It’s one of the most complicated national finals of the Eurovision 2022 season that already saw a series of live auditions narrow the field to 66 Emerging Artists. And today Una voce per San Marino added 10 Established Artists to the mix, creating what is surely San Marino’s deepest field ever.
Among the most talked-about names is Sanremo 2022 artist Achille Lauro. The Verona-born star, who is known for working across hip hop and trap, gave a fleshy, sultry performance of “Domenica” during this year’s Sanremo, drawing plaudits from many — and condemnation from the Vatican. Officials there called his faux on-stage baptism “profane”.
‘Una voce per San Marino’: The 10 Established Artists
- Achille Lauro
- Blind
- Burak Yeter & Alessandro Coli
- Cristina Ramos
- Farby & Labiuse feat. Miodio
- Francesco Monte
- Ivana Spagna
- Matteo Faustini
- Tony Cicco & Deshedus & Alberto Fortis
- Valerio Scanu
Among the other Sanremo alums is Valerio Scanu, who won in 2009 with the “Per Tutte le Volte Che” (For all the times that). And then there’s Ivana Spagna, the queen of 1980s Italian disco. She participated in the festival five times as a competitor and two times as a guest, achieving fourth place in 1996.
Matteo Faustini competed in the Newcomers category at Sanremo 2020 with the song “New bene e new male”.
The rapper Blind placed third on X Factor Italia in 2020 and was coached by Eurovision and Sanremo alum Emma
Serving international flair is Burak Yeter, a well-known Turkish DJ (now a Dutch citizen) who has amassed millions of views on YouTube. He famously collaborated with Italian star Elodie on the song “Friday Night. He’ll be joined on stage by singer Alessandro Coli.
There’s a trio in the mix. Huge star Tony Cicco, drummer of the group Formula 3, joins noted singer-songwriter Albtero Fortis and the progressive rock band Deshedus.
Not all of the established acts are known primarily for their singing. Francesco Monte has participated on a number of television shows, including Big Brother VIP and Celebrity Survivor. His musical credits include Tale e quake show — the Italian version of Your Face Sounds Familiar.
Spaniards will be particularly interested to see the name Cristina Ramos. The operatic pop singer previously won Spain’s Got Talent and The Voice Mexico. She placed third on the local version of Your Face Sounds Familiar.
Eurovision fans are excited about the one act from the Established Artist group that includes Sanmarinese flavour.
Miodio — San Marino’s very first Eurovision contestant from back in 2008 — will perform alongside Fabry & Labuse.
I love Achille. He is always a fun act to watch.
what’s this obsession with SARA?
yes she was robbed in 2018 but it was their loss…
Faustini is cute.
Achille can give San Marino their best result. But i have a feeling they won’t vote for him (the jury) ….
This is so exciting! Let’s see how it goes but, personally, I would love it if San Marino sent a song in Italian to Eurovision :’)
Some of my favorite Sammarinese songs (Complice, Crisalide) are in Italian!
Happy to see Miodio coming back. As for Achille Lauro, my guess is, as his stage persona is meant to scandalise and shock, he just pursues now to offend as many Catholics of San Marino as he can as well. I’m curious whether we are gonna get some protests of the Sammarinese against him representing them, in case he gets picked, just as those of the Cypriot Orthodox community against El Diablo last year? Other than that, I loved “Domenica” and my only regret is that he didn’t get Swedish The Mamas for his performance if he wanted a Gospel… Read more »
For god sake, Sweden doesn’t need to be involved in every ESC entry. The Mamas aren’t the only artists who can do gospel well.
So it’s ok when New York is involved? I generally take on a very anti-Swedish position when it comes to Eurovision, but this response surprised even me, never thought about it this way. The Mamas missed their 2020 participation so I just thought it could be a nice opportunity for them to come back, with no second thought…
That’s not a bad line up tbh. I excited to see Achille Lauro there, so unexpected. He’s a performer so he could take San Marino to the final twice in a row. I’m not particularly excited with my fellow Spaniard as her songs tend to be dull and boring. Also I’m so glad to see Miodio back. For sure they deserved better back in 2008. Let’s wait for the songs, cause last time they were horrible, mostly.
