SAN MARINO

The San Marinese act and song were revealed on March 12th via a via the official video release. Very little news about the song or act appeared all season until a couple days before the deadline when it was revealed that it would be a duet. Singing in Kyiv will be Valentina Monetta and Jimmie Wilson with the song “Spirit of the night”

Although the video itself it nearly 4 minutes long, if you eliminate the intro (up to the first ‘hey’) and outro, the song comes just in under the 3 minute limit. The setting is of a crowded club when Jimmie and Valentina are the stereotypical with the they/won’t they scenario. They have a good chemistry and make a bit of an odd couple which I guess should make them quite memorable to ther viewers. Of course this will be Valentina 4^th time at Eurovision for San Marino so whatever she does this will go HUGE in the hall.

The song is an up-tempo number whose genre is possibly closest to disco. The verses are quite corny with a kind of call and response structure. From this part the structure is quite repetitive but tells the story well. When the chorus starts the background music becomes slightly minimal and then beefs back up again for the second part of the chorus. The come down to the second chorus is a bit odd but I could imagine with clever camera angles and staging this could be minimised. I can’t but help myself wanting to go into “One Night Only” from Dreamgirls when the chorus starts up. The second half of the song is mainly variations on the chorus in which there seem to be multiple key changes. The ending, although sudden, is at least a proper ending that finishes on a high note.

Cheese. And what much needed cheese it is! Ralph Siegel has not quite lost it yet! Although a late-comer to the Eurovision party, they have certainly come up with something that is stereotypical Eurovision but it just so happens there is very little of that this year! The chorus in incredibly catchy and the repetition of the title certainly gets in your head even if you don’t want it to. The speed of the song is not too fast and not too slow and I can see the hall going big for this one. It is just the right speed for hand clapping and flag waving.

Of course, this is San Marino and the principality has only qualified once in its time (with Valentina) and I must be realistic about their chances. This a can really only qualify through quality of the song as they have no diaspora and no ‘neighbourly voting’ to rely on. The chances of this qualifying are almost zero but this is not through lack of trying. I really love this song and think it is just what Eurovision needs. The question is – has Eurovision ‘grown up’ and ‘moved on’ or will Eurovision always need, or possibly fall back on, some good old-fashioned pop?

ARTIST - Valentina Monetta and Jimmie Wilson

SONG -Spirit of the night

MUSIC - Ralph Siegel

LYRICS - Steven Barnacle, Jutta Staudenmayer