“How annoying!”: Ditonellapiaga’s song at Sanremo 2026 tells everything you hate about modern life

Not all songs are created by design. “How annoying!” it was born from a moment of rupture: the author herself tells it, describing it as the daughter of a deep crisis in which she didn’t really know where I was going. What Ditonellapiaga puts to music is not a coldly constructed social criticism, but an authentic outburst – biting, self-deprecating, at times liberating.

An infinite (and very recognisable) list

The structure of the song is as simple as it is effective: an endless catalog of things that can no longer be tolerated, each certified by the timbre of the chorus. The fashion of Milan, the American dream, the pilates class, the friend of a friend who shows up uninvited, “let’s take a photo”, “let’s exchange numbers”… Everything ends up on the list, everything receives its own “how annoying!”.

The point is not the list itself, but the fact that each of us recognizes something in it. Those empty social rituals that we recite while smiling while inside we think exactly what the song says out loud. It’s that feeling of finally someone says it which makes the song so immediate.

“If I’m crazy”: the doubt that changes everything

The song isn’t just a rant. The real heart lies in the refrain: “I no longer know what is normal / Or a hallucination / If I’m crazy”. The protagonist is unsure of herself — she wonders if the problem is in the world or in her. And this question, repeated until the end, transforms the song from simple satire to something more personal and restless.

We’ve all felt like this at least once: overwhelmed, irritated by everything, and then wondering if we’re the weird one. The song doesn’t give answers, it leaves the question open. And that’s exactly what makes her honest.

The verse that has the most effect

Among the list of small daily annoyances, at a certain point comes this:

“And tell me what you put in my glass, it tastes bitter and (I don’t trust it!) / Why does my head spin and the whole room and until it goes away (how annoying!)”

The narrator realizes that she was probably drugged at a party — and this too is classified with a “how annoying!”, like spam or fake noses. It’s not a minimization: it’s a shield. A way of dealing with something unbearable by pretending to treat it like everything else. One of the sharpest and most disturbing passages of the entire piece.

Social criticism yes, but without moral superiority

What saves the song from simple complaint is self-deprecation. The author says it explicitly: “I also talk about my habits.” Those who sing know they are part of the system they criticize: they go to parties they hate, smile at those they can’t stand, try to meditate without success. “Despite meditation courses / Breathing / I can’t stand it” it’s the reckoning with every attempt to improve — that ends up on the list, too.

There is no one who puts themselves on a pedestal, no message of the “I understood everything” type. There is only one person who laughs at himself while denouncing others, and this honesty is what makes him credible.

Because it works

“How annoying!” it works because it doesn’t explain, it doesn’t moralize, it doesn’t console. It takes all the noise of the contemporary world – politics, social media, fake networking, trends to follow, photocopied identities – and sends it back amplified, with a crooked smile. The obsessive repetition of the refrain is not compositional laziness: it is exactly the sensation it describes. You listen to it and in the end you’re the one who no longer knows if it’s normal or not.

And maybe that’s exactly the point.

Full text of “How annoying!”