OMG San Marino I love you! You just keep surprising us year after year and this time the surprise is you really did what I think you should have done already years ago: Bring into contest some major Italian acts. And boy did you deliver! Starting with Achille Lauro that hardly has time to move from Sanremo to San Marino, Sanremo winner Valerio Scanu and a real Sanremo veteran and global hit maker Ivana Spagna. And that's just a start.
Let's start with Ivana Spagna, my Eurovision dream of yesteryears. She scored a worldwide hit with Call me in 1987 and a string of hits followed like Easy lady, I wanna be your wife and so on until she made her Sanremo debut 1995 placing third with Gente come noi. She's been singing in both languages on and off ever since. Five Sanremos in competition, twice more as guest. Countless festivals and awards. 12 albums, six EPs, 15 compilations and over 50 singles later she's finally giving Eurovision a chance. Love it!
Valerio Scanu, runner up of talent show Amici and after that went on to win Sanremo 2010 with Per tutte le volte che.... He was back in 2016 with Finalmente piove, written by Fabrizio Moro placing 13th. Eight albums, two live albums, two EPs and 21 singles later, includign two #1s and nine Top-10s instead of comeback in Sanremo he's here.
Achille Lauro. Do I need to even say? He rocked Sanremo 2022 with the Harlem Gospel Choir with performances you won't forget in a hurry. And he's been a fixed one in Sanremo the past few years: 2019 he did Rolls Royce, placing 9th. The year after he was back with Me ne frego placing placing 8th. In 2021 Amadeus wants him as a guest performer for every night and indeed he gave us a lot to see! And this year he was in the competition again with Domenica placing 14th. He's outrageous and scandalous and I love it.
Then we have Alessandro Colli with Turkish DJ Burak Yeter, Romanian-Italian apper Blind is famous from X Factor Italia, Cristina Ramos has won Got Talent Spain abd Operacio Triunfo Mexico. Then there's famous from social medias turned singer wannabe Francesco Monte who wasn't apparently at all happy that likes of Ana Mena made Sanremo instead of him. He has tried to get both as a newcomer and as Big. Oh well... Matteo Faustini did Sanremo newcomers 2020 and has managed to keep the momentum going ever since. Not enough to make it back to Sanremo but San Marino will do nicely, thank you! Roman band Deshedus will be there along with drummer Tony Cicco (Of Formula 3 fame) and singer Alberto Fortis who has been around since 1979 with 12 studio albums and countless collaborations and a lot of experience of various tv shows. And finally there's a comeback of the very first Sammarinese Eurovision entrant Miodio, reformed and performing with Fabry & Labiuse.
For the final line up the newcomers will have their three semi-finals and second chance rounds from February 13 to 18, and three acts will join these established artists in the final on February 19.
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