Twenty-eight artists will compete in Italy’s Sanremo Music Festival 2023. And on Sunday Italian broadcaster Rai revealed 22 of the names. These so-called “Big Artists” have well-established careers and are household names in a country that takes its music very seriously. They were selected from around 300 submissions.
Six more artists will make it to the show through Sanremo Giovani — similar to the Newcomer’s section you may remember from past editions.
Below you can see the names of the 22 Big Artists of Sanremo 2023. They’ll attend Sanremo Giovani on 16 December. Rai will reveal their song titles during the show.
Sanremo 2023 participants: The 22 Big Artists
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Brief bios for now. Something more in-depth coming later this week…
Giorgia. Giorgia — full name Giorgia Todrani — is one of Italy’s most famous singers. Her vocal range famously spans 4 octaves. She won Sanremo in 1995, finished third in 1996 and came second in 2001.
Articolo 31. Formed in Milan in 1990, they are among the country’s best-known hip-hop acts.
Elodie. Singer. Actress. Model. Elodie does it all. After finishing second on the show Amici di Maria De Filippi, she went on to release three studio albums. You’ll definitely know her two Sanremo songs: 2017’s “Tutta colpa mia” and 2020’s “Andromeda.”
Colapesce Dimartino. The 39-year-old participated in the festival in 2021 alongside Dimartino. Their song “Musica leggerissima” placed fourth and received the Lucio Dalla Press, Radio, TV & Web Award.
Ariete. She’s considered one of the most interesting names on the indie music scene.
Moda. The pop-rock band have been active since 2002. They previously participated in the festival in 2005, 2011 and 2013. Their 2011 contribution — a collab with Emma — came second.
Mara Sattei. Mara rose to fame on YouTube, where she started uploading covers in 2009. She’s collabed with icons like Carl Brave, Gazzelle, and Giorgia.
Leo Gassmann. Leo placed fifth on X Factor in 2018. You may remember that he won the Newcomers section at Sanremo two years later with “Vai bene cosi.”
I Cugini di Campagna. The Countryside Cousins work across dance-pop, pop-rock and easy listening. Founded in 1970, they have a reputation for their eccentric costumes and use of falsetto.
Mr. Rain. Mr. Rain — real name Mattia Balardi — is a rapper and record producer who rose to fame on X Factor. In 2020 his song Fiori di Chernobyl hit #2 on the Top Singles chart.
Marco Mengoni. Marco Mengoni is a massive star who you’ll no doubt already know. He placed third at Sanremo 2010 before winning it all in 2013 with “L’essenziale,” which went on the place seventh at Eurovision. Among other accolades, he’s also won Best Italian Act and Best European Act at the MTV Europe Music Awards.
Anna Oxa. This will be her 15th appearance as a singer in the festival. The 61-year-old debuted at Sanremo in 1978, placing second with “Un’emozione da poco”. She won the festival in 1989, performing the duet “Ti lascerò” with Fausto Leali. She won the festival again in 1999 — this time as a soloist — with “Senza pietà.”
Lazza. Known to his parents as Jacopo Lazzarini, Lazza is an alternative hip-hop artist with three albums under his belt. His album Sirio topped the FIMI Album Chart for 14 weeks. That’s the longest of any album over the past decade.
Tananai. Pop singer Tananai was among the 12 acts to compete in Sanremo Giovani last year. He placed second in that round with “Esagerata.” He went on to compete at the festival with “Sesso occasionale,” which finished last on the fifth night.
Paola & Chiara. They are the best-selling Italian female group, having pushed more than 5 million records. They won the Newcomer’s section at Sanremo in 1997.
LDA. LDA is an Italian rapper…who happens to be the son of singer-songwriter Gigi D’Alessio. His 2022 EP Bandana debuted at #3 on the FIMI Album charts.
Madame. Madame, full name Francesca Calearo, shot to fame as a 16-year-old when Cristiano Ronaldo shared her single “Sciccherie” on Instagram. In 2021 she became the first female rapper to compete in the main section of Sanremo (with the song “Voce”).
Gianluca Grignani. The 50-year-old rocker isn’t just known in Italy. His song “La mia storia tra le dita” was a massive hit across Ibero-America.
