Pinguini Tattici Nucleari’s Melting Pop
(Luca Bertoloni, Università di Pavia)
Pinguini Tattici Nucleari have long been a media phenomenon of great interest in Italy. Though the band originally formed with the idea of rearranging and performing songs from the members’ cultural backgrounds in a heavy metal style—those sung during Catholic celebrations and in parish centers, or theme songs from cartoons, for example—over time the group has managed to incorporate elements from early Indie music as well as the trend of hybridization and citationism that has marked various strands of Italian singer-songwriter music. Today, the Pinguini represent an effective meeting point between artistic ambition and mainstream appeal, creating songs that are musically and lyrically refined and yet still able to make their mark on the cultural imagination. They manage to connect multiple generations through a continuous interplay of nostalgia for the past, reflection on the present, and openness to the future.
Analyzing their evolution offers an opportunity to reflect more broadly on the current relationship between Italian singer-songwriter music and a wider audience regarding phenomena such as musical branding, and on the notion that contemporary pop culture—both Italian and international—is reconstructed through music.
From the Band’s Name to the Codification of a Style
Pinguini Tattici Nucleari formed in 2010 in the province of Bergamo, Italy, based on an idea dreamed up by singer-drummer Riccardo Zanotti and guitarist Lorenzo Pasini (today the only remaining original members), along with Francesco Bernuzzi, Claudio Cuter, and Cristiano Marchesi—16-year-olds from various towns around Bergamo who had met at school.
The band’s name, chosen by Cuter and Bernuzzi, is a tribute to a very high-alcohol Scottish beer they discovered in a pub near Brescia. Although the other members didn’t like the name (since they didn’t choose it themselves), frontman Zanotti cannot change it at this point due to the fame they’ve achieved. He has tried to justify it in different ways—for example, as a tribute to a group of penguins who survived a nuclear incident like Chernobyl thanks to a “tactic,” thus becoming both tactical and nuclear. This explanation captures the band’s style well: their songs are an attempt at gentle subversion of mainstream culture, consciously engaging with it while flipping its norms—like penguins possessed by nuclear energy might do.
At the same time, the name foreshadows the pastiche character of their entire body of work, which treats culture as a vast intermedial container from which to draw—be it for storytelling forms like letters, fairy tales, love ballads, etc., or to track down high and low cultural references.
An early example of this style is evident in many tracks from Il re è nudo (2014), their first album following the 2012 debut EP Cartoni animali. In particular, “Test d’ingresso di Medicina” is musically unclassifiable and captures the fears of high school students facing final exams, symbolized by the medical school entrance test—used here as a metaphor for an unreachable collective dream or ambition. The song stands out for its originality in addressing the topic and its stylistic mix of highbrow references (“Io mi chiedevo se ti avessi invitata al cinema / che film avresti preferito vedere / qualche sciatto film d’amore oppure intellettualoide / alla Dogma 95 o alla Quarto Potere” [“I wondered, if I invited you to the movies, / would you rather watch a trashy romance or something intellectual like Dogma 95 or Citizen Kane”), with pop culture figures like Keira Knightley and Klaus Kinski, contemporary references (e.g., Lega, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Trenitalia), and popular products like Chicken McNuggets. It includes veiled references to songs and films such as Antonello Venditti’s “Notte prima degli esami,” Vecchioni’s “Samarcanda,” Luigi Tenco’s “Mi sono innamorato di te,” and Erich Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front.
Thanks to this album, Pinguini solidified a strong local fanbase in the Bergamo area that would support them throughout their rise.
Gioventù brucata and Rising Fame
With their next two albums—Diamo un calcio all’aldilà (2015) and especially Gioventù brucata (2017)—the Pinguini solidified their current lineup[1] and honed a style that inherited the playful side of Italian songwriting (from Enzo Jannacci, Lucio Dalla, Rino Gaetano) and combined it with more classic singer-songwriter traits (from Fabrizio De André and Francesco De Gregori), such as blending abstract and concrete elements and exploring deeper meanings through language.
They also incorporated the postmodern cultural fusion pioneered by Franco Battiato in the ’80s, carried into pop by Elio e le Storie Tese in the ’90s, and popularized at Sanremo in the 2010s by artists like Francesco Gabbani.
