Perché Sanremo è Sanremo I
The History
Richard Decker
The year is 1953. In the Ligurian town of Sanremo, the conductor of the RAI (Radiotelevisione Italia) orchestra is postulating the idea of a music contest to improve the reputation of the town and to try and reunite Italy after the Second World War. Officially titled Festival della Canzone Italiana, the very first edition of the Sanremo music festival took place in Sanremo Casino with only three participants. By 1955, the contest was broadcast on TV and became the inspiration for the Eurovision Song Contest, which began in 1956 in Switzerland. 2020 marked the 70th edition of the contest, now Italy’s answer to the Oscars or Grammys. Each edition sees famous singers present their new compositions, with the winner now given the opportunity to represent Italy at the Eurovision Song Contest. It is a celebration of song. Today, the contest has become an institution in Italy: everyone knows when it’s happening, even if they have no interest whatsoever. Why should viewers tune in? RAI’s slogan for the 2020 edition puts it simply: “perché Sanremo è Sanremo.” Because Sanremo is Sanremo.
The Teatro Ariston, where the Sanremo Music Festival has taken place every year since 1977.
Credit: Jose Antonio
For Italians, Sanremo isn’t just another competition used to pick the country’s Eurovision artist, as is the case for many other countries (for example, the UK’s Eurovision: You Decide, or France’s Eurovision France: c’est vous qui décidez). In fact, the winner is not always guaranteed a spot at Eurovision at all: in 2016, the winning band, Stadio, turned down the chance to sing at Eurovision and were replaced by that year’s runner-up, Francesca Michielin. Perhaps even more controversial was the 2014 incident, in which RAI decided not to send Sanremo champion Arisa to Eurovision. Instead, they sent the very popular Emma Marrone, whose impeccable inability to keep in tune and flamboyant costume earned her 21st place, Italy’s lowest ever position in their 45 appearances.
In comparison to other countries’ song competitions of this type, Sanremo does seem to have a certain “je ne sais quoi” or perhaps better a “non so cos’è:” the contest is not just held in high regard by audiences, but also holds itself to a high standard. For a start, its format is more than just a gimmick-fuelled television spectacle designed to draw the masses into Rai 1 every evening. Five four-hour long shows are not for the faint-hearted, and viewers are not watching a produced, made-for-TV live show like The X Factor or Strictly Come Dancing; they are in effect watching a concert, or an awards ceremony, with host Amadeus often addressing the live audience and not the cameras. Despite this, the final evening of the 2020 edition still drew in over 11 million viewers, with almost 20% of the entire Italian population tuning in at some point.
It’s not just the staging and spectacle that sets the Festival apart from others of its kind in Europe. The songs themselves have a distinct Italian-ness about them such that, even if they were in English, they would still be instantly recognisable as Italian. The language rule certainly is a positive aspect to the contest. All songs presented for the festival are required to be entirely in Italian (aside from borrowings and xenisms, naturally). Many other countries don’t have such a rule, leading to national finals such as Finland’s Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu, where the majority of the entries could have walked right out of an American recording studio with no eyebrows raised or questions asked.
Even without the language, though, there is a distinctive earthiness and maturity to the timbre of even the younger singers in Sanremo. Leo Gassman, grandson of Il sorpasso actor Vittorio Gassman and winner of the 2020 Newcomers category, sounds like he could have produced his song in the 1980s and won, but in my eyes that’s a good thing. Sanremo has avoided the track that most other countries have gone down with their Eurovision songs—mass-produced, synthesised pop—and instead has maintained a truly unique “Italian” sound. Interestingly, it seems that Italy embraces its seasoned performers far more. In many other countries, the “golden oldies” are brought out of retirement to croon their way through songs they really should not be singing anymore (Englebert Humperdinck to represent the UK again, anyone?) But in Italy, these veteran performers are the real deal. Love her or hate her, 72 year old Patty Pravo is still entertaining Italian audiences despite never having won Sanremo, and in 2016 her song “Cieli Immensi” was chosen by fans to represent Italy at the OGAE song contest, which honours the best songs which didn’t win their respective country’s Eurovision national selection.
