From Tik Tok to the Sanremo Festival: the strange case of the singer dressed as Elvis who goes crazy on social media
For those who regularly use social media, it is almost impossible not to come across Tony Pitony, the true revelation of the year, the singer about whom almost nothing is known, but about whom everyone is talking. They talk about it because in a few months he moved from the Tik Tok niche to the Sanremo Festival where he will appear in the evening of duets with Ditonellapiaga. Together they will perform a great classic: The Lady Is a Tramp (also recorded by Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald).
Thirty-year-old, from Syracuse, Tony Pitony has a cult of loyal followers who follow him in his increasingly sold-out concerts since he became trendy. Disguised as Elvis Presley, Pitony is clearly alien to political correctness, but not to music. His funk, soul and r&b songs are undoubtedly well played, just as his forays into songwriting and electronica are effective. Powerful voice, excellent intonation and just enough charisma, Pitony is on everyone’s lips because his lyrics are, to put it mildly, sexually explicit, and because in his own way he mocks the average Italian. It plays on irony, on the sense of the grotesque and the surreal, in line with the tradition of Squallor and Skiantos.
«I will stay on you like a sketch drawn by Monet» he sings in one of his most popular songs entitled Rich Women. Scapezzolate is the piece by Tony used as the theme song for FantaSanremo. The other “must” in his discography is a song prosaically titled Culo.
We know that he attended an art school in London and trained in the theaters of the East End of the British capital. AX Factor in 2020 was rejected by three out of four judges after singing Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen in his own way. On his presence at the Festival Fiorello declared: «However in Sanremo everyone was worried about Pucci, but they don’t worry about the real loose cannon, Tony Pitony. Pucci is a boy scout in comparison».
I mean, Pitony he uses a language between parody and provocation without any hesitation and he feels free to say everything that cannot or could not be said. So far, apart from a few isolated protests, no one has complained too much about his songs. But after Sanremo, or perhaps already during Sanremo, another chapter in history could open…
