Elio e le Storie Tese acquired national fame after their second-place finish at the Sanremo Music Festival 1996 with the song "La terra dei cachi", a humorous take on Italian lifestyle.

[8] The first studio album, Elio samaga hukapan kariyana turu was published in 1989, and it was followed by The Los Sri Lanka Parakramabahu Brothers Featuring Elio e le Storie Tese (1990), İtalyan, rum casusu çikti (1992), Esco dal mio corpo e ho molta paura: Gli inediti 1979–1986 (1993), Eat the Phikis (1996), Peerla (1998), Craccracriccrecr (1999), Cicciput (2003), Studentessi (2008) and L'album biango (2013).

[11] On 16 December 2017, it was announced that the band would take part in the Sanremo Music Festival 2018 with the song Arrivedorci, i.e. "Arrivederci", meaning "See you later" in Italian; the song title is misspelled in the same way in which Alberto Sordi intentionally mispronounced the word, with a fake and exaggerated American accent (mostly for comic effect), while dubbing Oliver Hardy in the Italian versions of Laurel and Hardy films, from 1939 to 1951).

[19][20] On 5 June 2023, the band announces, on Radio Deejay and on their own website, the resumption of live activities and an autumn tour in theaters with the show "Mi resta un solo dente e cerco di riavvitarlo" ("I have only one tooth left, and I'm trying to screw it back in") directed by Giorgio Gallione.

[22][23][24] Elio e le Storie Tese's musical work is characterized by eclecticism and competence, in the melodic, harmonic and orchestration (arrangement) aspects, augmented by the members' technical proficiency.

[7][24][25][26][27] They are usually joined by an "unofficial" member, Mangoni (a former schoolmate of Elio and actually an architect), whose role is to dance, make choreographies or even sing during live shows on stage.

Their songs are typically interspersed by a rude, coarse humour which lies in stark contrast to their extreme varied and competent musical talent; once the band was considered part of the 'demential' rock underground spawned after the demise of punk and cross-fertilized by situationist dadaism,[24][30] but they have soared well past above that scene.