It’s that most wonderful time of the year! December is here and while for many people this turn of the calendar page conjures up visions of sugarplums, sleigh rides, and snowmen, for those of us fully indoctrinated into the annual celebration of Italian popular music that is Sanremo, this time of year means only one thing. It’s finally time for the Big artist reveal!
This year, with the torch passing from beloved artistic director Amadeus (2020-2024) back to Carlo Conti (2015-17) for the 75th edition there’s been plenty of fan discussion and speculation about how that change would be reflected in the line up. I’ll confess that some of the known changes haven’t been to my preference, particularly the first announced change back in June, but with today’s announcement the intention behind that has been made more clear.
The biggest regulation change is in the number of artists in the competition as 30 Big acts have been invited this year. This change was partly made possible due to Conti’s early decision to move the Sanremo Giovani winners out of the main contest, and to bring back the Nuove Proposte (NP) category. Now the four Sanremo Giovani and Area Sanremo winning acts will have the NP finale on the Friday show. Friday is also the duets/covers night, and Conti has allowed that the acts may duet with one another, which would help to keep the show on track time-wise with the addition of NP to the night’s events. Another potentially interesting rule change for this year has foreign radio stations represented as guests in the Press Room Jury. We’ll see how these changes work out, as even Conti has acknowledged that this time he’s inheriting a successful festival: “I can only do worse.“
The announcement of the 30 Big acts, however, proved that Conti’s contest is still pulling in the level of relevant acts and participants that we’ve grown used to in the Amadeus years. It remains to be seen whether Conti will have the ear for song quality that Amadeus brought the past five years, but this list of participants indicates that he’s learned from the Amadeus years a perhaps better way to balance the traditional and the contemporary.
- Achille Lauro
- Gaia
- Coma_Cose
- Francesco Gabbani
- Willie Peyote
- Noemi
- Rkomi
- Modà
- Rose Villain
- Brunori Sas
- Irama
- Clara
- Massimo Ranieri
- Emis Killa
- Sarah Toscano
- Fedez
- Simone Cristicchi
- Joan Thiele
- The Kolors
- Bresh
- Marcella Bella
- Tony Effe
- Elodie
- Olly
- Francesca Michielin
- Lucio Corsi
- Shablo f. Guè, Joshua, Tormento
- Serena Brancale
- Rocco Hunt
- Giorgia
This year’s artists include four returning acts from last year’s festival (Clara, Rose Villain, Irama, The Kolors), as well as four acts that have previously been to Eurovision: Massimo Ranieri (1971, 4th place & 1973, 13th), Francesca Michielin (2016, 2nd place in Sanremo, 16th in ESC), Francesco Gabbani (2017, 6th), Achille Lauro (2022, San Marino, NQ).
On a more serious note, while there are changes worth celebrating (or at least reserving judgment on), Conti was on a podcast earlier this week where he said (as translated to English by Google) “What I like, what has come from the singer-songwriters is no longer a macro-world, that is, they don’t go to talk about immigration or war, but they go back to talking a little about the micro-world, the family, personal relationships. It’s very intimate.” Of course, one can’t help but side-eye that perspective when one thinks about the incredible songs last year by Ghali and Dargen D’amico that we would have missed out on under Conti’s watch. It’s a sad state when we cannot acknowledge that the “macro-world” is teeming with “micro-world” stories. Every song about immigration and war is explicitly about family and personal relationships, if the listener has the compassion to acknowledge our shared humanity.
Any predictions for 2025? Or are we all just manifesting a Fedez and Tony Effe duet? See you back here on December 18th when the song titles will be revealed!