "home-beehive" parallel, a delicate, introspective beginning built on soft piano and synth lines, and from there twelve tracks unfold across a pleasantly lean thirty-two minutes, a well-calibrated journey during which Arianna Del Giaccio ranges between indie singer-songwriting, urban leanings, and unexpected dream-pop flourishes.
Even in its sunnier moments, a certain underlying melancholy remains constant, an element that has always marked her path, the zigzagging between complicated relationships, often broken off and perhaps rekindled, the small but significant misunderstandings that mark the daily routine of her generation. Several duets enrich the record, with Angelina Mango ("Che bella vita," a reflection on the responsibilities of "growing up"), with Fulminacci ("Mano nella mano," a union steeped in Roman-ness), with Tredici Pietro ("Casa mia / Casa tua," on the contrast between physical places, roots and distances). "Quando la luna si accende," one of the album's high points, is a well-judged collaboration with the "new Ariete," Prima Stanza a Destra, an ethereal track, subtly inspired by the dreamy sounds of Beach House, perfect for depicting a room suddenly filling with light, or a drive home with the lights off. "Seduta n.65" is the ideal closer, drawing its lifeblood from a journey through psychotherapy: without filters or pretense, the singer-songwriter reckons with the events of recent years and takes her leave, leaving the listener with a sense of peace and release. You'd want to hug Ariete tight; her shy, fragile way of presenting herself stirs up a protective instinct: you'd want to wrap her up, shield her, a precious little treasure of our country's new indie singer-songwriting scene.

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