Except of course the totally robbed “Out of the Twilight”.
Three times in a row, since San Marino qualified in 2019 and 2021!
So now we know nothing was stopping a Sanremo act to be in Una Voce per San Marino. But I guess nobody expected Achille Lauro would be the one! It may be interesting, I always thought he has a strong persona that would be nice to have in the contest.
Miodio was probably the most wronged act in the history of Eurovision, so hopefully they’ll have a good song to write a deserved redemption arc.
After everything I said to you last night, today I became a hypocrite. Achille Lauro can do no wrong.
See? 🙂 It will be fun! But we still don’t know if he’ll sing “Domenica”, maybe he has something more showy in mind. I didn’t know Achille wanted that much to do Eurovision, count me curious to find out how he will do in a more ESC-oriented competition.
it’s his chance to do Eurovision as he’s not going to win San Remo.
Also, a big promo for him this year that Italy is hosting. He’s getting a lot of media attention already.
No Elis Mraz?
She’s a semifinalist in the other category, of non-established artists.
When will they be revealed you think?
They have been revealed…. For the semis next week
Well, he was great on the last Sanremo-Day. Didn’t like him at at the beginning, but it was a real grower. Wouldn’t mind if he represents San Marino in the end 🙂
Also: would the Turkish diaspora actually benefit Burak Yeter if he was picked? ‘Cuz everybody said that’d happen for Serhat and it did all of jack-diddly. If Turkish diaspora had any effect on his result, that dude wouldn’t have finished last in Romania, Germany, France, and Switzerland – all countries that reliably voted for Turkey back in the day (although the kind of diaspora votes that had an effect on the results in the ’00s seem to be slowing down, possibly as a result of Eurovision’s audience growing since then. How else to explain Greece’s mixed track record? Y’know, besides… Read more »
The Turkish diaspora had some influence on ‘Say Na Na Na’ ‘s result, because of Serhat, but most importantly, because of the use of Turkish in the lyrics. The first time Serhat participated, with a much better song & performance, the Turkish diaspora was less inclined to support him.
This is a myth leaked by some fans. The Turkish diaspora did NOT vote for Azerbaijan 2011 or San Marino 2019.
In fact, San Marino came almost last (or last?) in the televoting of many western countries with millions of turkish migrants (see Germany,. France, Netherlands, UK).
What happened to Sara de Blue, by the way?
Got eliminated in the audition round, sadly. Didn’t hear her song (it was a duet, apparently) so who knows if it was deserved or not.
Austria must pick her. She’s so talented.
Sara should give up San Marino and apply for Austria.
Imagine if they picked Blind. We would have Blind, Chanel at Eurovision 2022.
Hahahaha, that’s a good one.
LOLOL
In the end, I mostly care about the people of the country being happy with their entry. That matters more than anything, right? Estonia’s fielded Swedish singers a bunch of times and the Estonians were more than happy about it. Cypriots didn’t turn up their noses when a Greek-Albanian netted them their best result ever. Greece’s one and only winner grew up in and is based in Sweden, but they embraced her with open arms! Obviously, I support sending local acts, but as long as the people of San Marino are pleased with their entry and it gets them a… Read more »
What’s nice here is that there are multiple opportunities for Sammarinese acts to succeed with the song THEY want to send. It still hurts that the only way local acts like Valentina or Anita Simonicini got a chance to compete was when Ralph Siegel footed the bill for them to sing crap he wrote.
San Marino is just a Village of 36 thousand people. It makes sense to have a wider selection with artists from abroad
I don’t know most of these names (I should’ve known the rumors about Diodato, Elodie, and Arisa were too good to be true) but I was very pleasantly surprised to see Achille Lauro, of all artists, in this lineup. He would definitely be a gutsy choice, and would probably send a provocative entry that gets people’s attention. Does make me wonder what would’ve happened if he’d won Sanremo…would he have stuck with being in the running for San Marino and turned the Italian offer down, or would he have stuck with Italy and San Marino would’ve found someone else for… Read more »
Also, Miodio competing would mean two different acts would be returning after representing their country on their first ever Eurovision appearance (the other being Zdob si Zdub).
