Gazzelle

Since rising to prominence in the late 2010s in his native Italy, Gazzelle has preferred to let the music -- tuneful indie pop that runs the gamut from simple synth textures to Brit-pop-influenced songcraft -- do the talking. Indeed, when his single “Quella te” debuted in 2016, the singer/songwriter refused to appear in publicity photos and then used only out-of-focus images of himself. Though he’s divulged personal details since then, fans know him primarily for songs like “Destri,” “Scusa,” “Belva,” and the Sanremo Festival submission “Tutto qui,” all of which reached the Top Ten at home and count among his 29 singles or albums that have been certified gold or platinum to date.

Not long after releasing his debut album, Superbattito, Gazzelle let some of the facade drop. He was born Flavio Pardini in Rome in 1989 and picked his stage name at random (he liked the sound of the word after considering a pair of Adidas sneakers with that model name). He had been writing songs since childhood but wrote most of his first releases while working shifts in coffee shops and pizza parlors, and the desire for anonymity was less a put-on and more a stance on wanting to live as privately as possible. Superbattito, later reissued with extra material as Megasuperbattito, became Gazzelle's first platinum-certified work; he followed it with Punk, an album far less beholden to the genre of the same name and inspired by everything from decades of British rock bands (<a href="spotify:artist:3WrFJ7ztbogyGnTHbHJFl2">the Beatles</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:2DaxqgrOhkeH0fpeiQq2f4">Oasis</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:4gzpq5DPGxSnKTe4SA8HAU">Coldplay</a>) to his favorite native singer, <a href="spotify:artist:5l4nhyz8876RhgE2d18h65">Vasco Rossi</a>. (Punk, too, was followed by a reissue, 2019’s Post-Punk, and by Limbo, a book of poems he published after a schoolteacher suggested he’d never do so.)

By then established in Italy as a performer who could tour large venues, Gazzelle was one of many who sat out the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown, but the songs didn’t stop coming. “Destri,” later released on 2021’s Ok, became his biggest Italian single, peaking at number two and certified six-times platinum. Ok, a chart-topping album, also yielded the Top Ten hits “Scusa” and “Belva,” and was, like the others, reissued with extra material as Ok un cazzo. His fourth album, Dentro, featured collaborations with local acts like Thasup (“Quello che eravamo prima”) and <a href="spotify:artist:1QeqGmpgU5Yg74GNcjIIq3">Fulminacci</a> (“Milioni”), though the singles earned lower chart placements. Gazzelle bounced back with 2024’s “Tutto qui,” an emotive ballad that he submitted for competition in the national Sanremo Festival. The Top Ten single became the focus track from his fifth album, Indi, released in 2025. ~ Mike Duquette, Rovi