Analysis: ‘Rush!’, Maneskin’s New Album, Sells Controlled Dissent

Italian band Maneskin release their third album, “Rush!”, this Friday, their first album since reaching the international podium. Known for challenging the concept of gender and sexual modesty, Maneskin’s musicians even dialogue with this in the new album, but the bet seems like a lampoon of the album that the band could deliver.

Aesthetically, the band defies customs of the environments in which it transits. Singer Damiano David sang “Supermodel” wearing a thong that exposed his buttocks to the world on stage at the VMA, MTV’s Video Music Awards, in August last year.

Victoria de Angelis, the guitarist, has appeared on stage and on social media with her breasts almost on display. Although nudity is nothing new in pop culture, there is something challenging about the way the band members offer it, with a strong androgynous and queer content.

The group won the ears of the globe after winning the 2021 Eurovision song contest. The members formed the band when they were still in school and began to draw attention in 2017, when they participated in The Italian X Factor and released the EP “Chosen “. Among the covers recorded was “Beggin'”, originally from 1967, which revived the song and is still one of the band’s most heard tracks.

In 2018, when they released their first album, “Il Ballo della Vita”, the group had already gained visibility in Europe and opened a concert for the band Imagine Dragons in Milan. After the album, in which Italian predominated, Maneskin went on his first tour of Europe.

“Teatro d’Ira”, the band’s second album released in 2021, also preferred the Romance language and brought several of the band’s best known tracks. “I Wanna Be Your Slave” and “Zitti e Buoni” were among the most heard songs of the time and marked the band’s language duality.

The band gained more and more prominence on the music charts and was boosted by social media, especially TikTok, where snippets of the songs gave rise to series of viral videos.

While the band’s appearances have been increasingly provocative, what Maneskin delivered on “Rush!” falls short. In the 17 tracks the band flirts with different sounds, sometimes bringing new things, sometimes sounding redundant. Instead of showing that the band came to bring blunt and challenging rock, the album falls into a comfortable discourse.

It’s not that the album isn’t entertaining. It’s fun, interesting, and full of potential bubblegum tracks. But music — and especially rock and punk — is as much about entertainment as it is about politics, and “Rush!” it feels like controlled dissent, pulling at society’s barriers but never to the breaking point.

More combative tracks, like “Gossip”, which attacks the delirium of the American dream, and “Gasoline”, about the Ukrainian War, do not speak more than common sense, at least what the younger and more liberal audience already preaches. Musically, several tracks play with new sounds for the band, but saturated in other pops à la mainstream rock.

The two punk bets on the album are among the most curious tracks, but they don’t deliver the same result. “Bla Bla Bla” sounds playful, but it doesn’t quite reach its potential. “Kool Kids”, simple as it is, delivers what the previous one lacked.

The album only has three tracks in Italian, in a nod to a global audience. Although it’s nice to be able to understand and sing the tracks more easily, the Latin consonants are missing. They brought a drama that blended perfectly with rock and set the band apart from many others in the genre.

“La Fine”, one of the songs released before the album, reflects on the post-fame life of the band members, who conquered the world when they barely got used to being 20 years old. “Mark Chapman”, named after John Lennon’s killer, and “Il Dono della Vita” are also good and help to quench the nostalgia of the two previous albums.

The seductive aspect is due to “Mamammia”, which succeeded “I Wanna Be Your Slave” as erotic and provocative rock. Even made to be a hit, it doesn’t sound generic — and prints the sadomasochistic megalomania that Damiano David flaunts on Instagram and on stage, but which is missing in the tracks.

“Supermodel” pulls a more festive sound to tell about a model in decay who feeds on cocaine, broken hearts and rock and roll. The lyrics are reminiscent of “Killer Queen”, although much more obvious.

The album’s “down” tracks vary in quality but captivate. “Timezone” talks about being away from the ones you love and isn’t especially memorable, but it should serve to compose sad playlists from now on. The same can be said for “If Not for You”, a sappy ballad.

Closing the album, Damiano David goes out of his way to compose the drama of “The Loneliest”, the best of the sad tracks that could only have been made to accompany rainy Wednesdays or Sundays. “You will be the saddest part of me, the part that will never be mine,” he sings. “Tonight is going to be the loneliest of all” — and the end of the album echoes the mourning of everyone who no longer has the one they love by their side.