So when other smaller countries with weaker local music industries like Malta, Cyprus, Switzerland etc. outsource for ESC they are deemed to be ‘cheaters’ and unjustified in their choices, but when San Marino does it, it seems honourable and makes people excited?
San Marino has a population of a small town, meanwhile Maltese population is equal to an average sized city, Cyprus to a larger city and Switzerland is almost equal to New York’s population.
Small town can only have that many singers, there really aren’t many options.
That is not an excuse. if they can barely find an artist, they are not fit to host ESC and the EBU should reconsider their participation. but of course money talks. I just decided to point out the hypocrisy of ESC fans who are ready to diss the usual ‘melfest rejects’ and the ‘sasha jean baptiste’ stage designs when done by certain countries but are suddenly ok when other countries do it.
Of course money talks. That’s why Malta’s delegation keeps betting on themselves so they can be on top of the odds, right? And all those years they traded points with countries like Spain, Croatia, Slovakia, Bosnia, etc?
Let’s not start about the Maltese delegation’s decisions which are a total farce from start to finish. Still it does not undermine the fact that come countries can never do wrong in the eyes of ESC fans and yes these countries are often the same ones: San Marino, Italy, Ukraine, Greece, Russia and the Scandis.
You gotta be kidding me. Are you really lumping San Marino in with those “untouchable” countries? Part of why I support San Marino so much is BECAUSE fans treat them as a joke so much! I love this country and I’ve been so pleased to see how much effort they’ve put into this selection, and contrary to what you say, what sucks is how often they’re sidelined as a “joke country” who has no chance. San Marino doesn’t have nearly as strong a track record as those other countries. Meanwhile, Malta can at least fall back on two silvers and… Read more »
Downvote me to hell and back, we all know Malta’s voted mad dirty a bunch of times, especially in the ’90s.
And your point is? Mention one country who has never ‘voted mad dirty’. I’ll wait.
UK, Ireland, France, Portugal, Estonia, Belgium, the Netherlands, most of the Nordic countries except probably Norway in 1963, Germany, Ukraine, Georgia, Australia, Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Israel, Italy (they don’t vote tactically, they’re just weird), Latvia, Lithuania, Monaco, Serbia, Slovenia (except debatably in the ’90s), Andorra…
Every country deserves a chance to participate and succeed at Eurovision, no matter who they send. San Marino and Malta should be united as tiny countries who deserve love, not fighting!
Let’s not forget Malta’s very random 12 points to Slovakia.
And Slovakia gave them 10 points that year and 12 points several times since. It’s not really much of a coincidence.
Giving their twelve points to Azerbaijan four years in a row should be enough to convince anybody.
May I ask what you mean with this? I saw you mentioned Malta trading points with other countries in the 90s, is this based on them voting suspiciously back then or is there concrete proof that points trading happened? No harm meant at all, I’ve just never heard of this before and I figured I’d just ask instead of dwelling on it.
There’s been pretty definitive proof that Malta traded points with other countries back in the day. A bunch of conductors and Sigga from Iceland mentioned that they were at least approached by Malta’s head of delegation about trading points, and Spain’s conductor Eduardo Leiva said outright that Spain and Malta traded points. If you look at how Malta voted versus which countries voted for Malta and gave them high marks, it’s pretty easy to draw a connection. Plus, every time there’s been some kind of scandal involving coordinated voting (like the 50-50/jury-voting countries in 2002) or another country cheating their… Read more »
Then in the fifth year, just as the rules changed, suddenly Azerbaijan get nothing.
Also notice how in 2016 and 2019, when Malta only scored from 3 and 4 countries in the final televote, Azerbaijan, Armenia and Australia voted for Malta both of those times? Australia’s got a large Maltese diaspora so that likely explains their votes, but what about the other two? Makes it even stranger when nearly everyone else gave Malta nothing.
Armenia’s Televote can be fascinating. Remember the two years in a row they gave high marks to Montenegro right out of nowhere?
