Tuesday 13 February 2018

ITALY


The Italian entry was selected and confirmed on February 10th during the annual Sanremo Music Festival, hosted by Claudio Baglioni, Michelle Hunziker and Pierfrancesco Favino. During the final evening of competition, the winner was chosen via a combination of a demographic jury (30%) expert jury (30%) and televoting (40%). As with the last couple of years, the overall winner of the festival is given first refusal as to whether they want to represent the country at Eurovision. During the press conference, the winner confirmed they would go to Lisbon. The winning act was Ermal Meta and Fabrizio Moro with the song "Non mi avete fatto niente" (You didn’t do anything to me)

The background of this song is a flood of red lights. There is no video, no background just a basic colouration. The duo stand next to each other with microphone stands. Ermal is wearing a generic smart-casual buttoned up suit while Fabrizio’s open jacketed suit is not too dissimilar but has a slightly more shiny, rock-inspired tinge to it. Ermal’s performance style is more inward with little movement and small hand gestures. Fabrizio is much more animated with wide leg stances and lots of pointing. You can tell the two men are passionate, almost angry, yet show two different ways of portraying that emotion. Around the 2 minute mark the guys are shown in split screen from slightly different angles which make for a very interesting viewing position considering they are actually next to each other.

The song starts off quietly and with very little backing. Ermal’s voice is well balanced,  clear and  gentle whilst Fabrizio’s voice is a little scratchier. The lyrics of the songs are really quick and the tune is repetitive. Although the song is in Italian you can pick out the odd place name as well as pick up the tune very easily. After the first chorus, the drums pick up speed turning the song into a bouncier, syncopated tune which almost sounds like a country song. There has been some controversy about the song ’borrowing’ its chorus from a song previously entered, but not selected, to Sanremo 2 years ago. However, the Sanremo committee said that no rules, as far as they were concerned, had been broken but the EBU might have a different view. As it stands the song is also about 25 seconds too long and I would not like to the be the person given the job of streamlining this one down.

This was the big favourite before the final and it was no surprise that it won. I personally like the tune and its repetitive nature. I like the combination of the 2 voices and styles and I feel that you are bound to like or enjoy one of the singers if not both of them. The official video of the song shows more of the meaning and feeling behind the story (there are motions during the song of places that have been the subject of terrorist attacks or war) and something like this on a video screen would have worked but as this won’t be happening this year they may have to be creative about how to get this message across. There is also the possibility, albeit it small, that some of the song might be sung in English – this might help with getting its message to more viewers but might cutup the flow of the song. If you like Italian song this will be right up your street, otherwise if might be a bit Marmite. A good song but I don’t see this one battling for the win


ARTIST – Ermal Meta & Fabrizio Moro
SONG – Non mi avete fatto niente (You didn’t do anything to me)
MUSIC - Ermal Meta, Fabrizio Moro
LYRICS - Andrea Febo, Ermal Meta, Fabrizio Moro


(RAI Uno place Sanremo songs on youtube but they are not embeddable so here's a link)




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