sanremo music festival 2017: my top 16!

hello! today, i watched the 2017 sanremo music festival, as i want to watch more song contests and do not want to watch any more eurovision editions as the “apolitical” nature of the contest makes me uncomfortable and oppressors such as isnotreal and azerbaijan still participate in it without anyone batting an eye and because i have been listening to a lot of italian music lately and i, of course, would greatly enjoy watching the festival the winner (and, to be honest, all participants!) of which is spoken of greatly in the italian press for a couple of years afterwards and learn more about the italian music industry. so, without further ado, here is what i think about each of the sixteen finalists in the big artists selection in 2017:

(update, 04/02/2024: of course, i did not go without watching the semi-finalists’ and elminated entrants’ performances later as well! however, i am not going to include their performances in this ranking because… well… i did not particularly like any of them except for “fa talmente male” (which is very catchy (i liked the chorus a lot!) and is performed by giusy ferreri, who i think has a really pleasant and unique low voice!), even though i can say that i actually quite liked the verses of “do retta a te”. i found the other songs in the semi-finals very bland and uninteresting. as for al bano’s entry, “di rose e di spine”… the questions it evoked in me were definitely not ones of “how did this song not qualify into the final?”, but “how was this even submitted into the competition in the first place and “how in the world did it win the prize for best arrangement?” anyways, having watched multiple performances of each song as well, some of my opinions have changed: i still hope this ranking is enjoyable, though!)

16. bianca atzei - “ora esisti solo tu”

i found this song to be really similar to fiorella’s stylistically. the only part of which i really enjoyed was the chorus: the verses are oddly upbeat, yet very monotonous and the phrases seem to lead to nowhere, which made them difficult for me to follow and listen to. the instrumentation is amazing, though: there is both an acoustic guitar (which also plays an awesome solo which i did not expect at all) and an electric guitar (i love the combination between these two instruments in music) and also a violin (and the electric guitar and violin always sound great together because their timbres are contrasting).

15. chiara galiazzo - “nessun posto è casa mia”

there is not much i can really say about this, but what i can first say is that chiara’s voice is really pleasant (i also like her hair colour a lot! i do not usually comment on performers’ appearances in music ratings as that has nothing to with the music i am talking about, but my grandma does and we watched this contest together so i did think about that a bit!) i actually quite like how the texture of the song becomes more dense as the song progresses (this is especially noticeable with the drums). this is, very much, a decent song!

14. fiorella mannoia - “che si benedetta”

in every single sanremo music festival there is that one participant who started their career five decades prior to the contest and still enjoys a place in the final and this contest definitely has more than one (i remember michele zarrillo, whose song i actually liked a lot, from sanremo 1987!) and fiorella is definitely one of them! i am undeniably really happy for her getting second and this song’s instrumentation, dynamics and her voice create an intense atmosphere really, really well, but this generally just sounds like an old coldplay song and, therefore, reminds me of the music my stepfather listens to and for that i cannot find myself liking it.

13. sergio sylvestre - “con te”

while i thought that this song’s semi-final performances sounded nervous, weak and highlighted the song’s annoying sugariness a lot… sergio improved massively in this song’s performance in the contest’s final! while i still cannot really say much about the song itself, sergio’s smooth and powerful voice suited it really well when he performed it confidently. sergio’s performance was, also, definitely one of the best in 2017’s duets/covers night, despite getting 11th place! i really liked how “la pelle nera”, the (very racist) 1960s song, originally sang by a white singer about wanting to be black because black performers were successful in the music industry in the 1960s, was reclaimed and became a great song about appreciation of diversity in the music industry when sang by him and two other black singers who accompanied him and i feel energetic funk music suits his voice as well, or even better than his slow sanremo ballad!

12. clementino - “ragazzi fuori”

the first verse of this song sounded really promising and i like the chorus a lot, but the rap parts sound so out of place because of them! also, the fact that the second verse is kind of missing is also very odd to me and interrupts the flow of the song to me. my grandma, when watching the performance, also stated that she really did not like the way in which clementino was dressed, but i cannot say that i can complain about that: he looks like the average italian rapper. i also feel he definitely did not deserve the sixteenth place in the actual festival, even though this song was definitely not the best.

