Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

The fourth of five episodes of AmaSanremo aired last Thursday and delivered two more finalists for Sanremo Giovani.  The night started however with missing Morgan who was "searching for Bugo" in reference to the Sanremo 2020 scandal , and continued with another rather scandalous tone as Nova's entry Giovani noi had been blamed of plagiarism the day before and it was yet unsure if it would be disqualified. When in doubt it was declared the night would go on as planned. Should he make the final he then would be disqualified, if he didn't case closed. He was fine with the solution himself. Let sho show begin. The musical guest of the evening was Marco Masini, who is one of those very few who has won both categories of Sanremo (1990 Newcomers, 2004 Big). This week the all three juries agreed on everything and the order remained pretty much the same with each added jury group. Even the televote was divided to each between 16,24 and 32,57%. Hu - Occhi Niagara won the stu...

Tonight's the night: the 70th Festival della Canzone Italiana di Sanremo kicks off its five nights marathon of music, guests, comic and everything in between. Come Saturday we have a winner and most likely the Italian entry for the 65th Eurovision song contest in May in Rotterdam, too.  Amadeus is this year's host and artistic director and by his side he will have every night also singer Tiziano Ferro and comic Fiorello. And a string of ladies that keep changing every night. Tonight they are Rula Jebreal, is an Israeli Arab foreign policy analyst, journalist, novelist and screenwriter with dual Israeli and Italian citizenship, and Diletta Leotta. a (sports) television presenter.  Tonight's guests include Eurovision veteran Emma and the cast of film Gli anni piú belli , a film directed by Gabriele Muccino where also Emma makes her acting debut in a feature film. We will also have Eurovision veterans Albano e Romina Power and Jessica Notaro with Antonio Maggio....

  One month to go before Amadeus will announce one by one the chosen artists for the 70th Sanremo festival to be held in February 2020. The number of the artists rumored to have been selected, or having submitted a song, or wanting to be there or just wistful thinking by anyone i turn gets longer day by day. Here's the round up the latest rumors (the previous ones are here and here ): Francesco Gabbani could be returning. He has released two singles off his album in the making and could aim for a Sanremo launch. Al Bano desperately wants to be there, with or without Romina Power who apparently doesn't want to live it all again at all. Also Massimo Ranieri has been thrown into the gossiping again. More Eurovision veterans could come in form of Umberto Tozzi & Raf who have been touring and working together again with success. Marco Masini could be there to celebrate the 30th anniversary of him winning the Newcomers and rocker Piero Pelú could make his debut, a...

Should Sanremo festival 2019 act also as the Italian national selection for Eurovision song contest next year ( and we have no reason to believe it wouldn't) there's a major change in rules coming up. Claudio Baglioni, man in charge for the second year in a row hoping to repeat his succesful 2018 edition aims to separate the newcomers and the Big artists totally. That means that the Newcomers, or Nuove proposte aka Giovani will be held already in December instead of along the festival in February. The winner gets a freebie for the Big category. Update: The dates for Sanremo Giovani are December 16-21, with four pre-shows before the two nights primetime shows on 20 and 21. The top-2 will join the cast of the Big in February festival (dates might yet change, btw). All this is also due to all these reality and talent shows; placing the winners and artists to Sanremo has become a very tricky task the past few years - who's big enough for a Big? There are some rules based ...

Rai1 launched a new show this summer Ora o mai più or a second chance for those forgotten singers of the 80s and 90s to retake their spotlight and maybe place in the charts. Four prime time shows and an album to be released on July 10 in every Italian newspaper stand. Plus dueting with the big names of the business who were their coaches and doing covers. And finally in the last episode a new song that should relaunch their career.... Inviting, isn't it?  This blogger has been following Italian music since very early 80s so the whole cast was very familiar (with the exception of Stefano Sani, tbh) and I even own most of the hit records they had made in the past. From the very first episode Lisa was a front runner winning the first and second show - there were coaches like Marco Masini, Loredana Berté, Zarrillo, Marcella Bella and Patty Pravo with Eurovision veteran Fausto Leali who voted along with the public - but Eurovision veterans Jalisse stormed to victory in the third...

