SAN MARINO

The Eurovision entry for San Marino was unveiled during a special broadcast on March 15. The show, on SMRTV, hosted by Alessandro Capicchioni, also featured the writers and lyricists of the song. Back in January, last year's representative Valentina Monetta was revealed as the singer again this year. The song she will be singing is "Crisalide" (Chrysalis)

The show featured the song in the form of a music video, not a live performance so I have to take this into account, although having done Eurovision before this does help. She certainly looks more natural and more at home, and more of her age, in this video than that of the Facebook song. During most of the video she has her hair down and wears long flowing fabrics. When she appeared last year, she had the mick taken out of her a fair deal due to the song and presentation of it. This is very different to last year and more akin to Valentina's style of song and singing.

The song, entirely in Italian, is actually a song of 2 halves. The first 2 minutes are a fairly standard Italian ballad with lots of repetition. Then there is a false finish which then causes the beat racks up a little. She then sings another verse and two choruses at a slightly more infectious pace. The song doe not appear to have any backing singers on it. It would be nice to have some of the acrobats in the song on the stage as I feel they would add a lot visually.

The song is standard Siegel fayre, has a very familiar chord pattern and in that way it already sounds like you have heard it somewhere before. It is pretty individual and will appeal to a lot of people. I also think that she and the song, especially the change at the end, will go down well in the hall. I don't think that being in Italian will be a barrier and the song suits the language. San Marino have never qualified for the final before and I think this has a very good chance. Hopefully this will go down well with the juries and will get enough votes to get it through.

Artist - Valentina Monetta

Song - Crisalide (Chrysalis)
Music - Ralph Siegel
Lyrics - Mauro Balestri