11. michele bravi - “il diario degli errori”

this is a really pleasant song and sounds like something the fray would sing if they were italian (which made my grandma like it a lot and put it first in her ranking, as, even though i have never shown her any songs by the fray, she really likes music that i feel sounds really similar to their stuff), who are quite a good band, even in my opinion. i just wish the instrumentation was a bit more diverse: this is not particularly engaging to me because the texture barely changes. michele bravi sounds very confident as a performer too!

10. fabrizio moro - “portami via”

this song, to me, was really disappointing because i love a lot of fabrizio’s other music (i adore his song from sanremo 2007, especially the lyrics! i should talk about it one day: i have so much to say about it!). while the verses of this song sound great and fabrizio once again sounds incredible in combination with the backing vocals (his voice is very raspy and the smoothness of the backing vocalists’ support always amplifies it incredibly in all of his sanremo entries), i really do not like the chorus and the one link where he scat sings through the piano part hurt my ears (and, in the studio version, it is sang by just the backing vocalists, which is a million times better!) i also mainly know fabrizio for his political songs (the aforementioned “pensa” and “non mi avete fatto niente” being great examples!) and seeing him sing about family love in the same way is a bit unusual to me, even though i know that his discography, generally, is very diverse! anyways, what i care most about is whether anita (his now nine-year-old daughter) liked this song or not because it was written about her!

9. lodovica comello - “il cielo non mi basta”

i really like the chorus of this song and how much alternation there is between low and middle-pitched parts (i love the one low phrase appearing every two lines!) there is also a part where the guitar harmonises with lodovica and it sounds great and the instrumentation, in general, reminds me of a late 2000s beyoncé song, for some reason, and i really like that!

8. michele zarrillo - “mani nelle mani”

yet another performer with a very well-established career (he won the newcomers’ selection of sanremo in 1987) and, unlike fiorella’s entry, i actually really like what he sings. i love the serious, dark and rather inquisitive tone of the chorus (even though this song is about childhood reminiscences and is not very serious lyrically) and like how catchy it is! this has a very nostalgic feel to it when it comes to the instrumentation (i think it is due to the synthesiser!) and the acoustic guitar-electric guitar combination i love so well is also present in this song. i feel the other songs i will talk about are more notable than this one, but i still really, really like it.

7. paola turci - “fatti bella per te”

i love paola’s voice and how it is not totally smooth-sounding, which makes her sound great in combination with the backing vocalists. this song, in general, is very consistent melodically and i like how much repetition there is in it. the guitars and violins sound great too!

6. francesco gabbani - “occidentali’s karma”

this was the actual winner of the contest and i can understand why: this is a very fun and energetic song, francesco is a very enthusiastic performer, the staging is memorable and so are the lyrics (this song is about western appropriation of south asian religions and culture and how truly funny it looks in contrast with modern modernism, capitalism and hierarchy, which the song rightfully paints as unrealistic (which is also why there is a man in a monkey costume dancing alongside francesco during the performance, which most found ridiculous: while i found this unnecessary, it is meant to represent the fact that there is not much different between us and an animal living in the wild, a comparison which the book “a naked ape”, which inspired francesco to write the song, also makes) its title is also very clever: “westerners’ karma” in italian is “occidentalis karma” and the apostrophe is therefore an anglicisation, itself an establishment of hierarchy between languages). however, i did not like this musically at all and found the verses and chorus to not flow very well, though the first verse sounds amazing and i love the “namaste! ole!” part really fun, as the audience can scream along to it. a deserving winner, nonetheless! also, great choice for covers night, francesco: i loved his version of “suzanna” (which i have been thinking about a lot, because that song exists in a ridiculous amount of languages and i have been thinking of reviewing all of these versions! some of them differ a lot from the original too (which, fun fact, is not in english, not in italian, but in dutch!), like the arabic version, which is about a failed marriage and not a failed date and i find this really interesting!)

5. samuel - “verdrai”

this is a very catchy song and i particularly like that melody the synthesiser plays as a link between the verses and the chorus. however, the bridge and especially the very dramatic vignette effect that is added on the recording throughout its duration is just hilarious!