Rosa Chemical. Rosa Chemical is known for trap and hip-hop. He was a guest on covers night at the most recent edition of the festival, performing a new arrangement of Raffaella Carrà’s “A far l’amore comincia tu.”
Coma_cose. The indie-pop group competed at Sanremo in 2021 with “Fiamme negli occhi”. It finished 20th, but went on to peak at #6 on the FIMI Singles Chart and was certified double platinum in Italy.
Levante. She performed at Sanremo in 2020 with the song “Tikibombom,” placing 12th in the final. It went on to peak at #8 on the Italian charts.
Ultimo. Ultimo has a stellar track record at Sanremo. The pop singer won the Newcomers category in 2018 and was runner-up to Mahmood in the final in 2019.
I need another musics legerissima in my life!! Also let’s go MADAMEE!! Can’t wait to see this show.
I would love to see Georgia in Eurovision! Her 1995 song still is one of my favorite ever! William, btw, Ana Oxa performed in Eurovision in 1989 with Fausto Leali, imo, one the best entries that year with Avrei voluto, which was massively undervalued.
Marco Mengoni’s new album is so good, he’s my most listened Artist on spotify, ending the Weeknds, 6 year run!
Also madam sings on my favourite song rn, Cosi Non Va.
Last night’s The White Lotus episode featured the Ciao Ciao song from last year. A huge accomplishment imo.
So glad Marco Mengoni is back. His song along with Loreen’s Euphoria are two of my forever favourites. I would love to see them both in this year’s contest.
So excited to see Madame back!
Marco Mengoni deserved at least a top3 at ESC 2013. It was quite unfair the result he got.
La Rappresentante di Lista wrote I Cugini di Campagna’s song…
Marco Mengoni, Ultimo, Elodie, Anna Oxa, Giorgia & Levante… Alto livello !!!
Italy doesn’t hold back. That’s why it’s a superpower in the contest.
Always same artists singing songs with no staging. Karaoke contest
Wrong thread, this is about Italy. I assume you were talking about Sweden?
Girl what in the Sweden you are talking about
Man, Sanremo next year looks like it’ll beat at least this year’s edition by a mile!
I’m so thrilled, full of quality just by the names!
I need Elodie to win Sanremo, I’m just not sure how she’ll do it since Andromeda was pure pop perfection and she only placed 5th. I think she has what it takes to win Eurovision, she has the style, vocals, looks and talent.
Levante’s Tikibombom (Sanremo 2020) was also excellent, I’m glad she’s back.
As a bonus point, around half of the contestants in this line-up are women, and the vast majority of Sanremo winners have been men in quite awhile now. Of course, best song should win, no matter who performs it, but seeing female performers getting an equal exposure is great.
The lineup itself says Italy 2024.
It hasn’t even been a year since Turin hosted, people haven’t forgot yet. But yeah, the lineup is quite impressive!
You should cause of songs not cause of hosting quality.
wow, this is POWER
Yasss Elodie! I loved Andromeda in 2020, image high hopes she’ll deliver the goods again.
The lineup exceeded all my expectations!
Ultimo and Levante coming back would be enough…but to get Madame, Elodie and Tananai, too? And Ariete is doing it! So exciting.
Marco Mengoni will take it. He’s ready to be a global superstar. He’s last album and your were amazing! 2023 belongs to Marco!
“Vamos a bailar, esta vida nueva!”
Omg, I’m so excited!!! I’m so happy about Levante, Elodie, Colapesce & Dimartino and Tananai. I didn’t really expect Madame, but I’m interested to see what she’s going to bring. And there are some really huge artists like Anna Oxa, Giorgia and Paola & Chiara. I’m just waiting to see what they’re all going to bring. I still can’t forget the sleepless nights I had this year while watching Sanremo. It was amazing! Hope I can enjoy it this time too!!
Nice to see less sanremo regulars and Eurovision competitors than usual. Expanding and diversifying the field.
Anna Oxa is so OLD!
