from Sanremo to sold out arenas – Il Tempo

Even the New York Times bothered for him. The US newspaper has just defined Olly as one of the musical protagonists of 2025 and has included «Balorda nostalgia» among the most significant Italian hits with 121 million streams. For Federico Olivieri these were an unrepeatable 12 months. Starting with a promise and ending with consecration: successes, sold-out tours, unconventional choices and controversies have put him at center stage. It all starts in February. The victory in Sanremo is not only an announced success but a watershed. «Balorda nostalgia» becomes a manifesto: Olly won by singing about a credible fragility without masks and without rhetoric. Beyond the envy and gossip that even involved his manager Marta Donà. But Sanremo is not a point of arrival. It’s a multiplier. For 55 consecutive weeks «Tutta vita (sempre)» remained in the Top 10, in first place for 11.

Until the most discussed decision: the withdrawal from the Eurovision in Basel, in May. Many saw it as a misstep, others as an act of coherence. It is the choice that confirms his non-conformism. In a system that measures value in terms of exposure, saying no becomes a revolutionary act. The sold out tour in the arenas is the icing on the cake. Live the songs change skin, highlighting the sensitivity of those who tackle different themes with the same credibility. It is there that “Così cos” finds strength, a song that talks about feeling out of place without making it a flag, of remaining on the margins without claiming them as a pose. On the wave of the hymns waved by Vasco. Not shouted but shared, whispered by thousands of people who recognize themselves in an irregular normality. The intimate and daily story of “This Sunday”. Not spectacular love but the one that is consumed in silences, in slow afternoons and in unspoken promises. Olly knows how to talk about feelings without slipping into clichés. The maturity with which he tackles the most complex theme: the end is surprising. «Happy moving» talks about death with disarming, almost domestic language. The dedication to the father of the inseparable producer and companion Juli becomes central again in a year in which the singer-songwriter puts his career and emotional priorities in order. Singing about death without emphasis, as an inevitable passage, is a courageous choice for a pop artist: letting go, changing rooms, not getting trapped in what no longer serves.

Social media does the rest. Controversy is inevitable when success becomes transversal. The most discussed? A summer dinner at a restaurant with friends: photographed, commented and judged as if it were an official statement. For some a disarming gesture of normality, for others a symbol of out-of-place “lightness”. Olly didn’t put up walls or build defensive narratives. He continued to live, to eat pizza, to laugh with those who were there before. In a world that demands performance even in private life, that dinner was transformed into a political gesture: behind the artist there is the person.

At 24, Olly has built success step by step. Without taking advantage of the shortcuts of talent shows but reviving the tradition of the Genoese school of singer-songwriters. 2025 was the year in which he demonstrated that you can win Sanremo without losing credibility, fill the stadiums without being distant, say no without disappearing. A year in which “stupid nostalgia” was the common thread of a path that looks forward without forgetting the origins and the boys of Genoa. “The more I bother you, the more I want to stay here,” he sings in “So So.” And Olly is here to stay. Imperfect mirror of an Italy that wants to get excited. Still.