The Singles Jukebox

Italian singer-songwriter sparks some immediate comparisons…

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Crystal Leww: I can’t believe that Italy has its own Halsey and G-Eazy. 
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Joshua Minsoo Kim: Adult contemporary trap-lite balladry rounded out with pensive guitar strums and moody synth melodies. Annalisa’s flow is well suited for the affair: talk-rapping that’s conversational in tone, able to project an earnest but regretful acceptance of a relationship’s demise. During the chorus, she compares their time together with the ephemeral nature of Instagram stories; the memories and intimacy they once shared are disappearing, and nothing she can do can stop it. But for all the work Annalisa does to build this pained headspace, Mr. Rain’s feature has too much of a presence over the meandering beat. He distracts and derails, revealing “Un Domani” to be a cut-and-paste job meant for chart success.
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Stephen Eisermann: I will always love moody power-pop way too much, but how can you not immediately fall in love when you hear those delicious snare drums at the end of the pre-chorus? Sucks, then, when you’re hit with such a limp chorus and even limper rap from Mr Rain. Adding rappers to tracks just to seem more versatile is a bad practice in any language, across any genre. 
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Alfred Soto: Dear me, this is cloddish. Mr Rain is Mr. Macklemore despite the access to Italian’s richer palette of rhymes, and the acoustic guitar flourishes and piano, as they do on so many terrible American hip-hop crossovers, signify sensitivity.
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Ian Mathers: As someone who’s mostly heard rap in English, it’s always neat to hear how other languages adapt to the form. Ever since someone back in TSJ’s Stylus days someone brought up Italian rapper Caparezza (who, other than a shared language, sounds nothing like this song), I’ve wondered why more of it doesn’t cross over; whether you find a decent translation, something about the rhythms and sounds of the language in rapped form just seems intrinsically satisfying. Annalisa does much better than Mr Rain’s more dismissive, negative verse, with the bulk of the song channeling clear-eyed regret and sadness over the end of a relationship that really should be over (but, as we all know, still hurts). The backing is fairly basic — if it was more interesting this would be up a point or two. But as it is Annalisa is justly the focus, and whether translated or not, “I consumed hearts, I consumed shoes” as a description of post-breakup behaviour is a hell of a line.
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Ryo Miyauchi: Is Annalisa’s pettiness and oversharing of how much better she’s doing without her former lover inspired by the similarly salty hip-hop records from which she borrows her stuffy rap cadence? Or is that zigzagging staccato flow, along with that sparse and colorless beat, just the right format to deliver that pettiness these days? Her Instagram story simile suggests it might be the former, which would be kind of impressive if she also adopted those records’ cheesy, eye-roll-inducing humor.
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Ramzi Awn: Annalisa and Mr Rain unearth a song with a story on “Un Domani,” making good use of a strident melody and a simple beat. Though overproduced, the vocals get the job done. 
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Iain Mew: It’s a power ballad squeezed into an R&B-pop shaped container, and brief shower aside it works out rather well. Each individual element resounds but comes together for something as digestible as it is dramatic.
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