The Italian final "73º Festival della Canzone Italiana di Sanremo" was held over 5 nights with the final on February 11th. The main hosts of the event were Amadeus, who also served as the artistic director for the competition, multiple Sanremo participant Gianni Morandi as well as multiple special guests hosts over the festival. Over the 5 nights different votes were held including a press vote, a demoscopic jury vote and public televoting. When all the votes had been combined, the top 5 songs then participated in a superfinal where just the televote would decide the winner. The morning after the festival the winner announced they would be participating in Eurovision. However the song he would sing was not confirmed as the entry until 13th March. Going to Liverpool is Italy's 2013 participant Marco Mengoni with his Sanremo song "Due Vite" (Two lives).
Marco Mengoni started taking singing lessons at 14 and sang in a five-piece vocal group. He enrolled in a degree in Languages in Rome but also performed in piano bars and weddings whilst also gaining experience as a sound mixer and as a music programmer. in 2009, Marco won Italian X Factor receiving a recording contract and a place in the Sanremo Music Festival 2010 where he eventually came 3rd. He returned to Sanremo in 2013 winning the festival with "L'essenziale" then coming a credible 7th at Eurovision in Malmö. Over the past 13 years he has released 7 studio albums and won multiple MTV music awards.
On stage at Sanremo, Marco is alone although the orchestra is on either side. The staging is very still and the prominent colours are blue and white. The song starts with piano backing and Marco's vocals are staccato, almost spoken. In the pre chorus his vocal becomes stronger and as each line raises up a tone it creates some anticipation for the chorus. Here, the chorus returns to being more ethereal and strings based and is extremely complex in structure but ends noticeably with the title of the song. On the start of verse two there is a audible beat which runs into the pre chorus. The chorus once again loses the beat and returns to its string filled backing. This chorus runs a little short and runs into an oddly phrased bridge before returning one last time to a shortened chorus then title of the song is repeated at the very end.
As with many Italian language ballads the song is dynamic and dramatic. The music ebbs and flows and the lyrics can be drawn out or packed in quickly. This makes for an interesting sound journey. Marco's voice really shines with this style of song although he will need to think about playing not just to the audience in front of him but down the camera as well - unless they have some other visual technique for the audience to focus on. They may need something to hang the narrative on such as a dancer or dancers portraying the story or some kind of video loop playing it out.
The main thing the Italian delegation have to struggle with is that this song is almost a minute too long. The introduction isn't even that long, nor the outro, so finding cuts to this song may well be monumental. Unfortunately we have experienced so many songs from Sanremo, and its Albanian counterpart, that have been been cut so badly that the heart of the song has been ripped out. resulting in some acts' hopes of qualifying/winning going down the drain. I honestly do not know which parts of this song they can take away or shorten without harming its chances. I am guessing that as the Italian delegation did not replace the song - which they did say was a possibility -that some way of concentrating the song, rather than diluting it, has been found. I don't think this will be a winner but will be an all round class act on stage.
ARTIST - Marco Mengoni
SONG - Due Vite
WRITING/PRODUCTION CREDITS - Edd, Marco Mengoni, Davide Petrella, Davide Simonetta
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