Eurovision 2008: San Marino

Tuomo writes: There may be a lot of critique against the Eurovision concept - or should we call it brand - for promoting music that is insipid, commercial, of minimal artistic value yadda yadda yadda. Yet, more and more countries express the desire to participate. In fact, the two-night semi-final format can be argued to be the offspring of providing a fair opportunity for as many as countries as possible to showcase their musical talent - or in some cases lack thereof... :-) In this sense, year 2008 is no different with two newbies of which the first one is the lilliputian San Marino (I have to admit that I had to look up some info on it!), Miodio and Complice:




Here orhttp://www.eurovision.tv/medialounge/video/596

It's a pity that Italy, a country of almost systematically almost overqualified but under-appreciated entries, has been absent from Eurovision for a number of years. So now it's up to San Marino to continue the legacy of musica italiana. There have been times where in hindsight I've regretted putting so much effort in college in learning Italian instead of, say Spanish, but it was such a sexy language to know in the mid-80s in - and still is... And Miodio's song just does exactly what Italian to this day does to me: send shivers down my spine à la John Cleese in Fish Called Wanda.

Another aspect that I like about this entry is that it makes me think of one of my favourite pop/rock groups: Depeche Mode. Light pop with dark, mysterious, if not downright sexy undertones: mamma mia!

OK, so San Marino may be lilliputian in size, but could it be this year's brobdignagian surpise? (See, I read more than Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in college...!!)