Sanremo, as always, will deliver! The line-up feels exciting! I love L’esenziale, as well as Madame’s and Elodie’s last Sanremo songs. It will be cool. The only thing I don’t like about Sanremo is that they delete all the performances from social media a week later, and they can only be found in small traces on people’s ”My Top” lists. Otherwise, Sanremo is still the gold standard of national festivals, and I think that will continue.
Indeed, I find the performances’ deletion as something weird :/
I can see your point, I agree with you but they are deleted because producers want to increase the views only on the music videos rather than on RAI Channel (which owns the copyright)
So, corporate greed. It’s a common reason for various downsides in many aspects in art, and in life in general.
You can still watch them on RAI Play longer than they stay up on YouTube.
Elodie better win, it’s about damn time she gets her chance
Another exciting Sanremo on the way. I’m glad Elodie and Madame are back, I love them both. Ultimo is great too (though he was a terribly sore loser when Mahmood won). Ariete, Levante and Coma_Cose are also highlights in my books. There’s a bunch of names I’m not familiar with, but the same applied in previous years to most of the names I just mentioned, so I’m sure my next obsession can be between them.
They also dare to wear different clothes for each performance, maybe even have their hair different. Shocking, I know. Another good thing about Sanremo.
One thing I’ve always wondered is how come nobody who qualifies at ESC changes clothes from the semi performance to the final performance? The biggest difference ever since I’m watching the contest is that Elhaida Dani from Albania had a slightly different hairstyle in the finals. Is that a clause that forbids any changes or is that something that the performers are just heavily advised to do? I perfectly understand the lack of change in choreography and sets, as both require heavy preparations by many people, but I don’t think it would have mattered if the artist who worn a… Read more »
I agree. We’ll never know what Achille Lauro would have worn in the final. He doesn’t seem the type to repeat himself like an animatronic. I suppose they are so obsessed with lighting and getting every little just right that delegations have become scared to change things up even slightly.
Lately, it is like that. More polished.
In the past, it was an easier affair. I remember many dress switches in 2004 – semi to final.
I feel the ladies, speciaqlly Levante and Elodie, but I feel LDA and Rosa Chemical could easily play the Dark Horse of this edition. Urban music has been happily growing on the festival in the last five years or so and could snatch a good position.
To be honest, it’s been a long time since Italy sent a female artist to the contest since 2016. It would be a change of pace to send a woman to represent Italy, but it still should be by the best song.
The only woman in the cast that is able to win is Giorgia. If she won’t win probably a woman will never win Sanremo in the next 10 years
Very exciting. Marco back ten years after L’essenziale, Anna Oxa back again 34 years after Lausanne. Levante. Elodie. Ultimo stopping being bitter over losing to Soldi. All the rest too, this will be very good, I know it.
The only true powerhouse in ESC. Melfest just can’t compete with this, that’s not a shame since Sweden is a much smaller country, but we should just be honest about it. Colapesce and Dimartino, Levante, Madame, Elodie and Grignani have all had great entries over the past few years.
I have noticed that Italy and Sweden have both sent a long string of male competitors To eurovision (Though Sweden sent their first female competitor in eight years) and They have had a lot of returning artists in their selections year after year. And yet, who gets the heat for this? Sweden, always Sweden, and I am sick of a double standard that is held against the Nordic country for doing something that is common across many countries, big and small. I don’t hear anybody complaining about Italy having returning artists year after year, do I?
This famous fandom bias…
The bigger problem with Sweden is that they’ve got a lot of the same songwriters behind so many entries, year after year, I don’t think that’s the case with Sanremo. Also, lots of people think that Sweden are still being put on a pedestal when they don’t deserve to, which is why most of the complaining is directed towards them. If you ask me, during 2016-2019 Italy had the better entry every single year yet Sweden still received a lot more jury points in that period, you can disagree but that’s how I see it.
Just *my personal opinion*, but what I think about Italy v. Sweden 1992-present:
1992 – Italy
1993 – Sweden
1997 – Italy
2011 – Italy
2012 – Sweden
2013 – Italy
2014 – Sweden
2015 – Italy (but barely, both are fantastic!)
