Manuel Agnelli takes aim at Tony Pitony: “His music has no value, he's a resort-town performer”

In an interview with Rolling Stone, Manuel Agnelli returns to the TonyPitony affair and restates, without mincing words, his opinion on the artist who's been in the spotlight these past few days, partly thanks to his well-received cover of “The Lady Is A Tramp” performed on the stage of the Sanremo Festival alongside Ditonellapiaga.

“I couldn't care less about what TonyPitony does. I see no artistic value in it whatsoever”, Agnelli says. “He's an effective performer, but strictly luxury-resort material. Just think of acts like Squallor or Skiantos“.

The singer took part in the auditions for the fourteenth season of X Factor Italy in 2020, only to be turned down by Agnelli himself. A rejection that, over time, morphed into a viral moment, indirectly boosting his visibility.

Agnelli clarifies his position: “I wasn't there to look for what works on the market. I couldn't care less about that. Otherwise I'd have to legitimize any project that sells, artificial intelligence included.” He adds: “An artist has to have a vision. That day there were four judges with four different sensibilities.”

Mika took a different approach, having instead championed TonyPitony: “He was probably looking for something marketable. That's a language that isn't mine, if anything I find it off-putting. As a performer he's good, but he's hardly a one-off.”

Finally, Agnelli comments on the public's reactions and the social media storm sparked by the whole affair: “I'm surprised by how many people go so far as to insult me. It's a reflection of a distorted mechanism: if something works then it's valid, if it doesn't work it isn't. By that logic, the history of art wouldn't exist.” A dynamic that, according to the musician, paints “a clear picture of cultural impoverishment,” fuelled by immediate, oversimplified logics of consensus.

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