Gioventù brucata marked a turning point in production: funded by a successful crowdfunding campaign on MusicRaiser, it revealed their now widespread fanbase beyond Bergamo, especially across Northern Italy. Sony then picked it up for national distribution, which expanded the reach of viral songs like “Irene,” “Tetris,” and “Sciare.”
Their tone evolved into one of introspective irony—e.g., “Tetris” references literature and pop culture in equal measure:
Tu eri per me
l’assenza per Bresson
la corrida per Hemingway
e la rivoluzione per Danton
il fischio del treno per Belluca,
mi hai scandalizzato
come la Carrà in Rai col tuca tuca
[…]
Tu eri per me
ciò che l’effetto Dunning-Kruger è per
Kanye West
Tu eri per me
ciò che per gli anni 90 è stato Friends
[You were for me
what absence was to Bresson
the bullfight to Hemingway
revolution to Danton
the train whistle to Belluca[2]
you scandalized me
like Carrà on Rai with the “Tuca Tuca”
…
You were for me
what the Dunning-Kruger effect is to Kanye West
You were for me
what Friends was for the ’90s]
The reflective tone is even more explicit in the title track “Gioventù brucata,”[3] which critically reflects on a generation dominated by conformism, seen as an element that threatens to crush ambitions and the possibility of realizing one’s dreams.
Le domeniche pomeriggio passate all’Ikea
a illuminarvi di mensole con
la vostra dolce metà
i cassetti dove riponete i vostri sogni
son nascosti negli armadi dove tenete gli scheletri.
[Sunday afternoons spent at Ikea
lighting up shelves with
your significant other
the drawers where you store your dreams
are hidden in the closets where you keep your skeletons.]
These themes continue in Fuori dall’hype (2019), their first national label release with Sony, where some of their excesses are toned down in order to reach a wider audience, though without losing their musical identity.
Breakthrough and Mainstream Success
The partial shift in 2019 led to their mainstream breakthrough at the Sanremo Festival 2020, where they placed third with “Ringo Starr”—a hymn to medietas and staying true to yourself even in the shadow of giants (as Ringo was with Lennon and McCartney).
This new phase is marked by turning everyday situations into lyrical themes with minimal complexity and with an underlying melancholy, often interrupted by humor. For example:
In “Verdura,” vegetables become a symbol for overcoming heartbreak (“e riesco a ridere pure quando mangio la verdura” [“I can even laugh while eating vegetables”]), while in Sashimi,” all-you-can-eat Asian food serves as a metaphorical outlet for coping with a breakup caused by her Erasmus trip (“Ascolta, tutto il sashimi che ingoi / non risana le ferite che ti porti dentro al cuore, ah / ordini gyoza, il cielo singhiozza / pensi al suo viaggio a Saragozza” [“Listen, all the sashimi you’re swallowing won’t heal the wounds in your heart, ah / you order gyoza, the sky heaves a sob / you think of your trip to Saragossa”]).
These tracks show intentional musical branding—embedding recognizable imagery in the national imagination. In the video of “Sashimi,” a penguin made entirely of sushi reinforces the band’s branding.
Even as they reference high culture (“La banalità del mare” echoes Hannah Arendt’s The Banality of Evil, whose Italian title is La banalità del male), they balance these with more accessible references. For instance, in “Antartide” we find a line in which classical music stands side by side with disco (“e nello studio di papà mettevi i dischi / Gigi D’Agostino e poi Stravinskij” [“In your dad’s studio you played records:
Gigi D’Agostino, then Stravinsky”]), echoing Franco Battiato’s “Bandiera bianca.” The opening line of “Antartide” also gives a nod to Harry Potter, balancing childhood nostalgia with the disillusionment of adulthood, establishing a dialogue with the generation that grew up with J. K. Rowling’s saga while also including, a little further on, a reference to Pinochet (combined with a reference to the famous Italian supermarket chain, MD), and a wink toward the adult world that has at least heard of Hogwarts.
Ad 11 anni quando eri piccola
aspettavi una lettera da Hogwarts
per dimostrare a tutti i tuoi compagni
che eri tu quella diversa da loro.
Sì ma non arrivò
e la bimba più dolce pianse lacrime amare
a volte però
sembra quasi tu sia ancora lì ad aspettare
e non so cosa, non so dove, non so chi, se
nessuno guarda, freghi l’uva all’MD e
disegni arcobaleni sopra Pinochet,
credi che tutte le eccezioni siano regole
[When you were 11, when you were little,
you waited for a letter from Hogwarts
to show all your classmates
that you were the one who was different from them.