2016 – Italy
2017 – Italy
2018 – Italy
2019 – Italy
2020 – Italy
2021 – Italy
2022 – Sweden
Italy sometimes suffers from cutting it down to three minutes. 1993 was one of those times. The full version is much better. Children’s choirs, Weimar cabaret, French…
I’ll check it up. The comparisons might unfairly seem like I’m not liking one of them, which is not always the case. I really like the Italian verson we’ve got in 1993 as well. It’s my 6th, and quite underrated on most lists. I still prefer Sweden by a bit (in the versions performed at ESC, at least).
PS. Why did Italy pick a longer song anyway? As I’m aware, 1993s song was internally chosen, and not a Sanremo winner. Couldn’t they have aimed at composing a song within the parameters of ESC?
Enrico Ruggeri did actually win Sanremo in 1993, but with a different song. Also worth a listen. Mistero, it’s a bit like something Queen might have done. I’m guessing he picked a different song for Millstreet, just because of what it was about. Sole d’Europa, it’s about Europe, so it makes sense.
He picked a different song because he was specifically asked by Rai to write a non winning song to bring to ESC so that Italy didn’t have to host the contest again, he wrote about it in his autobiography if I remember correctly
He could have done a better job in that case, as the song he performed was still quite good. He could have composed something like a number of contestants from Sanmarinese national selection of 2022, but I’m guessing that his Sanremo winner pride didn’t want to go that far.
And I’ve heard the longer version now, and it’s really lovely indeed.
All italian artists, since 1967 and before Italy returned in 2011 (with the exception of 1997), were asked to perform another song than the Sanremo one. From around that time you can also find that the majority of times the artists chosen for Esc didn’t even win Sanremo that year. I don’t know if it was RAI that wanted to have exclusive songs for Sanremo only, or EBU that wanted never-heard-of songs back then. Btw almost every Sanremo song was better than the Esc song of that year from the same italian artist. Many italian esc song aren’t even popular… Read more »
There are 2 years where I don’t feel that strongly either way but pretty much agree on all of them, except for 2015. The strongest duel has to be 2012, would have been even better with Nina’s SR entry instead.
Just to be honest, Sanremo’s cast has just 8 people out of 28 (counting the 6 newcomers) that returned after less than 5 editions, all the others are missing it since at least 8 years. While Melodifestivalen has 10 artists that returned after less than 5 years. And compared to Sweden, Sanremo artists have a real discography that goes beyond Sanremo, while Melodifestivalen artists are forgotten by the Swedish themselves.
Marco Mengoni! omg
TANANAI!!!!
Wow…Oxa, Giorgia, Paola and chiara, Elodie… four generations of italian gay men should be thrilled?
Lol especially Paola and Chiara, considering they are pretty forgotten by everyone apart from the Italian gay twitter that is convinced for some mysterious reason that they’ll be able to win or even come in top 10
28! The nights will be long….. I feel I see often the same names in the San Remo line up.
More interested to see the fresh faces then, but whatever it’s only my opinion, whatever and whoever Italy will send, they will be favorite and overloved so no worry Eurovision is very easy for Italy 😉
So Italy can have familiar names in their lineup year after year, but not Sweden?
We all know this double standard and this bias unfortunately but personally look at my comments about Sweden I said basically the same, always the same names.
Never look at my playlists on Spotify then. It’s basically the who’s who of Sanremo in the last 10 years.
Effectively I won’t then
So it’s not just because they’ve got the strongest selection show and their entries being among the best ones every single year? You can deny reality all you want but I don’t see the point.
“The best” it’s pretentious and not true. “every single year” it’s really subjective…
Which reality? The reality of this bubble with the same comedy and their double standard and bias every year yeah effectively I totally dislike that.
Sanremo is one word!
Susceptibility is one word too.
It is not my problem if you don’t even know how to write correctly Sanremo, but still you want to preach about it, criticising it as usual!
I like Eurovision because it give me the opportunity to discover music artists from other European countries! If I don’t like some artists I don’t spread the comment section with poisonous comments. You don’t like Sanremo Festival, its artists, its music? Move on, don’t watch it! Nobody force you to do that!
Often the same names?
There are only 11 returning names out of 28 contestants, while Sweden has 14. At least try to think before writing fake news
Anna Oxa to Liverpool. Plan B : Elodie.
Fill it up!