Boy George Is Going to Eurovision and San Marino Is Absolutely Unhinged (We Mean That Lovingly)
San Marino Looked at the Rest of Europe and Said «Hold My Spritz»
There are bold moves in Eurovision, there are very bold moves in Eurovision, and then there is whatever San Marino is doing — which occupies its own entirely separate category that we are tentatively calling chaotic genius and refusing to revisit. Because while the rest of Europe is busy holding tasteful national selections with three acts and a green room, the world’s smallest competing nation has once again assembled what can only be described as the most gloriously overcrowded, internationally bewildering, emotionally overwhelming selection in the entire contest — and this year they’ve somehow managed to top themselves by confirming that Boy George will be on the stage in March. Yes. That Boy George. Culture Club. Karma Chameleon. The man, the myth, the hat collection.
Dreaming San Marino Song Contest is back for its fifth consecutive year as the country’s chosen route to Vienna, and if you weren’t already paying attention to what this tiny republic gets up to every spring, now is absolutely the time to start.
Senhit Came Back and She Brought a Legend With Her
Let’s start with the entry that has already broken the internet in at least three different language communities, because Senhit — the San Marinese icon who represented the country in 2011 and then again in 2020 and 2021, reaching the grand final in Rotterdam with Adrenalina — has returned to the Dreaming San Marino stage, and she has not come alone. Her entry for the Grand Final is called «Superstar», it is a duet, and her partner in musical crime is none other than Boy George, pop icon, style legend and one of the most recognisable voices of the last four decades. The combination of Senhit’s Eurovision pedigree and Boy George’s sheer cultural weight is the kind of thing that makes you stop whatever you’re doing, put your phone down and say wait, sorry, what out loud to an empty room.
The Grand Final Line-Up Is Already Quite Something
RTV San Marino held a press conference — fittingly, in Sanremo, because of course they did — to reveal the ten established artists who go directly to the Grand Final on 6th March at the Nuovo Teatro di Dogana, hosted by the wonderfully charismatic Simona Ventura. And what a ten they are. Rosa Chemical, who took «Made In Italy» to Sanremo in 2023 and finished eighth, is back with «Mammamì» and bringing that same unclassifiable energy that made him impossible to ignore the first time around. Dolcenera, a Sanremo veteran with a winners’ medal from the Newcomers’ category back in 2003 and multiple Big Category appearances to her name, arrives with «My Love» and the kind of quiet confidence that only comes from having done this many times before. Edward Maya, the Romanian producer behind one of the most inescapable songs of the late 2000s, shows up with William Imola and a track called «Ball», which is either going to be magnificent or completely unhinged, and either way we will be watching. Inis Neziri, who just finished second at Albania’s FiK this year, has clearly decided that one national final wasn’t quite enough for her February schedule, which is a mood we fully respect.
The full Grand Final line-up of established acts reads as follows:
Andreas Habibi ft. AURA — «All We Need Is Love»
Dolcenera — «My Love»
Edward Maya ft. William Imola — «Ball»
Inis Neziri — «Aurora»
Kelly Joyce — «On La La»
L’Orchestraccia — «Cara Madre Mia»
Molella ft. Maxe — «Fever»
Paolo Belli — «Bellissima»
Rosa Chemical — «Mammamì»
Senhit ft. Boy George — «Superstar»
Forty Acts, Two Semi-Finals, One Very Busy Weekend
Before any of that Grand Final glamour, though, forty emerging artists have to fight their way through two semi-finals on 3rd March, with ten qualifiers joining the ten established acts for the big night. The first semi-final brings twenty acts ranging from the intriguingly titled «Lavorare fa schifo» by Capabrò — which translates, delightfully, as «working is rubbish», a sentiment that will resonate across the continent — to Giacomo Voli‘s «Figaro», which promises something operatic and probably spectacular, to Magdalena Tul in the second semi-final, the Polish singer who represented Poland at Eurovision back in 2011 and is clearly not done with this particular adventure yet.
First Semi-Final — 3rd March:
- 4CALAMANO — «Twilight»
- Alien Cut feat. Tayma — «in gara con brano in via di comunicazione»
- Anna Smith — «Bruised»
- Capabrò — «Lavorare fa schifo»
- DAUDIA — «Talk about it»
- ERISU — «Ghost of Ninive»
- Giacomo Voli — «Figaro»
- Lorenzo Bonfire — «Ode to Guilt»
- MATIAS FERREIRA — «PAURA»
- METIRIA — «Attention Seeker»
- MRTINA — «My Insanity»
- MYKY — «Outta Tune»
- N’ice Cream — «Not the winner»
- ORPHY — «Rise Again»
- Pellegrina Pibigas — «Il Giorno Che»
- Ryan Song — «Break the Cage»
- Yume — «paura di amare»
- Sheila — «Zemra e Tokes»
- Star Guy — «Star Shadez»
- stefano — «Pesce rosso»
Second Semi-Final — 3rd March:
- Atwood — «Midnight Alibi»
- Deva — «Mi fa male l’America»
- Elysa — «The Alchemist»
- Iired — «Playlist in Loop»
- Iuna — «Freedom Calling»
- Klem — «Ok Respira»
- Luka — «Where It Ends»
- Luka Basi — «Chicolo»
- Lupi Mannaggia — «Ignorantità»
- Magdalena Tul — «I’ll Be Around»
- Maraaya — «Alu Alu»
- Marco Sbarbati — «Pretty Little Secret»
- Maya Azucena — «My Sin»
- Nicolò Deori — «Mi ucciderai per sempre»
- Novablue — «Muoio di fame»
- Paolo Martini — «Fase Rem»
- Ciro Maddaluno — «DISTRATTO»
- Sezina Kelsey — «You Raise Me High»
- Utopia Twins / Valerie — «Fake Smile»
- Xannova Xan — «Unbreakable»
Why San Marino Deserves Far More Credit Than It Gets
Here’s the thing that gets lost in the noise every year: San Marino genuinely cares about this. A country of roughly 34,000 people — fewer than most medium-sized British towns — consistently fields one of the most diverse, international and sheer-volume-of-effort selections in the entire Eurovision calendar, and it does so with an enthusiasm that puts nations twenty times its size to shame. Five consecutive years of national finals, a Grand Final hosted by a genuine Italian television personality, sixty artists competing across three nights, and a lineup that somehow includes both a Sanremo veteran and the man who sang Do You Really Want to Hurt Me in 1982. This is not an accident. This is a choice, and it is a magnificent one.
Semi-finals on 3rd March. Grand Final on 6th March. Vienna in May. And somewhere in the middle of all of it, Boy George putting on something extraordinary and San Marino quietly reminding everyone why they should never, ever be underestimated.
Source: RTV