At least the EBU has gotten better about putting their foot down. Either that or the countries got smarter (and before you say anything: yes, San Marino has had some pretty sus votes in the past, but in the end their choice for the 12 has always been pretty conventional so they haven’t set off the alarm bells as blatantly as Azerbaijan or Malta, save for maybe the 12 to Poland this year. Also, even if THEY voted for Greece, Russia, Albania, etc, it’s sure led to a whole lot of nothing coming back their way).
Thank you for the well-written response! I agree that Malta’s votes have looked suspicious at times, but those comments from Sigga and Leiva are news to me. As a big fan of Malta’s national selection and their entries this is hugely disappointing, and my trust in their broadcaster had already taken a toll after the 2021 contest and how poor Destiny was seemingly put under huge pressure by those around her to perform perfectly and win. It seems like Malta’s broadcaster has been acting fishy for much longer than that.
Well, I actually understand Malta and Cyprus, not so much Switzerland. Switzerland is 30 times bigger than Iceland and they always manage to bring national songs (quite good lately, by the way).
In a perfect world, if a country doesn’t have a credible artist or money, it shouldn’t compete. Having said that, you can’t compare San Marino (practically a small city within Italy, where people speak Italian, with Italian culture, that rely practically on everything on Italy) with countries like Malta, Cyprus, etc. that speak their own languages, with their own specific cultures and so on. Also it is really upsetting to see a good artist like Ivana Spagna who sold millions of copies and even reaching number 2 in the UK chart to compete for San Marino, with unknown people. She… Read more »
I think it’s more insulting to think an unknown isn’t worthy of sharing the stage with an established artist even if they’re worthy of it. It’s very elitist, honestly. Don’t compete if you aren’t willing to place somewhere other than first. Look at Sanremo this year! Gianni Morandi is an Italian music legend, Elisa won Sanremo twenty years ago, and they both lost to one singer who wasn’t alive when Gianni last won and another who wasn’t alive when either of them last won. But they hugged them and celebrated them because THEY EARNED IT.
Don’t even compare the two scenarios. And also I am not belittling Una voce per San Marino. I saw some clips of some San Marino entries (some have already been eliminated) and I found upsetting to see that a star like Ivana Spagna has to share the same platform with amateur singers.
I doubt she finds it upsetting, otherwise she wouldn’t be there.
I’m so offended by you calling Swiss music industry “weak”. They have got loads and loads of talented and unique artists.
Yeah, the “weak” Swiss music industry that came top four two years in a row
Valentina, Serhat, and Senhit all got second chances – I want Miodio to get the same.
Amen to that, I’m very happy to see Miodio in the running and “Complice” is still a very underrated song. Probably the best song to ever (in my opinion, undeservedly) bottom out a semi.
Complice is still a listen for me!
Burak Yeter? Wow! Once more, I’m impressed by San Marino’s efforts.
The line up looks great. Hopefully the eventual song would be great as well.
Oh please, Mello rejects turned into Sanremo rejects! Awful!
Both have nothing to do! Sanremo’s lineups are so solid every year that even the last place is usually taken by a very good song, while Mello’s main songs have left a lot to be desired in recent years.
I think what San Marino is doing sets a bad precedent because I can imagine more countries in the future might try to take national finals songs from other countries to use for themselves. For example, Bulgaria (who have a terrible song this year that definitely won’t qualify) could try to take one of the Sanremo songs and have that song represent Bulgaria instead knowing the bad reception that Intelligent Music Project got.
So true!
Are we sure that Achille will bring “Domenica” with him in San Marino?
I really hope it’s a new song. The Harlem Gospel Choir probably won’t be included, and he has a lot of other songs he wants people to hear.
Can you officially announce a representative and cancelled it afterwards for no reason (but bad reactions)? I do not think the ESC rules accept that.
Unrealistic cause most of the countries are just too nationalist for that and their selections’ rules don’t even allow foreigners to enter. And those who are not have already been buying Swedish-written/Greek-written songs, a thing going on for years at this point. I don’t personally see much difference. Btw, San Marino has been gathering rejects from other NFs for years as well, its just that Italians weren’t really interested in entering their selection for some unknown reason. In my view, an Italian representing San Marino, a country bound with Italy in all the other spheres, makes way more sense than,… Read more »
I’m starting to be excited about San Marino’s choice! Hppe for a good song and another qualification to the Grand Final for them!
