The Sunday Read: ‘Is Måneskin the Last Rock Band?’

Cano. [Music]. manin I'm Dan Brooks and I'm a. contributor to the New York Times. magazine this week's Sunday reads a. story I wrote for the magazine about. [Music]. monis they're a band of four very. good-looking Italians in their early 20s. who play throwback rock.

[Applause]. music they sound like a lot of bands. from the post emo era it's this super. competent execution of familiar elements. and structures that evoke 2000's rock. with what I call an unsung Boogie Rhythm. so a boogie rhythm is eighth notes but. swung and bands like France Ferdinand. The Strokes they often use Boogie.

rhythms but not swung played in clean. time monus's tracks like I want to be. your. [Music]. slave and the Eurovision winning. [Music]. zton are hugely popular in Continental. Europe they're the biggest International.

music stars from Italy since luchano. pavati and they got there by busking on. the streets as teenagers and then going. on to win a series of talent. shows last month they kicked off a big. multi-venue tour of the United States. with a soldout show at Madison Square. Garden and what's interesting about this. band is that their core fan base is not. closely connected to the American. critical establishment at all in fact. critics kind of hate. monos.

I first heard of monos through a. scathing review of their most recent. album Rush on Pitchfork the article went. viral after giving the record a score of. 2.0 out of 10 and holding up the band as. an example of many generally bad Trends. in music the use of multiband. compression the predictable song. structures the sometimes actively stupid. lyrics so when I looked them up I was. Aston to see how popular they are they. currently claim 8 billion streams across.

various. platforms as a gen xer who grew up in an. indie rock versus mainstream Rock. dichotomy I was sort of like well this. is mainstream Rock but then I realized. there's not really any such thing as. mainstream Rock anymore the last number. one rock single was Nickelback's how you. remind me in 2001 which makes genen Z. the first generation in about 70 years. that has not experienced rock and roll. as a form of pop music.

instead monos is making pop music that. takes the form of rock and that's why I. was so interested in writing about them. so I flew out to Rome during a heatwave. and I spent many hours with monus and. their impressively large management team. I saw their soldout shows at the stadio. olympico in Rome and the stadio jeppe. Miata in. Milan on stage they put on these wildly.

theatrical carefully engineered. performances filled with pyro and. erratic spotlights all of it emphasizing. the return of the big Stadium Rock show. one of the values of that performance is. to call attention to the artificial or. perform nature of it all monos wants you. to remember that you're watching a show. and it's very much a zero irony. [Music]. presentation so here's my article is. monos the last rock band read by James.

Patrick. Cronin the American visitor to Rome. arrives with certain preconceptions that. feel like stereotypes but turn out to be. basically accurate there really are. mopeds flying around everywhere and. traffic seems governed by the principle. that anyone can be replaced breakfast is. coffee and.

cigarettes despite these orthopedic and. nutritional hazards everyone is better. looking not literally everyone of course. but statistically as if whatever. selective forces that emerge from Urban. density have had an extra 100. Generations or so to work and they. really do talk like that an emphatic mix. of vowels gestures and car horns known. as. Italian to be scolded in this language. by a driver who wants to park in the. crosswalk is to realize that some.

popular ideas are actually true also it. is. hot the triumphant return to Rome of. monuskin arguably the only rock stars of. their generation and almost certainly. the biggest Italian rock band of all. time coincided with the heat wave across. southern Europe on that Tuesday in July. the temperature hit. 107° the Tyber looked thick rippled in. places and still in others as if were. reducing by Thursday morning the band's.

vast management team was officially. concerned that the knights soldout. performance at the studo olympico would. be delayed when monkin finally took the. stage around 9:30 p.m. it was still well. into the 90s which was too bad because. there would be. pyro there was no opening act possibly. because no rock band operating at this. level is within 10 years of Mona Skin's. age the guitarist Thomas Raji played the. riff to don't want to sleep the lights.

came up and 60,000 Italians screamed. Damiano David the band's singer and at. age 24 its oldest member charged out in. Black flared trousers and a mesh top. that bisected his torso diagonally his. heavy brow and hypers symmetrical. features making him look like some. futuristic Nomad who hunted The Fishnet. Mammoth Victoria d'angelus the basist. wore a mini dress made from strips of. leather or possibly bunge courts Raji.

