Achille Lauro – Stripper
Random: Until ESC21, I did not know that San Marino was a country inside of Italy; I always thought it was a city in Italy.
Final Thoughts:
I’m not really sure what’s going on here because he has the look and the sound for a decent rock song (sorry, if I do not know the subgenre of rock this falls into), but the performance was a bit lackluster. Honestly, it seemed like the accompanying band was more into the song and performance than the lead singer, which I imagine is a baaaaad thing. I don’t know, but it appears that he was phoning this in using a phone with a rotary dial. Unless there is a major revamp or if Archille puts more energy into the performance, I do not see this one qualifying to the finals.
It is a bit interesting that a rock song won last year’s contents and another landed within the top 10, but the two rock songs released for ESC22 are not in my top songs.
San Marino in last year’s Eurovision
Senhit ft. Flo Rida – Adrenalina
Interesting fact: Destiny won Jr. Eurovision in 2015
Semi-final results: 9th place out of 17 performances (118 total points – 76 national juries and 42 public votes
Final results: 13th place out of 26 performances (57 total points – 37 national juries and 13 public votes)
This one is going to be tough to digest. First, I am going to say this is one of my favorite songs for working out. A lot of folks had high hopes for his song because I believe this was the first time that an American artist participated on the main stage of Eurovision. Leading up to the ESC21 there was a bit of pandemic-related drama. Basically, San Marino was not sure if Flo Rida would appear to perform in the Netherlands because of travel restrictions and ESC21 quarantine protocols. Luckily, he made it on the last day of rehearsals.
When I while watching the final, I think everyone was surprised with Senhit receiving a mere 13 public votes. This collaboration was predicted to give San Marino its best placement in ESC. While she received “only” 46 public votes for the smaller semifinal heat, we do not learn about the semifinal scoring and placement until after the contest. For the semifinals, we only know if they qualified or not. Looking back at her semifinal votes, her final votes are not THAT surprising.
While I like the song, looking back at the performances, I can kind of understand why she received such few votes even if there were far worse performances (IMO) that were scored higher.
Just in case you do not know, the US is going to have a contest that is very similar to ESC (the producers sold the rights to NBC), but Europe is not feeling the American Song Contest (ASC). Comments on social media were kind of like: why can’t the States let us have our own thing; why do the States have to get involved with everything; the States had better not be allowed to compete in ESC. I think many voters saw Flo Rida as persona non grata. Basically, if Senhit did well (top 5 or 10) in the final, more ESC contestants will start inviting American musicians into the contest.
Since Senhit was the last to perform and an American artist was rapping, some people thought that their performance was one of the intervals acts that occurs while Europe is voting.
I think she had a bit too much going on in the performance. FYI: I follow her on Insta, and it think that’s just a part of her personality. Also, I think a lot of the camera work was very chunky because I think she (or her team) was trying too hard to replicate the music video in the live performance. For instance, I do not think that a revolving platform was needed for so long on the stage. Also, the pyrotechnics were pretty much blocking Senhit and Flo Rida (at least for the viewers at home) once they moved to the smaller stage.
In my opinion, I would have liked to see more choreography since it is pretty much a dance song.