I love Cristina Ramos and seeing her in ESC could be really interesting but has she a particular link with San Marino? I mean she is from Spain and competed in talent show in Spain, Mexico and USA.
Well, we got someone from the US, Malta, Germany, Turkey and in JESC, a young talented singer from Russia who took part on behalf of San Marino. This is hardly surprising.
Yeah that’s true but most of them are probably going nowhere. Here I’m surprised because Cristina Ramos is a great singer and I don’t understand why she chose to compete in San Marino. Perhaps she doesn’t have a great song.
The representative of SM should at least be Italian, so good!!!
Why? We are talking about different countries. Last representative of Andorra was actually Swedish. It was never alleged that it should “at least” be Spanish or French.
Danish, plus she’s lived in Andorra for like twenty years.
Plus, IMP’s singer is Chilean (not Bulgarian) and I hear no complaints.
Lol there are complaints but him being Chilean is the least concerning thing right now.
What matter will be the songs but impressive that San Marino was able to get this list of names who have a successful track record since most national selections are full of non-professionals. The fact that there’s italian singers here with record deals in place shows that Italian artists are seeing the benefit of a platform like Eurovision. Also so curious if Cristina entered Benidorm seeing that she’s popping up here.
Good line up but was expecting Irol or Valentina Monetta too be there it would have been epic to have them
Burak Yeter and Achille Lauro? Wow. Things are looking good for San Marino. I have a feeling this could be their third qualification in a row.
…are we still in time to take LRDL or even Tananai instead of Francesco Monte? Weird selection of names tbh.
Relax, they might give it a chance next year more calmly
Seeing Achille in the mix was a pleasant surprise, Domenica was one of my favorite songs in Sanremo this year
Matteo Faustini has some good tracks in his back catelog.
If Domenica is chosen to be sung at this NF, is the Harlem Choir going to be there too?
I read that he has new album soon so possibly he has another song
I know him Burak Yeter he has a huge hit song ”Tuesday” i was listening to it everyday 4 years ago. Also didn’t know he was Turkish too..
I do know him because of that song as well, only in my case it’s the opposite, I hated the song sm, and did know where he is from cuz every DJ on radio felt the need to mention it before the song would come.
I just hope they will go with Italian song this time.
Is Cristina Ramos the woman who participated in X Factor?
Yes, I think she won La Voz Mexico as well.
She won Spain’s Got Talent, then appeared in America’s Got Talent: The Champions and Your Face Sounds Familiar. I have no memory of her being in The X Factor.
Oh.. how i loved Valerio Scanus « Per tutte le volte che.. » back then..
oh my god christina ramos !!
it’s a bunch of hasbeens/no names (i didn’t even know francesco monte was a singer, he does trash tv shows here) with some serious contenders like achille lauro and blind. valerio scanu’s presence irks me, he appeared at a talk show last week where he talked trash about all sanremo contestants. his 2010 victory is considered sanremo’s all time low.
Sanremo 2009 seemed like a low point, at least judging by that homophobic/racist/transphobic/anti-vax piece of trash that came in second.
No way
2006, 2008 and 2010 are generally considered to be the unholy trinity of worst winners in sanremo’s history here
It looks like Italy did a favor to Europe by not taking part of Eurovision during those years and keeping those entries to itself lol
This sounds cool. Perhaps it’s not the same names we had as rumored, but they are big names still. Achille Lauro and Miodio especially. Does anyone know if he’ll be competing with Domenica or another song?
I think Domenica can’t be used again, in another selection if it presented it song in another country, but now I dont know for sure because San Marino is a country in Italy itself. It depends on the rules of the selection in San Marino this year
Napoli did it in 2016, when she entered “My Universe” to both Belarus and Poland. Maybe it’s still possible.
Elis Mraz is supposedly competing with her ESCZ entry so it’s not impossible.
Judging logically, it might not be allowed as long as Rai has the rights for the song. After their rights expire, the artist can submit the song wherever they want.