wore non-porous pants and a black button. down he quickly discarded while etent. Torio drummed in a vest with no shirt. underneath his hair flying for the next. several minutes of alternately. disciplined and frenzied noise they. sounded as if mle crew had been. cryogenically frozen then revived in. 2010 with Rob Thomas on. vocals that hypothetical will appeal to. some while repelling others and which. category you fall into is with all due.

respect not my business here rolling. stone for its part said that Mona skin. only managed to confirm how hard rock. and roll has to work these days to be. noticed and a viral Pitchfork Review. called their most recent album. absolutely terrible at every conceivable. level but this kind of thumbs up thumbs. down criticism is pretty much fastigial. now that music is free if you want to. know whether you like monuskin the name. is Danish you can fire up the internet. and add to the more than 9 billion.

streams Sony Music claims the band has. accumulated across Spotify YouTube. Etc as for whether monkin is good Theus. know as disput as previous Italians once. said in matters of taste there can be no. arguments you should know though that. even though their music has been heard. most often through phone and laptop. speakers monuskin sounds better on a. soccer field that is what tens of. thousands of fans came to the sto.

olympico on an eyelid scorching Thursday. to experience the culturally if not. personally familiar commodity of a. stadium Rock show delivered by the. unprecedented phenomenon of a stadium. level Italian rock band the Pyro 20ft. Jets of swivel articulated flame that. you could feel all the way up in the. mezzanine kicked in on gasoline a song. monuskin wrote to protest Vladimir. Putin's invasion of Ukraine from a. Thrust platform in the center of the.

field David poured his full emotive. Powers into the pre chorus standing. alone on that hill using your fuel to. kill we won't take it standing still. watch us. dance the effect these words will have. on President Putin is unknown they. capture something though about rock and. roll which has established certain. conventions over the last seven decades. one of those conventions is an. atmosphere of rebellion it doesn't have. to be real you probably don't even want.

it to be but neither can it seem too. contrived because the defining. constraint of rock as a genre is that. you have to feel it the successful rock. song creates in listeners the sensation. of defying consensus even if they are. right in step with it the need to feel. the rock may explain the documented. problems of fans taste becoming Frozen. in whatever era was happening when they. were between the ages of 15 and. 25 anyone who adoles after Spotify.

however did not grow up with rock as an. organically developing form and is. likely to have experienced the whole. catalog simultaneously listening to Leed. Zeppelin at the same time they listened. to Pixies and France Ferdinand I.E as a. genre rather than as particular artists. the way my generation I'm 46 experienced. Jazz the members of monuskin belong to. this post Spotify cohort as the youngest. and most prominent custodians of the.

rock tradition their job is to sell new. guitar-driven songs of 100 to 150 beats. per minute to a larger and larger. audience many of whom are young people. who primarily think of such music as a. historical artifact starting this month. monkin will take this business on a. multi venue tour of the United States a. market where they are considerably less. known whose first stop is Madison Square. Garden I think the genre thing is like. orio said to me backstage in Rome making.

a gesture that conveyed translingual. complexity we can do a metaphor if you. eat fish meat and peanuts every day like. for years and then you discover potatoes. one day you'll be like wow potatoes I. like potatoes potatoes are great but. potatoes have been there the whole time. rock was the potato in this metaphor and. he seemed to be saying that even though. many people were just now discovering. that they liked it it had actually been. around for a long time time it was a.

revealing analogy the implication was. that rock like the potato is here to. stay but what if rock is like the potato. in our age of abundance comparatively. Bland and no longer anyone's. [Music]. favorite which rock song came first is a.

topic of disagreement but one strong. candidate is Rocket 88 recorded by Ike. Turner and his Kings of Rhythm band in. 1951 it's about a car and in its final. verse about drinking in the car these. themes captured the context in which. rock and roll emerged a period when. household incomes availability of. consumer goods and the share of. Americans experiencing adolescence all. increased. simultaneously although and possibly. because Rock started as black music it.

