"The people of Ultimo". A book tells "the musical phenomenon of the last 20 years"

“Last it’s the greatest thing that’s happened in Italian music in the last twenty years.” So Mattia Marzijournalist and author of the book “Il Popolo di Ultimo”, published by Gallucci for the Sounds Good series, released a few days after the great concert that the artist will hold on July 4th in Roma in the Tor Vergata area, explains what led him to dedicate particular attention to this real musical phenomenon.

Last, the greatest thing that has happened in the last twenty years certainly, but not only “for streams and gold or platinum records – continues Marzi – because in the era of liquid music, figures last as long as they find them and now a gold record is not denied to anyone. I am referring rather to the real, concrete and tickets sold for concerts: the only real data that today measures the adherence of a community of fans to an artist. No other new generation Italian artist has managed to build a following like his, as also certified by the figure of 250 thousand tickets sold in just a few hours for the concert in Tor Vergata. It had to be told. Not only as a musical artist, but above all as a mass phenomenon.”

The phenomenon of the Last Generation

The book analyzes what is now commonly called the phenomenon of Last Generation. Niccolò Moriconi, real name of the artist, he has tens of millions of views on YouTube, on Spotify he is followed regularly by over 2 million listeners, his social networks gather over 5 million followers and his concerts welcome hundreds of thousands of fans who sing the songs by heart amid emotions and tears. It has enchanted millions of people in Italy and also abroad since Russel Crowe, at the Taormina film festival, he declared that he was his fan. In the stadiums he broke attendance records with sold out crowds, conquering a real “people”.

The comparison with Vasco Rossi

The author’s opinion is interesting regarding the reasons that lead many young people between the ages of 15 and 30 and over to participate in large gatherings and become passionate about the artist’s songs where feeling is the basis of every composition: “In the book I compare the Ultimo phenomenon to the Vascowith the necessary proportions – explains Marzi – The comparison is both musical and ‘social’. In the 1980s, Vasco used rock as a language to give shape to the confusion of the ‘generation of distraught people without saints or heroes’ to whom he was addressing, in years when rock in Italy was a decidedly minority genre”.

“Ultimo also addresses his generation using a minority genre, the melodic songwriting of the Baglioni school, in the era of rap and trap. And while rap and trap base their entire narrative on the ostentation of success, Ultimo’s songs speak of fragility, insecurities, fears. From a ‘social’ point of view – Marzi further clarifies – if Vasco’s was the generation that grew up in the years of the decline of ideologies, of the years of lead and finally of hedonism of the 80s, that of Ultimo is the generation that grew up with the images of the Twin Towers, with the anxiety of the economic crisis of 2008, with the terror of the Bataclan and finally with the pandemic. Just as the ‘generation of distraught without saints or heroes’ clung to Vasco, the generation of millennials and Gen Z found in Ultimo a singer of their fears and their bewilderment”.

The relationship with the media and fans

Moriconi communicates little with the press, for him the mega rallies speak for themselves: “There is a chapter dedicated precisely to this theme, which is central to the phenomenon. It is entitled ‘The noise of enemies’ – adds Marzi – a quote from Jose Mourinho, who has always been a master of communication. Mourinho uses the narrative function of the enemy to unite the teams he coaches as a pack, creating a community spirit, a tribe: he succeeded at Inter in the year of the treble and he also succeeded at Roma in the two and a half years. I mention Mourinho not by chance: Ultimo is a great Roma player and this passion peeks out here and there in the book. There is strategy in Mourinho. Ultimo, on the other hand, seems sincerely convinced that he is not understood by critics and his is a way of protecting that bond with his tribe which he obviously feels threatened from the outside. What is certain is that in every self-respecting fairy tale there are antagonists against which the hero must clash. Real or imaginary, it doesn’t matter.”

A phenomenon destined to last

A ‘bubble’ destined to fade with the arrival of another phenomenon? “I don’t think so. One could have thought so at the beginning, when the phenomenon was still on the verge of exploding. Personally – underlines the author – and I tell it in the book, I understood that we were faced with something important at his first concert at the Olimpico, in 2019, when he sang ‘Sogni appesi’ overwhelmed by the roar of the 63 thousand. Seven years have passed and the fairy tale has taken on epic dimensions. I believe that in the era of inflated sold outs, speaking of bubbles, the fairy tale of Ultimo is reality. We have seen many phenomena happen in these ten years too: no one has managed to build such an authentic and solid bond with their audience as Ultimo”.

The telling of a unique story

Mattia Marzi therefore presents in these pages an unprecedented musical phenomenon, from the singer-songwriter’s debut to the impressively successful tours of recent years. Marzi reconstructs a unique story stage by stage and song by song, collects the testimonies of fans, returns with emotional participation and narrative momentum the intensity of the bond between a people and its singer.

The presentation of the book

What do you wish for in the end, for the ‘phenomenon’ Ultimo? “From stay pure. It is its strength and what makes it a generational reference”, concludes Marzi. “The people of Ultimo” will be presented on 22 June at 6.30 pm at the Feltrinelli in Via Vittorio Emanuele Orlando, in Rome.