Sanremo is increasingly a contest for young people, despite Al Bano, Morandi and Ranieri

On the second evening, the 73rd Italian Song Festival in Sanremo begins to take on its own physiognomy. It is the review of reunions among those who have never, or still, distanced themselves: Like Things Tuesday, the Article 31 the next day, recital Paola and Chiara Iezzi inseparable by nature. It is the festival of good and evil, literally interpreted in a dance key by the relativist Madamewith somewhat disturbing ways in the transfiguration of Levant. The catwalk that a year ago exalted candy pink jackets is now tinged with lapis lazuli blue, in the luminous outfit of Giorgia and in the exaggerated one of Luca d’Alessio. More and more a contest for young people, slim, fit, with boomers serving as revered masters at best. And like last year, and like the year before, the artistic director was probably aware that the best would arrive on Wednesday: this is revealed by the shareable partial classification, which emerged in the press room at the first halfway point, which confirms yes Mengoni at the top (as if to give an address to the will of the people, the protagonist from here on out) but recognizes the talent of Colapesce and Dimartinoof the same Madame and Tananaiplacing them at the top of the day and immediate reinforcements of the golden uvula that won in 2013.

What the ranking already asks for, placing them in the darkest rear areas, is which place in real Italy, whose player does Sethu, Shari, Will, Olly occupy: who are they? Exist? Why am I here? How to distinguish them? An entire Emilia-Romagna name day, updated to the years of the prevailing Milanocracy, struggles not to become the nth one outside the Festival: what happened to Highsnob and Hu, Aka7even, Matteo Romano, Yuman, just to keep to last year? How much dust has Aiello, Fasma, Gaia, Random already covered from Sanremo 2021? Store or medicine names, replicas of the same, future jury chairs at The Voice: Riki, Alberto Urso, Junior Cally. And before Covid, Einar, Federica Carta, Shade, The Kolors: artistically, for the majority of Italian men and women, they sleep on the hill.

Two different and historicized ways of doing hip hop in Italy also contributed to giving substance to the positive adjustment: Article 31 and Lazza, staged one after the other. The “beautiful journey” of J.Ax and dj Jad moves for the amarcord in the golden years of the great Real, sublimating in the mirror the priority value of a lasting friendship. Take a walk around the neighborhood, come and see: “We really hated each other / she left you and I laughed / your mom flew to heaven / and I wasn’t at the funeral (…) We were two balls, in fact we function as a couple / in life you choose friends / we are the ones who love each other / even when they go to war, like brothers”. She cries.

To those who were there, and understand the references, the time to wipe away their tears and applaud Lazza, best seller of streaming and views: entering Italy after the story of a certain rap is unlikely even for those crunching current numbers. Due respect immediately transforms into a nice old school base, sprinkled with Blanco style but without the roses: “Cenere” is promoted for the groove. The same goes for the debated Madame, now the only point of reference for girls – like Shari Flintstone – who want to bring bars to pop: no provocation, #no correlation, but the acid refrain hints at “Push the feeling on” by the Nightcrawlers, an early Nineties disco, and the nasal verse leads to the successful Mahmood model. Nomenklatura, Datura, usury – it will grow and make itself dance. As well as “Made in Italy” by Rosa Chemicalaspiring Fibra della fluidità in an electroswing key, and the takeover bid by the Representative of Lista – another fire brand of recent years – over the endless legs of Levante (“Vivo”). Fedez also raps by the poolsurprisingly the more political of the pair, whose anti-government message against Valditara, Roccella and Fazzolari does not pass the scrutiny in advance: perhaps, it will be said by itself, the country needs such a voluntary martyr of thought.

Colapesce, Dimartino and Tananai, talking about names, things, cities. The very light music this time doesn’t get too Sanremese, on the contrary “Splash” is elaborated as Lucio Battisti would have liked: just the break of notes comes to mind, but despite the reduced immediacy – and a discreet excess playing time, the only drawback – it stands vaguely recalling the good days of Loy & Altomare and New Trolls, “Una mine”, “Quella carezza della sera”. Class to sell: it goes without saying that subsequent listening and the studio version will project it even more into the peaks of consideration. Instead, the former braggart Tananai looks to Baglioni’s classicismwho easily understood how one cannot disregard the guardianships to really get there: his slow “Tango” enjoys a great string orchestration, it borders on the concept of an author song and offers another image – neither contrasting nor alternative – of the talent we’ve come to know with the many different singles pitted in 2022. “I’ll be back on Monday”, and it’s an immediate hunt for the cross-reference: very good.

Radio Nostalgia, for its part, has something to feed on among competing artists and very respectable guests. Giorgia was expected, almost announced from 8 December: like Marco Mengoni, her splendid out-of-scale jazz voice shouldn’t even consider the problem of competition with kids and masks. Yet “Words said badly” is a song with a dubious and contrasted appeal, weak in the memory of successes, and it also happens that the interpreter sticks trying the scales. Her path is uphill, like a favorite skier who reaches eighth place in the first heat (the same for Ultimo, now tenth), while the roll of honor would never have been a deal for the revived Paola and Chiara: choreography from X Factor, ballet from Tik Tok, out of time and also plastered. Gigi d’Alessio’s son, Luca, is accompanied to the management by his cousin Francesco, according to tradition in Neapolitan weddings: but the best that the family clan knows how to give birth is a few winks to the more intimate Umberto Tozzi, already sounding old more than sources.

According to Amadeus, obviously, every occasion is good to talk about “music history”, whether it’s “Brividi” or Al Bano does the same: in the remake of Canzonissima 1970, Gianni Morandi and Massimo Ranieri duet and duel once again and forever. “Twenty Years” and “If the City Burned” would win hands down against anyone even today (not that much better has been written, by the way), and “Losing Love” is an annual fee that will bore his first debt collector. Between two, Al Bano makes the figure of the third wheel tolerated a bit ‘with difficultyperhaps introduced by superior will to plastically represent the smell of old people’s houses.

The down-to-earth dreams of the young prisoners in Nisida (“when I go out I want to go to Men and Women”, then stay inside for a bit…), reported with monotonous journalistic air by the shoulder Francesca Fagnani, do not pierce the screen too much: in Sanremo, to get people talking, you have to cause a scandal, it is well known and also very fresh from memory. The panoramic direction with handheld camera and quick cuts induces a sense of nausea, nothing compared to today’s opening of the opinion polls: the preview when Amedeo went up to the gallery, immediately a cartoon by Riccardo Mannelli for Cuore, generone redone and (poorly) casual dress that enthuses and silences equally. Take a good look at the partial classification of the press room, take a screen shot because after the predictable barbaric ebb it could be totally distorted: from tonight, save those who can.