The songs produced for Sanremo often seem to be structured in a way which gives them distinct Italian flair. Readers may be familiar with the song “Nel blu dipinto di blu” (a.k.a “Volare”), which won the 8th edition of the Sanremo festival in 1958. Another listen to that song, and you might notice how the verses seem almost spoken, and in free rhythm. In classical music, this style is known as recitative, and occurs usually before a big aria or chorus—those are the bits with the memorable melody. This recitative style is still very prominent sixty years later in songs at the festival, but is often merged with a more modern style, such as rap.
Even in the more “mass-produced” songs, such as Elodie’s “Andromeda” from last year, or Mahmood’s winning song “Soldi” from 2019, the verses still have this quasi-spoken style, drawing out the importance of the Italian language itself. The world of music may be changing rapidly, but Sanremo is staying firmly in its roots, and creating masterpieces as a result. Of course, not every song in the competition is there to be taken fully seriously. My favourite from last year, which ended up in a very respectable third place, was from the band Pinguini Tattici Nucleari (yes, that’s right, “Tactical Nuclear Penguins”) with the song Ringo Starr, with the memorable chorus: “in a world of Johns and Pauls I’m always Ringo Starr.” If you’re going to critique it musically, it’s probably not the best, although the brightness of the trumpet fanfares does add a nice change of timbre to the harsh male Italian indie-rock vocals.Just listening casually, however, I can confirm that it is a bop! Sanremo also is one of the few music competitions that still use a live orchestra which, for me, enhances its realness as a competition judging live music rather than recorded gimmicks.
The voting process is a little more complicated than your standard Eurovision 50/50 jury/televote split. Over the course of the 5 evenings, different groups have the opportunity to vote: nights 1 and 2 a demoscopic jury made up of industry professionals, night 3 musicians from the Sanremo orchestra, night 4 a jury made up of journalists in the press room, and on the final night, all these groups plus the public at home. A final rank is drawn up from the votes from all 5 nights to produce three super-finalists, from which a winner is chosen via a 33% split between demoscopic jury, press jury and public vote. This can sometimes lead to controversies, in particular in 2019, when winner Mahmood reached the super-final having won over the juries, but only placing 7th in the public vote. This provoked huge uproar from many fans of second-place Ultimo, including Italy’s deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini, who tweeted his frustration, writing that “90% of the public are perplexed…”
If you thought that controversy was bad enough, last year’s will knock your socks off. Bugo, a relatively unknown young singer, and Morgan, a well-renowned singer and mentor on the Italian X Factor who decided to give the youngster an opportunity, had entered with the not-so-stunning song “Sincero.” However, after a heated argument after night 3 of the contest, Morgan decided to change the lyrics of the opening verse during their night 4 performance, finishing with “Ringrazia chi ti ha portato su questo palco,” thank the person who got you onto this stage. This prompted Bugo to storm offstage and ultimately see the pair disqualified for failing to deliver a performance. A disaster for the RAI production team, but a moment that is hilarious to most Italians and is still talked about to this day!
Sanremo 2021
The festival is currently due to go ahead as planned, with the five nights scheduled for 2-6 March.. The 24 big artists and 8 newcomers have been revealed, and in my next article I will be presenting them to you, with an idea of what we can expect from each of them! RAI have clearly not spared any expense with this year’s contest, with special guests including Achille Lauro (participant in the 2019 and 2020 editions), Elodie and Inter Milan footballer Zlatan Ibrahimovic. ABBA are even rumoured to be reuniting for a guest appearance. There are some setbacks however: instead of having a different audience for the five nights, there will be one audience for the entire week, and it is rumoured that they will be required to quarantine on a cruise ship for two weeks before the festival begins. But, after a year of darkness and depression, the Sanremo Music Festival will be just what is needed for the millions of Italians stuck inside: the first glimmer of light at the end of the long tunnel.