If you’ve pissed off a far right political party by winning an internationally respected song contest, you’re clearly doing well. Mahmoud has done this already and hadn’t left the confines of San Remo.
The song is equally as edgy, entitled “Soldi” (Money). The lyrics are about a father not being there for his son and when he does say hi, it’s accompanied by “Can I haz dosh?”.
Even without knowing that, it has a raw edginess that possibly can only come from someone with mixed heritage.
Sadly, though, it also suffers from cramming a lot of words into a small space, which might turn off the casual listener and viewer.
More likely though, the juries will look at this and go “Fuck yes” – as opposed to many televoters that might go “hmmm, what’s this all about?” … as it doesn’t exactly hook you in at the start. The chorus certainly does, but by then, has our very average televoter moved onto the next song? I fear they might, but there is certainly a constituency for this type of raw song.
Phil’s score – 7 points
Once a while there comes the song that everyone have high regards for and I simply don’t get it. Italy is such an example. I may get it later but at the moment I just don’t understand what the fuss about it.
There are red flags about this: 1. it didn’t even won the televote during San Remo. In fact it wasn’t in the top 3 of the televote. 2. Like in 2017, it has some minor orchestra/crowd participation, and here it’s even more delicate that the effort in 2017.
I am also not completely sold on his charisma. It’s there but I am not sure it’s enough to lift the song above the rest of the pack.
If I learned something from last year, is never underestimate the Italians.
I may not like this, but they will, most probably, get a good results