After years of maddening media exposure, Blanco has taken a step back. It is a trajectory common to many new idols of the very young: to remain in the Sanremo area, just remember Madame, Sangiovanni and Angelina Mango. After the triumph at the Ariston with “Brividi” in 2022, together with Mahmood, and the publication and promotion of “Innamorato” (2023), he remained active as an author for others and with few collaborations and singles. “Ma'” is a third work that is listened to with the expectation that accompanies works perceived as decisive: after a very rapid rise, this should be a consolidation.
The stylistic code of the beginning, the overwhelming expressive impetuosity expressed by a singing style between lyrical and shouted, was the transposition of an uncontainable urgency that today seems outdated. The boy of the past has become a man, even in the midst of his splendid youth, who has smoothed out that still uneducated tone by lowering it into more structured arrangements, more typically linked to contemporary pop.
The explosion of synths and beat trap of “I love you, man” is misleading, promising a harsher record than the one we will hear. However, traces of that past remain in the already known “Maledetta anger”, an electronic pop-punk which highlights the singer's influence on artists like Chiello and above all in “Woo”, the most unstable mixture: a pop-punk “with cuts in the face”.
“Ma'” starts from her vibrant vocals but drops it into a more demanding arrangement, even stadium rock in the end. Even more sweetened are “Tanto non rinasco”, a medium tempo electronic pop-rock, and the eighties emotional pop of “Ricordi” with Elisa, complete with old-time sax in the long finale. “Los Angeles” dangerously risks transforming him into Olly, certainly more visceral in his interpretation but no more original in his mood foolishly nostalgic. Better is “Even at twenty you die”, where a heart-rending song test stands out against an arrangement full of reverbs and stratifications, and “Piangere a 90”, set on a piano that lets the protagonist's scratches stand out better.
One of the crucial moments of this third project, also for its symbolic value, is the duet of “Peggio del Diavolo” with Gianluca Grignani. A song in which the guest sacrifices himself vocally to warn his younger colleague against the risks of success achieved too quickly. Another key passage is the one-two punch of “15 December (before)” and “27 July (after)”, songs that delve deeply into the emotional torment of a young star, less centered on the choruses. Also worth mentioning is the final “A better place”, curiously vintage and bordering on suicidal:
And it takes courage to believe a madman's songs
Like diving head first off a building
You have to trust, without asking anything else
Divisive like any self-respecting icon of this era dominated by social networks, the owner of the work risks being subjected to the capricious tendency of the general public to constantly search for new names and talents. This “Ma'” will hardly convince those who have always hated him to make an about-face and, symmetrically, he will only be welcomed with enthusiasm by those who were immediately bewitched by his undoubted charisma.
The first two chapters were promoted here, albeit without excessive enthusiasm, while this one seems far too tepid and moderate to deserve the same evaluation. Not a collapse, but a more decisive compromise that undermines an artistic identity now afraid of showing itself in purity. Even the texts, which were once justified by the very young age, remain successful only in alternating phases, for some burning intuitions, while failing in a more complex story. There is clearly the possibility that it is a work of passage that is not particularly successful, after all we are still talking about a twenty-three year old, but the path to normalization now seems to have been chosen.
05/08/2026
Antonio Santini for SANREMO.FM
