Italy’s Måneskin definitely aren’t a one-hit wonder. And if you need proof of that just look to the UK’s Official Chart. Two weeks on from their Eurovision win, the group have two songs in the Top 40. “Zitti E Buoni” — which debuted at #17 last week — is sticking around in spot #25. It sits just behind another Måneskin track. “I Wanna Be Your Slave” — an English-language offering from the four-piece — has climbed from #83 last week to #24 this week.
Måneskin: “I Wanna Be Your Slave” hits #24 on the UK charts
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Their album track “I Wanna Be Your Slave” continues its climb on the UK charts, having entered at No.83 last week. While the English-language track has not been officially released as a single, it’s proving popular with Måneskin fans old and new.
The song is told from the perspective of someone who has it bad for the object of their affection. The lyrics playfully recount their obsession and how they’re willing to enslave themselves if that’s what it takes to win over that special someone.
“I wanna make you hungry, then I wanna feed ya,” Damiano sings. “I wanna paint your face like you’re my Mona Lisa, I wanna be a champion, I wanna be a loser, I’ll even be a clown ’cause I just wanna amuse ya.”
During Eurovision itself, the band kindly sent us a video performance of both “I Wanna Be Your Slave” and “Zitti E Buoni” for the Wiwi Jam — our online concert that aired on May 20. Filmed at Acquapendente studio, where they recorded their album, it demonstrated their power to captivate and intrigue, even when performing in a simple setting.
Rips from that performance have subsequently been shared millions of times on TikTok, helping to get the song in front of fans both old and new. Our Wiwi Jam video has now been viewed more than 14 million times.
Last week the Italian band join an elite group of artists who have had foreign-language songs break the UK charts. They include Psy (“Gangnam Style”), Daddy Yankee (“Gasolina”) and Luis Fonsi (“Despacito”). They also became the first rock band to sing in a foreign language to crack the UK charts since Germany’s Rammstein. And they’re the first Eurovision winner since Céline Dion to have more than one song chart in the UK.
The group aren’t just intrigued by the idea of succeeding in the UK. Far from it. They’ve been on a media blitz, greeting their fans all over the world.
In fact, our very own Tbilisi-based Wiwiblogger Rezo Mamsikashvili interviewed the group recently for Georgian television. They thanked the Georgian jury for ranking them first and promised to tour their eventually. You can read their full message in our Insta post below.
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What do you make of Måneskin’s success? Do you think that “I Wanna Be Your Slave” could have won Eurovision too? Let us know in the comments box below!
Also the last time a Eurovision winner had an album of theirs chart in UK was Lordi in 2006 (their album peaked at n100). Maneskin’s album has so far peaked at number 49 based on downloads and streaming alone. This is huge.
lol it’s easy to be a one hit wonder, difficult to maintain the success and numbers worldwide in the long run, and that wont happen.
I Wanna Be Your Slave will outpeak Zitti e Buoni very soon. Is it getting airplay? The song is very stable on ITunes and rising on Spotify. This is a pleasant surprise! The song has a lot of potential because it’s in English and it’s rock, yet catchy. They need to film a music video and release it as the next single ASAP. And they’re the first Eurovision winner since Céline Dion to have more than one song chart in the UK.—> I guess you mean more than one song chart after the Eurovision victory. Well, it is shocking that… Read more »
Måneskin’s second album Teatro d’ira – Vol. I debuted at #4 on Spotify’s Top Global Albums chart this week: https://twitter.com/spotifycharts/status/1401886779188334594 Is this the first time for a Eurovision act and Italian artist? Also, “I Wanna Be Your Slave” is at #16 on Spotify’s UK Top 50 chart today, so it is very likely it’s going to reach a higher position on the official singles chart this Friday.
Great for the charts maybe, but do the radio stations play them…..of course they don’t. Disgraceful disregard for all things Eurovision. They play songs that hardly break into the top 40, but ignore all these songs. Our media has zero time and respect for any of these songs. We have an arrogance towards any foreign music unless it’s American. Please don’t have a pop at Europe for not voting for our music when our media totally blank it !!
radios will play songs that most people around the world want to listen to, not just eurofans
OMG! This is amazing news! When has a new eurovison winner been this succesful? I wish them all the best!!! They could become a world famous act!!
I wish the success of Maneskin can lead to a renaissance of rock n roll and its acceptance in radio airplay (with social media, people are trying to lobby the Top 40 of Spain in putting in Zitti e buoni), just like Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories marked the rebirth of disco.
Well, ‘I Wanna Be Your Slave’ is in English soooo
it also looks like a bad attempt of being arctic monkeys 2.0
Artists who write their own music will always have an advantage to generate a long career than those that rely on other songwriters post ESC. However, the paradox is that in order to win the contest in most years you need some expertise from songwriter veterans who know what does well in the competition. Singer-songwriter songs would normally not do to well in the current ESC format. That’s why what Maneskin did will not be easily replicated.