found a gigantic audience of white. teenagers during the so-called British. Invasion of the mid1 1960s The Beatles. The Rolling Stones the who which made it. the dominant form of pop music for the. next two. decades the stadium Progressive Era. Journey Fleetwood Mac Foreigner that now. constitutes the bulk of Classic Rock. Radio gave way eventually to punk The. Ramones Patty Smith Minor Threat and. then glam metal Twisted SST guns and. roses and various other hair intensive.

bands that were obliterated by the. success of Nirvana and pearljam in. 1991 this shift can be understood as the. ultimate Triumph of punk both in its. return to emotive content expressed. through simpler arrangements and in its. professed hostility toward the music. industry. itself after 1991 suspicion of anything. resembling pop became a mark of. seriousness among both Rock critics and. fans it is is probably not a coincidence.

that this period is also when Rock's. cultural hegemony began to WAN as the 9s. progressed larger and again wider. audiences embraced hip-hop and the last. song classified as rock to reach number. one on the Billboard Hot 100 was. Nickelback's how you remind me in. 2001 the Run of bands that became. popular during the SS The Strokes The. Killers Kings of leyon constituted. Rock's last great commercial gasp but. none of their singles charted higher.

than number. four let us say then that the era of. rock as pop music lasted from 1951 to. 2011 that's a three generation run if. you take seriously Rock's advice to get. drunk and have sex in the car and. therefore produce children at around age. 20 Baby Boomers were the generation that. made Rock a zillion doll industry Gen X. saved it from that industry with Punk. and Indie and Millennials closed it all. out playing guitar. hero the members of monuskin are between.

the ages of 22 and 24 situating them. firmly within the Cadre of people who. understand Rock in the past tense the. angelist the basist and Raji the. guitarist formed the band when they were. both attending a music-oriented middle. school David was a friend of friends. while tooro was the only person who. responded to their Facebook ads seeking. a drummer there are few entrylevel rock. venues in Rome so they started by. busking on the street streets in 2017.

they entered the cattle call audition. for the Italian version of the xfactor. they eventually finished as Runners up. to the ballader Lorenzo litra and an EP. of songs they performed on the show was. released by Sony music and went triple. platinum in 2021 Mona skin won the Sano. Music Festival earning the right to. represent Italy with their song ziti. eoni whose title roughly translates to. shut up and behave in that Year's. Eurovision song contest this program is.

not widely viewed in the United States. but it is a gigantic deal in Europe and. monuskin. won not long after they began to appear. on International singles charts and I. want to be your slave broke the British. top 10 a European tour followed as well. as us appearances at festivals and. historic venues this Ascent to stardom. was not unmarred by controversy the. Eurovision live broadcast caught David. bending over to table off stage and. members of the media accused him of.

snorting cocaine David insisted he was. innocent and took a drug test which he. passed but monuskin and their management. still seem indignant about the whole. Affair it's exactly this kind of in. congruous detail this damaging rumor. that a rock star did cocaine that. highlights how the Italian music. consuming public differs from the. American one many elements of Monas. Skin's presentation like the. crossdressing and the occasional mail M. on male kiss are genuinely upsetting to.

older Italians even as they seem. familiar or even hack need to audiences. in the United. States they see a band of young. good-looking guys that are dressing up. too much and then it's not pure rock and. roll because you're not in a garage. looking ugly the angelist says the more. conservative side they're shocked. because of how we dress or move on stage. or the boys wear. makeup she and her bandmates are caught. between two demographics the relatively. conservative European audience that made.

them famous and the more tolerant if not. downright desensitized American audience. that they must impress to keep the ride. moving and they do have to keep it. moving because like many rock stars. before them most of the band dropped out. of high school to do this at one point. Raji told me that he had sat in on some. classes at a university just to try to. understand what is. that one question that emerged early in. my discussions with Mona Skin's friendly.

and professional management team was. whether I was going to say that their. music was bad this concern seemed. related to the aforementioned viral. Pitchfork review in which the editor. Jeremy lson wrote that their new album. Rush sounds like it's made for. introducing the allnew Ford F-150 and. seems to be optimized for getting busy. in a Buffalo Wild Wing's bathroom on. route to a score of 2.0 out of 10 while. the members of monuskin seemed to take. this review philosophically their presle.