Yes, but it never arrived,
and the sweetest little girl cried bitter tears.
Sometimes, though,
it almost seems like you’re still there waiting,
and I don’t know what, I don’t know where, I don’t know who, if
no one’s looking, you steal grapes from MD and
draw rainbows over Pinochet,
you think all exceptions are rules.]
The Years of Great Hits
2020 marks the beginning of the age of big hits for the Pinguini, during which they’ve released three albums to date, including an EP, Ahia! (Ouch!, 2020), which amplified their success thanks to songs like “Pastello bianco,” “Scrivile scemo,” and “La storia infinita” which immediately captured the imagination of the public (the official YouTube videos for the first two have to date garnered over 84 million views combined), and two full-length albums: Fake News (2022), characterized by more a sophisticated sound and a tendency toward broader social reflection, and Hello World (2024), where the narrative of the present opens onto the world and issues of global concern.
Ahia! is characterized by an emotional, intimate, and at times melodramatic approach, evident—for example—in these verses from “Pastello bianco,” sung to a poignant melody that echoes the style of some of Max Pezzali’s early songs.
Per favore, non piangere
e non ci rimanere malе
che noi due ci conosciamo benе
dalla prima elementare
e scrivevo tutti i miei segreti
col pastello bianco sul diario,
speravo che venissi a colorarli
e ti giuro, sto ancora aspettando.
[Please don’t cry
and don’t feel bad
that we’ve known each other well
since first grade
and I wrote all my secrets
with white crayon in my diary,
I hoped you’d come and color them
and I swear, I’m still waiting.]
The collective spirit of Fake News is represented by songs like “Giovani Wannabe,” whose lyrics initially create a juxtaposition between the narrator’s inner world, that of the female protagonist whom he is addressing, and the social world. Eventually they construct a single, inclusive and collective reality to which all three identities (man, woman, and social media) belong. This community is therefore positioned and generational, since Zanotti, born in 1994, is the first generation of young people to grow up with social media. It is also universal and intergenerational, drawing on elements that have always characterized humanity throughout history, such as the fight for peace, the desire to spend the night with a loved one, and the desire to surrender to emotion. Meanwhile, the tendency toward quotationism returns strongly, although it appears more naturally positioned—even in terms of the sound—within lyrics that are understandable even to those who don’t grasp the cultural references to Charles Baudelaire, Oscar Wilde, or Marc Bloch.
Giovani wannabe (oh-oh, oh-oh)
figli dei fiori del male, guerre lontane, noi
sopravvissuti anche alla fine della storia
voglio incontrarti ancora al prossimo Big Bang (eh-eh),
sul viso leggi il mio passato come Dorian,
portami dove vuoi.
Con te inizia la Belle Époque, che tempismo, o’clock,
bel teppismo black bloc che c’hai.
Sei la storia, Marc Bloch, un momento amarcord
dai, scambiamoci tutti i guai.
[Young wannabes (oh-oh, oh-oh)
children of the flowers of evil, distant wars, we
survivors even at the end of history
I want to meet you again at the next Big Bang (eh-eh),
read my past on my face like Dorian,
take me wherever you want.
The Belle Époque begins with you, what timing, o’clock,
nice black bloc hooliganism you have.
You are history, Marc Bloch, a nostalgic moment
come on, let’s swap all our troubles.]
The transition from generational collectivity to the entire humanity of Hello World can instead be represented by songs like “Migliore,” which deals with a real femicide that occurred in 2023 in Italy, but reframes it as an opportunity for the entire world to become “better” in the future (“A un tratto il bambino guardò / sua madre negli occhi, a metà del percorso, / chiese, “Dove si arriva da qui?” / Lei disse, “Non so, ma spero in un posto Migliore” [“Suddenly the child looked / his mother in the eyes, halfway there, / asked, ‘Where do we go from here?’ / She said, ‘I don’t know, but I hope a better place’”]), or “Alieni,” which translates intolerance towards a failed humanity to the global level (“Io volevo scoprire due Americhe e un’Australia / però c’erano già […] / Più gente conosco, più spero / che un giorno / arrivino gli alieni / a portarmi via” [“I wanted to discover two Americas and an Australia / but they were already there […] / The more people I know, the more I hope / that one day / the aliens will come / to take me away”]). In both cases, among other things, we find reformulations of songs by traditional Italian singer-songwriters, namely Francesco Guccini’s “Il vecchio e il bambino” in the first and Eugenio Finardi’s “Extraterrestre” in the second.
