Spotify's charts in Italy

Right on schedule, like lentils with cotechino at New Year's, Spotify's year-end charts kick off the usual debate about what Italians have been listening to in recent months and where things might be headed next. Given the airless, stagnant state of rap made in Italy, to borrow a phrase dear to today's politicians, there's little reason for optimism. The first thing that jumps out suggests sheer stasis: Sfera Ebbasta is once again confirmed as Italy's most-streamed artist on the platform of platforms. Helped along by his brand new album, which our site greeted with a resounding 5 in Antonio Silvestri's review, a verdict this writer wholeheartedly shares, the rapper, superstar, influencer and entrepreneur from Cinisello Balsamo has repeated a success about as predictable as yet another Ballon d'Or handed to Messi. Meanwhile, on a global scale, that thing once known as hip-hop is struggling to climb out of a slow, physiological decline, one that in the States has already revealed a new order of things, bowing to the unstoppable Taylor Swift, who tops the chart ahead of Bad Bunny, The Weeknd, Drake and Peso Pluma.

In short, things beyond Italy's borders are shifting, leaning toward mainstream pop. And that too is news. But what about Maneskin? For yet another year, the most divisive band on social media is confirmed as the most-streamed Italian act abroad, followed by Meduza and Ludovico Einaudi. Further down, big names like Laura Pausini hold steady in sixth place, making her the most-streamed Italian female artist on Spotify worldwide. Ah yes, women. Spotify decided to split everything by gender — a choice that clashes rather awkwardly with the heated socio-political debate that has flared up in our country in recent weeks, among other places. In this ill-timed distinction, the most-streamed female artist in the boot is a certain ANNA, who, wouldn't you know it, is also one of the faces of Equal, Spotify's global program promoting gender equality and celebrating women's contribution to the world of audio.

So contradictions and paradoxes ripple like waves against the shore, ultimately conveying a general sense of drift amid the chaos of a scene increasingly crowded with stand-ins manufactured to order in the record industry's Milanese offices. It's a stale overall picture, and a rather sad one at that, given that electronic music tout court, disco, singer-songwriter fare, rock and all the rest are left out in the cold, dismissed by most (younger) listeners as alien genres, while what used to be commonly understood as underground now gathers around figures like Daniela Pes, who of course (and thankfully, the snobbier among us would say) sits several megaparsecs away from Spotify's upper echelons — which exposes the whole crew of "alternative music" listeners to yet another merciless generational clash, one whose tone grows ever more inappropriate and at times downright embarrassing.

Then there's Sanremo, with its hefty load of viral singles flooding everything in the first six months of the year. Sure enough, this year no fewer than three Sanremo tracks make the top ten songs, led by Lazza's "Cenere". In second and third place we find "Gelosa" (feat. Shiva, Sfera Ebbasta, Guè) by Finesse and "Vetri neri" by Ava, ANNA (her again) and Capo Plaza. And then "Come vuoi" by Geolier, another dominant force of 2023 according to Spotify, and "Quevedo: Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol. 52" by Bizarrap and Quevedo. The top ten songs, then, is also very much an all-Italian affair, with the Secondigliano rapper just mentioned popping up an astonishing three times. He's also behind the most-streamed album, "Il coraggio dei bambini", followed by Lazza's "Sirio" and Tedua's "La Divina Commedia". So rap, rap and more rap again. Or at least something vaguely resembling that thing that spread from the Bronx across the Atlantic back in the day.

At this point, the question, as Antonio Lubrano might have put it — a presenter we're pretty sure 99% of regular Spotify listeners wouldn't recall even faintly — naturally arises: when will we climb out of this swamp? If the numbers hold and our country keeps behaving like a province of the Empire, we won't get out of it for at least another two years, that is, once the decline of rappers, already underway for a while in the States after years of absolute dominance, starts to show here too. Better late than never, alternative "ruock" fans and fifty-somethings on social media would say. But this is an even more complicated matter, because while the rap wave has an intrinsic connection to today's modes of listening consumption, it's equally true that there's a rather quiet but significant slice of people who couldn't care less and prefer plenty of other things to Spotify, starting with K-pop stars' vinyl records. It's a trench still waiting to be explored — not just for the fun of it, but to be able to peek, even for a few seconds, at the sole of the shoe and gladly shake out that damn pebble.

Most-streamed artists in Italy

1. Sfera Ebbasta

2. Geolier

3. Lazza

4. Shiva

5. Guè

6. Tedua

7. Marracash

8. Pinguini Tattici Nucleari

9. Capo Plaza

10. thasup

Most-streamed female artists in Italy

1. ANNA

2. Taylor Swift

3. Madame

4. Annalisa

5. Elodie

6. Rose Villain

7. Shakira

8. Rosalía

9. Lana Del Rey

10. Rihanna

Most-streamed Italian artists abroad

1. Måneskin

2. MEDUZA

3. Ludovico Einaudi

4. Gabry Ponte

5. Antonio Vivaldi

6. Laura Pausini

7. Eros Ramazzotti

8. Gigi D’Agostino

9. Andrea Bocelli

10. Baby Gang

Most streamed songs

1. “Cenere” by Lazza

2. “Gelosa (feat. Shiva, Sfera Ebbasta, Guè)” by Finesse

3. “Vetri Neri” by Ava, ANNA and Capo Plaza

4. “Come Vuoi” by Geolier

5. “Quevedo: Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol. 52” by Bizarrap and Quevedo

6. “Hoe (feat. Sfera Ebbasta)” by Tedua and Sfera Ebbasta

7. “X Caso (feat. Sfera Ebbasta)” by Geolier and Sfera Ebbasta

8. “Il Male Che Mi Fai (feat. Marracash)” by Geolier and Marracash

9. “Supereroi” by Mr.Rain

10. “Tango” by Tananai

The most streamed albums

1. “Il coraggio dei bambini” by Geolier

2. “Sirio” by Lazza

3. “La Divina Commedia” by Tedua

4. “Milano Demons” by Shiva

5. “Fake News” by Pinguini Tattici Nucleari

6. “c@ra++ere s?ec!@le” by Thasup

7. “Materia (Prisma)” by Marco Mengoni

8. “Madreperla” by Guè

9. “Rave, eclissi” by Tananai

10. “10” by Drillionaire

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