aison were concerned that I was coming. to Italy to have a similar type of. fun here I should disclose that Larsson. edited an essay I wrote for Pitchfork. about the Talking Heads album remain in. light score 10.0 and that I think of. myself as his friend possibly because of. these biases I read his review as. reflecting his deeply held and among. Rock Fans widely shared need to feel the. music something that the many pop. commercial elements of Rush EG familiar.

song structures lyrics that seem to have. emerged from a collaboration between. Google translate and nikki6 compulsive. use of multiband compression left him. unable to. do this perspective reflects the post 9s. Rock consensus pnrc that anything that. sounds too much like a mass Market. product is no good the pnrc is premised. on the idea that rock is not just a. struct of song but also a structure of.

relationship between the band and. Society from Rock's earliest days as. black music the real or perceived. opposition between rocker and Society. has been Central to its appeal this. adversarial relationship animated the. youth and counterculture eras of the 60s. and then when the economic dominance of. mass Market rock made it impossible to. believe in provoked the revitalizing. backlash of punk even major labels felt. obliged to play into this paradoxical.

world view EG that period after Nirvana. when the most popular genre of music was. called. alternative monuskin however are defined. by their isolation from the pnrc they. play rock music but operate according to. the logic of. [Music]. Pop in Milan where monuskin would finish.

their Italian mini tour I had lunch with. the band as well as two of their. managers MAA casalinuovo and fabrio. ferraguto casalin noovo had been an. executive producer working on the. xfactor and Futo was its musical. director around the time that monkin. broke through casalin noovo and. ferraguto left the show and began. working with the Stars it had made we. were at the in-house restaurant of moisa. the combination recording studio Sound. Stage rehearsal space offices party.

venue and creative playground that Futo. opened 2 months earlier after clarifying. that he was in no way criticizing major. record labels and the many vendors they. engaged to record promote and distribute. albums he laid out his vision for moza a. place where all those functions were. performed by a single corporate entity. basically describing the concept of. vertical. integration Futo oversaw the recording. of rush along with a group of producers.

that included Max Martin the Swedish. hitmaker best known for his work with. Backstreet Boys and Britney. Spears at moisa Futo played for me Mona. Skin's then unreleased new single honey. are you coming which features many of. the band's signature moves guitar and. bass playing the same melodic phrases at. the same time unsung Boogie type Rhythm. of the post Strokes style but also has. David singing in a higher register than. usual. I listened to it first on studio.

monitors and then through the speaker of. futo's phone and it sounded clean and. well produced both times as if a team of. Industry veterans with unlimited access. to Espresso had come together to perfect. it the sheer number of older and more. experienced professionals involved in. monkin introduces a tension between the. rock conventions that characterize their. songwriting and the fundamentally pop. circumstances under which those songs. are produced they are four friends in a. band but that band is inside an enormous.

machine from their perspective though. the machine is good there's hundreds of. people working and talking about you and. giving opinions d'angela said at lunch. so if you start to get in this Loop of. wanting to know and control and being. anxious about it it really ruins. everything here lies the conflict. between what the pnrc wants from a band. resistance to outside influences. contempt for Commerce authenticity as. measured in doing everything themselves.

and what any sane 23-year-old would want. which is to have someone with an MBA. make all the decisions so she can. concentrate on playing. bass the other way monkin is isolated. from the pnrc is geographic over the. course of lunch it became clear that. they had encyclopedic knowledge of. certain eras in American rock history. but were only dimly aware of others Raji. for instance loves mly crew and has an. album by album album command of the Los. Angeles hair metal band Skid Row which.

he and his bandmates seemed to. understand were supposed to be guilty. pleasures but none of them had ever. heard of fugazi the post hardcore band. whose hatred of major labels refusal to. sell merchandise and commitment to. keeping ticket prices as low as possible. set the standard for a generation of. American rock. snobs in general monuskin timeline of. influences seems to break off around. 1990 when The Rock most respected by. anglophone critics was produced by. independent labels that did not have.