The album’s intentions are made clear by the short, eponymous opening track, “Hello World,” which, with almost cosmogonic and ancestral echoes, plays on the double semantics of the expression “Hello World!”, traditionally cited in computer science textbooks as the first example of the application of a programming language, but also as a greeting that each self can offer to the entire world when it realizes it is no longer an individual, but belongs to a larger community.
All’inizio ero solo
Hello World
a cantare nel buio
Hello World
e forse a volte stonavo, però
ti dirò, ti dirò, ti dirò
non sentiva nessuno
Hello World.
Poi una luce nel cielo
Hello World
e mi ha rapito dal sonno
Hello World
sarà stato un alieno, Dio, un robot
ma ora so, ora so, ora so
che cantavo in un coro.
[At first I was alone
Hello World
singing in the dark
Hello World
and maybe sometimes I was out of tune, but
I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you
no one could hear
Hello World.
Then a light in the sky
Hello World
and it snatched me from my sleep
Hello World
it might have been an alien, God, a robot
but now I know, now I know, now I know
that I was singing in a choir.]
The Authoriality of Melting Pop
With eight successful albums under their belt (two EPs and six LPs), Pinguini Tattici Nucleari today represent a key force in Italian music, capable of setting a precedent through a style we can define, using the title of one of their 2022 songs, as “Melting pop,”[4] an expression that in turn draws on a play on words with “melting pot,” introduced in the early 2000s by art critic Gianluca Marziani. The song, which is actually dedicated to the urban melting pot of Milan, can be elevated to an emblem of the group’s style thanks to verses in which culture appears as a vast pool of dialogue and exchange between elements that are in themselves distant, yet blend together to generate a new encounter.
La food-blogger si sposa, i parenti le lancian quinoa (yī, zwei, trois)
e la marcia di Mendelssohn suona, ma in versione goa
la tale indiana del catering in un secondo va in buffering,
le racconta dei mistici del Khajuraho
e se mi dai la mano, ti prometto che ti seguo e che ballerò
melting pop
perché il mondo è un cinema all’aperto e i nostri passi sono lo show.
[The food blogger gets married, her relatives throw her quinoa (yī, zwei, trois)
and Mendelssohn’s march plays, but in a Goan version
the Indian catering lady starts buffering in a second,
tells her about the mystics of Khajuraho
and if you give me your hand, I promise I’ll follow you and dance
melting pop
because the world is an open-air cinema and our steps are the show.]
The authorial quality of Pinguini Tattici Nucleari’s melting-pot pop lies in their ability to describe the present and its tendency toward spectacularity through the filter of the past, describing its contradictions with the aim of building a better future while also addressing today’s inconsistencies. These inconsistencies are presented as the product of a society and a world that have made the encounter between otherness their key, but sometimes fail to implement it in a way that avoids pain, injustice, and suffering. A world in which, Zanotti suggests, it is therefore necessary to leave room for emotions, even extreme ones—from tears to screams and laughter—so that we can feel alive and try, in some way, to change things, starting with ourselves.
Bibliography
Bertoloni, Luca. L’immaginario intermediale pop tra i banchi. Roma: WriteUp, 2025.
Lopizzo, Antonello. Pinguini tattici nucleari: l’amore e le altre cose inventate dai comunisti. Roma: Arcana, 2021.
Marziani, Gianluca. Melting pop: combinazioni tra l’arte visiva e gli altri linguaggi creativi. Roma: Castelvecchi, 2001.
Sibilla, Gianni. L’industria della canzone. Roma-Bari: Laterza, 2024.
[1] Replacing Bernuzzi, Cluter and Marchesi in 2016 was Nicola Buttafuoco on guitar, Simone Pagani on bass, contrabass and vocals, Matteo Locati on drums and Elio Biffi on keyboard, harmonica and vocals. Zanotti remained the front man and songwriter for all the tracks.
[2] Protagonist of short story by Luigi Pirandello.
[3] The song title alludes to Gioventù bruciata, the Italian title of the 1955 James Dean film Rebel without a Cause.
[4] Used both in an exhibition (2003) presenting an osmosis between different fields of contemporary art, and in a publication (2001) describing this particular fusion of arts and languages which, more than twenty years ago, had already long been taking hold in the art world.
