ITALY

The Italian Final was held on February 8th at the Ariston Theatre, Sanremo with the main host being the artistic director of the festival, Amadeus. Over 5 nights of the festival the songs and artists were voted on my different analytical polls. On the final night the overall winner of the festival was determined by 33% demographic jury, 33% press vote and 34% televote. Before the festival was held each act had to tell the Italian broadcaster, RAI, if they were willing to go to Eurovision as the winner would have first refusal. The winner of the festival, and going to Eurovision, is Diodato with the song "Fai rumore" (Make noise)

The setting of the Sanremo festival is always rather minimalistic. Although there is a backdrop of sort is is nothing like as big or encompassing as anything at Eurovision. The stage is also smaller, mainly to fit in the orchestra which is a integral part of the festival as a whole. Although dressed differently during the different nights of the festival he was generally dressed simply in a dark coloured suit, or long coat, sometimes with highlights on the collar, cuffs or lapels. He stands alone with a microphone stand with little support from the backing singers hidden off stage. Behind him the stage has a blue tinge to it and doesn't really add anything to the song.

The song starts almost straight away with Diodato singing with initially just piano accompaniment. As the chorus kicks in the orchestra starts to join in although again not at full pelt. After 1.15 the second verse comes around but this time only with piano and single drum beat backing. Here, Diodato removes the microphone from the stand and moves about a little bit around the stage, moreemoting that any gestural choreography. During the chorus the orchestra really joins in fully and the dimensions of this song are totally brought to the fore. There is a 25 second instrumental which leads into a final and slightly elongated chorus. Here the song winds down gently to the point where Diodato is gently singing.

Diodato stands centre stage with a microphone stands and does very little apart from singing. There are lots of long lingering shots and swooping angles from the camera and to be honest it needs very little else. With this song, simplicity is key, mainly so that Diodato's voice can power through the meaning and feeling of the song. The tune is very simple and the fast that the title of the song is not overly complicated means it can be recognised and joined in with rather easily. The song does feel very familiar and has some rather rousing chord sequences.

This is a very typical Italian ballad and has that lovely mix of elongated notes and the syllybalistic runs that show off the Italian language to its best. The song as it stands is about 40 seconds too long. Now there could be a slight change to the ending (which would be a shame because I quite like it!) ,  possibly the removal of half of the second verse, which would remove 15 or so seconds or the middle instrumental could be halved which would cut it down  by 20 seconds. Until the final version is released, we will have to guess what will be omitted. One thing we can say, with relief, is that it looks like the song will be staying in Italian.
Although this was not the favourite from the public vote (Francesco Gabbani won that easily) he was the overall favourite of the critics and press. Although the Sanremo festival is not primarily a Eurovision national final, I have to say that out of the three finalists at the end this was the most Eurovisiony and possibly the safest bet to go to the contest. I feel this song has great presence and passion and harks back to the French and Loganesque power ballads from times before. Being in the big 5, it doesn't have to worry about qualifying (and if it did it would go through with total ease) and this has to be a early front runner. *clap clap*

Artist - Diodato

Song - Fai rumore (Make noise)

Composers - Antonio Diodato, Edwyn Roberts

Lyricists - Antonio Diodato, Edwyn Roberts