The other big pre-festival favorite by the journalists along with Fiorella Mannoia is Marco Masini who has already won both Newcomers and Big categories. Apparently he has changed his musical style once again and it's a success. Maybe. Will he return to Eurovision after 30 years? Marco Masini (52) started his musical career working in soundtracks and studio vocalist as no one was interested to sign him. He worked with Umberto Tozzi and Raf among others - and even did Eurovision song contest 1987 with them - and also sung the demo for Sanremo winning song Si può dare di più that year. In 1988 he was dropped from Sanremo the last minute but finally in 1990 he managed to squeeze into the Newcomers selection with Disperato and won. The year after he was among the Big with Perche lo fai and is 3rd. The song was originally ment for Umberto Tozzi who changed to another one. His success continues and he scored hits like Malinconoia , T'innamorerai , Vaffanculo and Bella stro...

As usual the carefully selected media and journalists have had a chance to listen the songs in Sanremo festival in advance to be able to write at least something about them before the festival starts. The songs will be heard by common people only when performed for the first time on stage in Teatro Ariston, from February 7.  Our friends in eurofestivalnews have been busy checking out all the papers and what they have written counting the positive and negative comments, the no comments and the neutral comments. If we just put those comments in a chart like a medal table it looks like this (positive-negative-neutral): FIORELLA MANNOIA 22-0-0 MARCO MASINI 21-1-0 ERMAL META 19-1-0 PAOLA TURCI 18-3-1 SAMUEL 17-3-2 FRANCESCO GABBANI 17-5-0 FABRIZIO MORO 15-0-10 GIUSY FERRERI 15-2-5 RON 13-2-6 CLEMENTINO 13-4-5 CHIARA 13-5-3 RAIGE & GIULIA LUZZI 11-5-6 ALBANO 9-8-5 SERGIO SYLVESTRE 8-8-6 ELODIE 8-12-2 MICHELE BRAVI 7-9-6 NES...

Marco Mengoni released Guerriero in mid-November and becomes one of the only four double-platinum selling album in Italy in 2014. The other three are Cesare Cremonini's Logico #1 , Francesco Renga's Il mio giorno piú bello nel mondo and Fedez ft Francesco Michielin in Magnifico . I don't have the exact numbers but one thing is sure: he sold the double platinum fastest and the expectations for the release of his new album next week are very high..... Get ready for some Mengonimania in coming weeks :-) Cremonini's success continues when GreyGoose sells platinum, as well as Renga's Vivendo adesso making them the big sellers of the year. Sanremo winner Arisa also sold platinum with Controvento but is also featured in another, Club Dogo's Fragili . Other platinum singles are Biagio Antonacci's Ti penso raramente , Emis Killa's Maracanà , Giorgia's Non mi ami , The Voice winner Lorenzo Fragola's The reason why as well as runner up Madh...

Sanremo's Newcomers category, whatever it has been called over the years, was the talent show long before anyone even dreamed of various Idols, X Factors and Voices. Truth to be said, it may have lost a bit over the past few years when names like Eros Ramazzotti , Giorgia , Laura Pausini and Andrea Bocelli have not emerged from it and today's Marco Mengonis come from other formats. This year Sanremo has promised to bring the new talents in to the spotlight and prime time unlike the previous years when they have usually perfomed and been voted around 1am.... But through the hard times the category has served a passage to the main category and this year is not an exception. Eight of the 20 artists have started their career in Sanremo Newcomers, three of them winning it. All of them have returned to Sanremo multiple times since their debut, and Masini has also won the Big category in 2004 with Uomo volante . Here's the list: Marco Masini - Disperato - winner 1990 ...

The Sanremo gossiping and rumoring is at full forse less than two months before the names will be out. This week, to the horror of most Italian Eurovision fans, rather reliable source TV Sorrisi e Canzoni magazine revealed a list of names, most of them from various reality shows and appealing to the youngters: Valerio Scanu , Marco Carta , Clementino , Dear Jack , Alessandra Amoroso , Kekko Silvestre (of Modà ) as a singer or writer for Dear Jack or/and Amoroso, Annalisa Scarrone .... but also old glories Marco Masini , Irene Grandi and most of all Dolcenera - that most seem to think very suitable for Eurovision, too, including this blogger. She won Sanremo newcomers back in 2003 with Siamo tutti lá fuori and has since matured a very strong and interesting artist.  We can't forget Marco Carta already won in 2009 with La forza mia fresh from Amici reality success, idem for Valerio Scanu and Per tutte le volte che the year after. All these youngsters have a very active fan...