Aldo Cazzullo criticizes Sal Da Vinci's Sanremo-winning song as "wedding music for the mafia"

A dispute over the artistic merit of Sal Da Vinci's Sanremo Festival-winning song has erupted after Aldo Cazzullo, deputy editor of Corriere della Sera, issued a sharp critique of the track.

Cazzullo made his comments in the newspaper's letters section while responding to readers who had asked him to elaborate on a previous judgment about the winning song, "Per sempre sì." The journalist described the track as "the ugliest in the history of the Festival" and compared it to "the soundtrack of a mafia wedding."

In his response, Cazzullo stated: "If someone had brought a banal and predictable song like Sal Da Vinci's to the Sanremo festival seventy years ago, they would have rejected it soundly." He clarified that his criticism was not "being against the people," drawing a distinction between popular music and artistically significant popular music.

Cazzullo referenced Domenico Modugno's "Nel blu dipinto di blu" as a counterexample, describing it as a popular song that was also "wonderful" and expressed a specific historical moment—the beginning of Italy's economic boom and confidence in the future. He suggested that "Per sempre sì" does not represent a comparable historical moment in the same way.

Da Vinci's song won the most recent edition of the Festival di Sanremo amid enthusiasm from the audience, though it received a cooler reception from critics.

The comments have generated significant backlash on social media and radio stations in Campania, where Da Vinci is from. Fans of the Neapolitan singer have expressed anger and indignation at Cazzullo's assessment. Da Vinci has responded to the criticism on television, though the dispute continues to generate discussion online and in broadcast media.