Italy

SANREMO – what to expect when expecting greatness

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monkey
“Monkey see, monkey do, as Berlusconi used to say”
Ah, the glorious Sanremo. Full of american actors dubbed to Italian, Tiziano Ferro doing unspeakable things to Saint Luigi Tenco (that’s just blasphemy, man), Francesco Totti trying to control his balls and the annoyingly irreplaceable Carlo Conti. When the latter dies, he’ll surely create a new festival to host in heaven while we’ll be having a neverending ball in purgatory with Marco Mengoni.

But most of all Sanremo is a celebration of the greatest musical nation in history and the selection of who gets to represent it in this year’s Eurovision in Kyiv, at least in theory. Never mind the totally incomprehensible voting system and let’s concentrate on the contestants. Here are all the finalists and what to expect from them – at least in our humble opinion (click on name to see the whole performance on RAI, never mind the chitchat in the beginning):

Al Bano: “Di rose e di spine”

Surely this act must be included only to make Carlo Conti feel better about his age. We must admit he knows how to sing, this one, but why can’t he just shut up about it? Has the most hideous glasses ever shown on stage in San Remo. Miuccia Prada must be weeping.

Our vote: nay nay nay and then some more nay

Elodie: “Tutta colpa mia”

In a country where most women try to look like hungry, underage fashion models, it is a serious accomplishment to show up with pink, short hair and Gigi Hadid’s eyebrows. Elodie is nothing short of fabulous, and neither is her performance. The song is a bit boring, though. Consider changing that part.

Our vote: Absolutely yay!

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The Big 5 + Sweden reviews

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france rehearsal ebu thomas hanses
No funny comment here, we just needed an excuse to post a picture of this fabulous bloke. Pic by EBU/Thomas Hanses

With all the Nordic countries relegated in the semi finals we can at least take comfort in Sweden being directly qualified as the host country. Now we know who to send all those friendly neighbor votes to! Then we have the Big 5 countries that can’t be bothered to actually go the trouble of qualifying so they pop up rather unexpectedly in the Grand Final. At the very least a couple of them sent a cracking tune this year! Here are our reviews, nicely lined up for you:

 

Sanremo finals – facts and highlights

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Wow! Even Thomas G:Son got a boobjob before entering San Remo!

So, there’s Sanremo going on. AKA the Italian national finals for Eurovision. We’re talking about a country that really aces in national finals. We’ve already seen a lot of fabulousness in the semi finals, like this lady dressed up as Donatella Versace/Thomas G:Son/both of those and Nicole Kidman showing up for a chit chat, which we couldn’t understand a word of, as it was simultaneously dubbed to Italian. And neither could she, probably, but she looked great in her newest botox, we’ll give her that.

Also, there is music. Great music. In fact, the Italians tend to take this contest so seriously the level of their national finals almost exceeds the Eurovision final itself. Not bad for a country that also gave us Eros Ramazotti.

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Eurovision – What to expect when expecting

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It’s the most wonderful time of the year. Tis the season to be jolly! O come, all ye faithful. And have yourself a merry little Eurovision season!

We can’t wait to start tearing apart all those entries and reporting live from the audience for you, but sadly there are very few chosen ones yet. A few songs will be rendered a thousand times still. And then there is the need to do a recess and have a look at what has been going on the last couple of months. Here’s some of the gossip, predictions and prayers and hopes for you:

Great things could happen in Hungary

So, we closed our eyes for a minute and made a wish. That one day Hungary would bring us a good looking, well behaved bloke with a voice and song to match. Turns out his name is Freddie. Which is short for Fehérvári Gábor Alfréd and a synonym for pretty perfect. He hasn’t conquered his national final yet, but there is no chance he wouldn’t, right? Meet us in Stockholm, baby, we’ll mess around.

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Congrats, Freddie! You just won the pre-qualification round for this year’s hotlist.

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Hottest Eurovision male 2015 pageant

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Musical entertainment, stage decoration hobbies and the occasional dancing set aside, we all know what this contest is really about: The men. We have now reached the time of the contest when we need to sum up all our male acquaintances before they start disappearing again later tonight. And who did we like the most? Here are the results of the Norwegian jury.

1 point go to…Belarus

belarus
“Look, I borrowed my sister’s accessories. Do you think I look like Skywise now?”

So, Uzari barely made our list, although he has got some great potential going for him. Main reason: Hair cut. We really need to talk about how to relate to curls without ending up looking like  Lionel Richie, which shouldn’t be a goal for anybody. Until we’ve got that settled, Uzari can seek comfort in jumping back in line for the shop for fancy earrings together with the rest of Europe’s football players. Because that is where he truly belongs.

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Rome 2016!

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Our relationship with Italy is deep, heartfelt and renown. So when they showed up with all of their grande amore this year, it’s safe to say the feeling was mutual and our happiness was complete:

 

Italy pretty much sums up the highlights of our life, really. And no, they are not only gelato, pizza and Brunello.

One of our finest childhood memories is related to Toto Cutugno. It was the year of 1990. We were still to be called young, the Maastricht treaty was yet to be signed and EU still seemed like a swell idea. Enter the man in white with women in all sorts of colors preaching love and togetherness in the name of Italy. La canzone Italiana won. Of course it did. Who the hell could compete with Toto Cutugno? No one. Not then, not ever.

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The Big 5 + Denmark

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It rains A LOT in Costa del Sol! Thanks Ruth for giving us yet another reason for NOT going there for our upcoming summer holiday.

During the Jury Final last night all of a sudden a few acts we couldn’t remember from before popped up. We almost forgot that paying your way straight to the final is also an option; only someone forgot to tell Russia and Azerbaijan about it yet. Here are our reviews of the Big 5 and the host country! Continue reading

Grand final: Fun facts and what to expect

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Romania
“In the beautiful, Norwegian village of Bryne you can find a piano like this in every home”

Yay, the grand final is rapidly approaching in Copenhagen! We just watched the jury final, and here’s a heads up on what to expect:

1.Ukraine: Tick-Tock sung by Mariya Yaremchuk

Struggles to impress us with a man in a hamster wheel. That’s nothing but a nice try when Greece has THREE men on a TRAMPOLINE.

2.Belarus: Cheesecake sung by Teo

Thank God the final at least has one song about cakes. Claims to not be Patrick Swayze, which is great as he never would be able to lift us anyway.

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Missed opportunities for Italy

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Marco Mengoni took Europe by storm in Malmö and we all thought he was the best thing to come out of Italy since someone came up with the idea to put tomato sauce and cheese on a flat piece of dough and let it bake in the oven. Then someone told us that it’s the Italian women who rock the music scene down there nowadays, and if they really wanted to display homegrown talent in Eurovision they should send a girl next year. Meet Emma Marrone:

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