4. alessio bernabei - “nel mezzo di un applauso”

the violins and synthesiser sound really good in this song and the chorus is really energetic and catchy and i like that a lot. the backing vocals sound great in combination with alessio’s voice too. the ending is great and serves a great contrast to the rest of the song in terms of texture: while the rest of the song is quite dense instrumentally, a part with just the piano and the vocals sounds really satisfying after all has passed. i also really like the lyrics of this song, especially the whole metaphor of happiness being the universe applauding!

3. elodie - “tutta colpa mia”

this is a very dramatic song which, stylistically, is quite different from the others (i like the brass instruments in the instrumentation, which i do not think any of the other songs use). tension is built up really well (especially with the tremolos in the violins) and the main reason why i love this song are the cadences: every single section ends really well harmonically and this makes the song really satisfying to listen to and releases that aforementioned tension for good. elodie also has a very powerful voice and that suits this song very much!

2. marco masini - “spostato di un secondo”

this song sounds extremely nostalgic to me and i greatly love the inclusion of the piano, violins and electronic percussion (i think this song uses both an acoustic and electronic drum set! that is an interesting combination!) in the instrumentation for that reason and, i mean, that fits it a lot as this is a song with lyrics that mainly focus on regret and the concept of one small event in the past changing the future indefinitely, which is something i have actually never seen other songs being written about. it kind of sounds both modern and very old-fashioned at the same time and it reminds me of the 2000s and 2010s work of synthpop bands that were active in the 1980s and i absolutely adore that kind of atmosphere! marco’s voice also sounds very intense, which i like a lot and the song in general is very catchy and loud and i absolutely adore that as i look out for that in music i listen to. though, in general, musically, this funnily sounds like something fabrizio moro would sing due to the sheer intensity of it rather than something marco masini would sing but, really, does that matter? it is a very good song and that is all i can think about while i listen to it for the eigth time each day after having heard it through the festival.

my grandma does not share the same opinion as me on this song: after having watched this performance, my grandma first remarked that she found it strange that a man of over fifty (marco is also a very well-established singer: he won sanremo in 2004!) was singing a very modern, hip hop-inspired song and hated the song for that reason. i, however, find marco specifically singing this song about reminiscences, the main message of which is basically “i regret my life”, mich more earnest than any younger performer because, well… this song’s lyrics are something older people resonate with more! either way, i guess it is a matter of tastes (even though there is something i really do not like about this song and it is how badly marco performed it in the final (he sounded like he did not warm up and that made me feel so nervous). he performed this song very well on the second night of the contest and did really well in covers night with “signor tenente” (which was performed amazingly too and is also a very speechy song (i mean, the original is 3/4 spoken word!) and suited him really well!))

1. ermal meta - “vietato morire”

okay, where do i start? what first attracted me to this song are the lyrics: this is a song about domestic violence and is considered to be a sequel to ermal’s rejected song from sanremo 2014 (which is also amazing). i’ve always found “lettera a mio padre” to be a bit closer to me because i directly relate to being scared of acting like an abuser because of being frequently told that people act that way because they were taught to act this way or raised in that way, which is what that song is about, but i recently read an interpretation of this song’s lyrics that stated that it is mainly about the similar concept of “love can never exist in abuse and hate”, which i also, sadly, think about a lot. i am not really surprised that i did not really spot it in the song at first, though: i take most things literally.

musically, there is another electric guitar (thankfully, plugged in. i worry a lot about the orchestra at sanremo because it is so easy to mess up as an instrumentalist and, at the beginning of the performance, they forgot to plug in the guitar and had to start again and i felt so nervous even though i knew everything was going to be fine!) and acoustic guitar combination, which is great! the song in general has a very hopeful tone both lyrically and musically and is very rhythmic (i love the clapping!). the bass, piano (which appears in the bridge, where there is a lovely textural contrast: i love it there a lot because the fact that it continues an accompaniment to ermal’s singing makes the song flow so well, yet still be so interesting!) and, of course, the guitar sound particularly great in this song! both through the lyrics and the music, this was, therefore, the most memorable song of the show to me.

even though i have great doubts any of you care about 2010s italian pop music, i hope at least someone enjoyed reading all this.