strong overseas. distribution it picks up again with. France ferand and the emo era of. mainstream Pock this retrospect leaves. them unaware of the Indie Punk DIY. period that was probably most important. in forming the. pnrc the question is whether that. consensus still matters while snobs like. Larson and me are over represented in. journalism we never constituted a. majority of Rock Fans. that's the whole point of being a snob.

and snobbery is obsolete anyway digital. distribution ended the correlation. between how obscure your favorite band. was and how much effort you put into. listening to them the longevity of rock. and roll as a genre meanwhile has. solidified a core audience that is now. between the ages of 40 and 80 rendering. the fan Versus Society dimension of the. pnrc impossible to believe and the. economics of the industry in which. streaming has reduced the profit margin. on recorded music and the closure of.

small venues has made stadiums and big. auditoriums the only reliable way to. make money on tour have decimated the. Indie model all these forces have. converged to make rock for the first. time in its history merely a way of. writing songs instead of a way of. life yet rock as a cluster of signifiers. retains its power around the world in. the same way everyone knows what a. castle is and what it signifies even. though actually ual castles are no. longer a meaningful force in our lives.

Rock remains a shared language of. cultural expression even though it is no. longer determining our friendships. turning children against their parents. yelling Truth at Power Etc also like a. castle a lot of people will pay good. money to see a preserved historical. example of rock or even a convincing. replica of it especially in. Europe in Milan the temperature had. dropped 20° and Monas skins show at. stadio jpe Miata commonly known as sanso.

the largest stadium in Italy sold out. that night at 60,000 was threatened by. thunderstorms instead of record-breaking. Heat fans remained undaunted many camped. in the parking lot the night before in. order to be among the first to enter the. stadium one of them was Tamara an. American who reported her age as 60 and. a half and said she had skipped a. reservation to see Da Vinci's Last. Supper in order to stay in fine when you. get to knocking on the door you kind of.

want to do what you want she said the. threat of rain was made good at pretty. much the exact moment the show began the. Sea of black t-shirts on the pitch. became a field of multicolored ponchos. and Raindrops Were bouncing visibly off. the surface of the stage David lost his. footing near the end of I want to be. your slave briefly rolling to his back. while d'angelus who is very good at. making lips parted in ecstasy type Rock. faces played with her eyes turned upward.

to the flashing sky like a martyr the. rain stopped in time for cool kids a. punk inspired song in which David. affects a cocky accent to sing about the. vexed cultural position of rock and roll. cool kids they do not like rock they. only listen to trap and pop these are. probably the monuskin lyricss most. quoted by music journalists although. they should probably be taken with a. grain of salt considering that the song. also contains lyrics like I like doing. things I love Yeah and cool kids they do.

not vomit cool kids was the last song. before the Encore and each night a few. dozen good-looking 20s somethings were. released onto the stage to dance and. then as the band walked off to make. we're not worthy bows around Raj's. abandoned guitar the whole thing looked. at least semi choreographed but. management assured me that the cool kids. were not professional dancers just. enthusiastic fans who had had been asked. if they wanted to be part of the show I.

kept trying to meet the person in charge. of wrangling these cool kids and there. kept being new reasons that was not. possible the regular kids on the other. hand were available and friendly. throughout in Rome Dorca and Sarah two. young members of a monkin fan club saw. my notebook and shot right over to tell. me they loved the band because as Sarah. put it they allow you to be. yourself when asked whether they felt. their culture was conservative in ways. that prevented them from being.

themselves Dorca who was 21 and wearing. eyeglasses that looked like part of her. daily wardrobe and a mesh top that. didn't said maybe it turns out that you. can be yourself but you don't know that. at first you feel like you. can't here lies the element of rock that. functions independently from the. economics of the industry or the. shifting preferences of critics the part. that is maybe independent from time. itself a continually renewed experience.

of adolescence of hearing and therefore. feeling it all for the first time but. how disorienting must those feelings be. when they have been fully monetized. fully sanctioned when the response to. your demand to rock and roll all night. and party every day is great exactly. thank you in a culture where defying. consensus is the dominant value Anything. is Possible accept. Rebellion it must be strange in this.

post everything Century to finally. become yourself and discover that no one. has any problem with. [Music]. that.