Each year, the same phenomenon strikes Italy as soon as the month of February has started. For five evenings, the country shuts down, stares at the TV screen and has ears only for the Sanremo Festival. The high mass of Italian song, launched in 1951 in this town on the Ligurian coast about fifty kilometers from Nice, is an institution there.
From Domenico Modugno to Zucchero and the Maneskins, from Adriano Celentano to Laura Pausini, via Patty Pravo and Eros Ramazotti, most of the great Italian voices have passed through this competition. So, from Ventimiglia to Lecce, we gather with family or friends to follow the competition live, which easily stretches from 9 p.m. until two or three in the morning.
“One of the most important moments for the music industry”
From this Tuesday and until Saturday, twenty-eight artists, beginners, talents in sight or confirmed stars, will appear on the stage of the Ariston with an original song. The objective is less to win the trophy than to meet with success. Singer Tananai can testify to this: even if he finished dead last last year, his Occasional Sesso got a place in the annual National Top 40 most listened to songs. “Sanremo is one of the most important moments for the Italian music industry. In recent years, the songs in the running have squatted the tops of the rankings several weeks after the competition ”, underlines Marta Cagnola, journalist at the Italian station Radio 24.
For Rai Uno, which organizes and broadcasts the event, it is also the highlight and the goose that lays the golden eggs. On this occasion, the channel recorded market shares to make its French counterparts green with envy: 58% on average (!!!) for the 2022 edition. Last year, 11.3 million viewers (again, this is an average), followed each retransmission until the middle of the night…
Trying to explain Italy’s enthusiasm for its Sanremo festival is partly to touch on the irrational. “It was born in 1951 almost by chance, to boost attendance on the Riviera out of season, somewhat on the model of the Venice Film Festival. It was immediately successful, first with its broadcast on the radio, then on TV, because it was the post-war era, of reconstruction, then of the economic boom and democratization. 45 rpm, explains Marta Cagnola. From then on, it accompanied the country’s history: after the boom years, the first economic crisis, the fear of terrorism, the years of lead, the renaissance of the 1980s, etc. »
“Sanremo is a ritual”
In the 1980s, Endrio was a child, and he immediately jumped into the bath. “It wasn’t really a choice, especially when you come from a family that breathes music from morning to night. I was so passionate that I paid no attention to criticism from people who said it was a show for old people. They weren’t wrong! Toto Cutugno, Ricchi e Poveri… The glories of that time were very well known in Europe but not really appreciated by young people, nor by the radios. I found the event magical. I watched it with my parents, for five days. We were ranking our favorites and we did not always agree, ”recalls the Italian quadra now installed with her husband at Raincy (Seine-Saint-Denis). This year again, even if he lives a thousand kilometers from his country of birth, he will not miss any of the retransmissions and will enjoy the final with friends.
“Sanremo is a ritual. We find there the most beloved singers of the moment, the old glories that make their comeback, the living myths that appear on occasion…, resumes Marta Cagnola. Of course, the Festival is also very much hated in Italy, like all things that are successful and that arouse antipathy. “For me, Sanremo is a pain in the ass, I mainly watch to tweet,” Eugenio reacted to our call for testimonies on this subject. Marco considers the event to be “overrated and too nationalist-popular. A whole country cannot be stopped for a music festival”. He does not know yet whether he will follow him or not this year.
“Some say, ‘I won’t turn on the TV so I don’t watch.’ But it’s impossible not to be informed by the media,” laughs Endrio. Even the news of the channels competing with Rai Uno devote a plethora of reports to the competition. Radios, newspapers and news sites on the Internet are also on Sanremo time. The angles seem inexhaustible: we analyze the competition, we relay celebrity rumours, we recount the controversies (the competition has seen many psychodramas, from the most playful – the disqualification of a duo – to the most tragic – the death of Luigi Tenco), we scrutinize the outfits of the artists and we don’t forget to interview the florists who sprinkle the event with colorful bouquets – Sanremo is not nicknamed “the city of flowers” for nothing.
Politicians never hesitate to exploit the contest either. Four years ago, Matteo Salvini, then interior minister, openly criticized the victory of Mahmood, who won thanks to the votes of the press room and not those of television viewers. He went there with his somewhat populist tweet and the affair had grown to such an extent that it ended in a televised reconciliation. This year, Maddalena Morgante, deputy for the Northern League, the same far-right party as Salvini, attacks one of the candidates in the running, Rose Chemical. She accuses him of promoting “sex, polygamous love and pornography on OnlyFans” and is alarmed that this edition is “more gender fluid than ever “.
“A festival of Italianness”
For a decade, the Festival has been modernized. He was starting to purr with his canzone sanremese, those old-fashioned ballads that have stuck to his identity for a long time. So he opened up to artists from telecrochets like X-Factor Or The Voice and allowed Emma, Francesca Michielin or Marco Mengoni, now undisputed stars on the other side of the Alps, to shine there. The recent victories of Mahmood (in 2019 and 2022) or the rock group Maneskin (in 2021) have finished dusting off the coat of arms of the great raout. Young Italians are as passionate as their elders, composing their playlists, commenting through social networks and connecting to the app of the Fantasanremoa kind of wacky and giant bingo.
For Mattia, 23, a communication student in Bologna, the Festival coincides with her exam week. “Alas, so I will only see the last two evenings in full, but I will watch Saturday’s final with friends,” he explains. “This year, more than any other, it will be the festival of Italianness. All generations will be represented and I believe that this will reflect what Italy is today, culturally or intergenerationally. »
“Sanremo has always reflected the mood of Italy, assures Marta Cagnola. Just read the lyrics of the songs from 1951 to today. love songs
– often tearful and wise – from the first editions to the joyous songs of the 1960s or those, more protesting and transgressive, of the 1970s, the lyrics always embody the spirit of the times. If we look at the books dedicated to the Festival (there are a lot of them) we realize that they are almost Italian history books. For five evenings and as many nights, it is therefore a country that will contemplate itself. And listen to each other.