Um, I think your comment, while it raises a lot of valid points, puts the situation in a bit of a binary mode. There are many singers who collaborate with others to make their music but are still able to make it authentically their own, and some singers successfully alternate between collaborating with others and working alone between albums.
Jamala, Salvador/Luisa, Duncan…
There’s been a bit of a pattern on Eurovision which was broken this year: you get a songwriter deep-feel music one year and exported composer bop the other. Maneskin don’t fit into either of those categories and have broken the mold by being their authentic selves.
So great that they do well! I was very happy when Italy won. Finally some rock music winning again 🙂
One thing from this article I would like to quote: “it demonstrated their power to captivate and intrigue, even when performing in a simple setting”. Maybe that is just why they captivate and intrigue? Just like in ESC, the best performances are usually the simplest, without all kinds of visuals on stage, but focus on the music 🙂
I think they captivate and intrigue in any setting.
Of course the song in English is more successful, this is something Eurofans struggle to understand.
YES, you can win Eurovision without a word of English, Italy 21, Portugal 17, Serbia 07, but in both Eurovision itself and a global market place, on average songs in the global language do a lot better as they allow people to connect easier.
the song just need a good hook, it doesn’t matter the language, unless it’s the language spoken in the country
I think in most countries people won’t mind different languages – the exception being Anglophone countries because people who speak English as a first language tend not to know other languages well, in contrast to say people in The Netherlands.
Well, I think Måneskin won precisely because it is in Italian, in English everyone would realize how average the song is and how uninspired the lyrics are. In Italian audience is caught in surprise
That’s why it won Sanremo?
The song is not unispiring, but she got a point about the lyrics, they were really nad written. Italian really helped Måneskin since their song is really impactful and Måneskin wrote better lyrics for other songs indeed
She truly doesn’t have a point, no. The roughness of the lyrics fits with the theme of the song. It’s poetic in its roughness, in its purity. That is why they won the best lyrics award:
“Jury Report:
The jury wrote about the winner: ‘ZITTI E BUONI is an unapologetic song with very evocative images. The metaphors in the lyrics are well-chosen and constantly speak to you. This is not a sweet song, and therefore the imagery isn’t pretty, but purposely disruptive. ZITTI E BUONI is a raw cry from the misfits of this fake society.’”
When was the last time England send a rock act in Eurovision? Or something a bit more ethnic like i don’t know maybe a song with scottish/welsh instruments or even a brit-pop song? It’s not only the language…
Yeah, not true at all. I understand italian perfectly and my partner is Italian. Both us and our group of friends love the song and love the poetic rough lyrics.
I personally hope they stick to mostly Italian songs (and I’m not alone) they just hit harder and are so much deeper especially when you translate the lyrics.
They were recently interviewed by James Wilson-Taylor for Rock Sound (on youtube), Damiano the lead singer mentioned putting more effort in their English songs, not sure if he/they meant sing more in English or simply improve their English songs but the video became littered with comments pleading with them to not switch to English and I concur.
Hey, Rammstein has made an entire career of pretty much performing only in German and they’ve managed to build quite the fan base over the years. I usually prefer songs in their original language; what helps those songs cross over is how well they can convey a message or attitude for audiences who don’t necessarily speak the language. “Volare” has an arrangement and rhythm that makes you feel like you’re flying with Domenico Modugno in his dream. (Dean Martin made a pretty good English/Italian cover as well, but Domenico’s is still the best.) The great thing about “Zitti e buoni”… Read more »
the italian market is big, but they might change to english because money speaks louder, they know that if they dont sing in english their success will be temporary
“they’re the first Eurovision winner since Céline Dion to have more than one song chart in the UK.”
Surely that can’t be right, pretty sure Katrina & the Waves has had more than one song chart in the UK… In fact, Emmelie de Forest also charted with “Rainmaker”
Probably they mean two songs at the same time.
OFF TOPIC:
Wouldn’t be a reader of the Daily Mail (usually garbage) but saw this article online anyway and found it interesting and thought I’d share.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-9653409/amp/James-Newman-three-members-band-Rudimental-sued-chart-topping-2013-hit.html
Poor James.
Dunno why I’m downvoted. I didn’t write the article like…fs
Probably because it’s off topic.
Well nobody else was discussing it Ben. And it’s off topic but not completely off topic
That is the difference of being an established solid authentic act and just another voice. Netta and Destiny: take notes
Netta co writes her own material.
Lol, Netta is many things but inauthentic is not one of them and I say this as someone who thought Toy was obnoxious.
She has still to drink a lot of milk to get to a true artistic level. So far it is really only playing with barbies
It makes sense for I wanna be your slave to be that popular, it’s in English and keeps with the zeitgeist. But I’d recommend to anyone insterested songs like Coraline and Vent’anni, they’re even better.
I’ll be expecting a lot more hits from them in the future. It’s insane how they’re only 20-22 and already have so many great songs, as well as a star-quality stage presence. Imagine them in 10 years.
I’ve seen people say oh maneskin are so much more successful than Duncan – for god sake people if you are a eurovision fan you should celebrate both of their successes and not pit one against the other. Please can maneskin ‘stans’ be respectful of eurovision. Aside from this, it’s so fantastic to see this level of success for a eurovision artist – the contest is on a roll and long may it continue!
That wasn’t the point of the original comparison on Twitter. It was to highlight to future contestants the benefit of coming to Eurovision with a back catalogue. New fans hungry for more music after discovering artists through a platform like ESC can help grow a career beyond the one song they know, as we see happening with Maneskin. If there’s a few quality songs ready to go, let alone albums, that can create a longer term fan base. If there’s only the one song, eventually most listeners—especially casual ones—will move on and not be around for the release of anything… Read more »
Mahmood also kept the zeitgeist of releasing bops after bops. Which is something that Duncan unfortunately didn’t do as well. He got more track recently with his collab with Fletcher though, that was smart of him.
Seeing friends who normally hate eurovision put måneskin spotify in their instagram timelines. They’re really commerically succesfull. A very good example of how eurovision can help your career if you play your cards right! Arcade is also still in the spotify top 50 worldwide.
Also: somebody from Måneskin said he wanted to collab with miley cyrus and she started following them afterwards. Possible collab? 😀
I’m obsessed with this year’s trio – Maneskin, Barbara Pravi and Go_A – it’s Grammy level quality each in their own genre. I am so proud and happy that Eurovision made it possible. I hope this elevates the quality of other countries entries in the coming years and brings in new fans. Also the fact that they all sung in their native languages proves that authenticity translates and transcends borders! There’s no magical production team, stage designers, hypered campaign trail that will make you a winner if you seem unoriginal and unauthentic.
Grammys are a joke. I don’t think they’re meant to be taken seriously after snubbing Weeknd who clearly had the most popular song of the year Blinding Lights. Winning Eurovision with a native language song is a whole another level, let’s hope this authenticity takes over the music industry and pushes out artificially hyped songs
Grammys are not about popularity…
Yeah its supposedly about critical performance and the whole after hours album was critically acclaimed to oblivion and still didnt get nominated. Blinding Lights not get a nomination made zero sense in any way shape or form, it was the obvious choice to win on all fronts. Almost since it began the grammys have just been about kissing certain artists asses. I can commend taylor swift for her work but every one of her AOTY wins have been absolute jokes considering the other options in their respective years. Same with how literally every single thing beyonce puts out gets nominated… Read more »
They’re not about quality either…
But for many artists, they see the Grammys as the cherry on top if their work gets recognized.
I Wanna Be Your Slave has that accomplished simplicity that The White Stripes had, which was insanely popular in the UK, so they may be onto something here – I really hope they are.
I also love that they try a British accent and that will surely endear them to the UK public as well – and even not pronouncing “David” as “Day-vid” gives them a mystical charm. I wish them all the very best and hope they can ride this crest of a wave all the way to the very top!
I did not like the English accent. They’re Italian. I want to hear Damiano, not a fictional character. I would hope it was not deliberate, the best reason I can think of is just that they listen to a lot of English bands and Damiano does it without even realizing.
If they went down the route of releasing mostly English songs I see myself going off them. For me their Italian songs are on another level. Youtube is full of comments from people across the whole world who feel the same way. (1) They should remember that Europe (televote) voted for them singing in Italian. (2) The following they have picked up since Eurovision which spans the world is again linked mostly to the many other high quality songs they have in Italian. (3) They currently have a ratio of about 70/80% Italian 20/30% English, it’s worked out well for… Read more »
At the same, there’s a precedent for Italian artists to sing songs in languages other than just Italian. A lot of major pop hits in English from the 1980’s were from made in Italy while some have made a niche performing in Spanish.
*At the same time.
I follow Maneskin since they debut at the X factor and they first songs were all in English. They said that they prefer to sing in English but anyway they started writing songs in Italian. So please stop saying that they should only sing in Italian. They must do what they want and want makes them feel comfortable.
They have blown up because of their Italian songs not their English songs!
I never said they should only sing in Italian!
I said they shouldn’t change the ratio they have which is 70/80% Italian 20/30% English!
What I did say is if they changed to mostly English!
Between them and Blind Channel, I now have a whole collection of new songs on my playlists. I particularly like “Fear for nobody” and “new song” by Maneskin. Definitely worth checking out their other songs. I think this will be the most successful year for acts cracking the mainstream market in recent history.
I’m so happy to see them becoming successful. I want more people to check them and the contest out. I’ve gone through their discography, it is excellent.