Can Emma Marrone's "La Mia Citta" bring Italy another top 10 finish in the Eurovision Grand Final?
Country: Italy
Song Title: "La Mia Citta"
Artist: Emma Marrone
Last year's entry: "L'essenziale" - Marco Mengoni (7th Place)
Since returning to the Eurovision Song Contest a few years ago, Italy has consistently sent some impressive jazzy entries((I say this as someone who is consistently unimpressed with jazz)). Italy excels at finding a way to mix pop sensibility with jazz elements to find a happy Eurovision medium. Part of this may be due to their standard selection method, the Sanremo Music Festival. I was a little confused when they ditched the festival for a fully internal selection this year - they've seen consistent top 10 finishes with their entries using this method, so it didn't seem to make sense to dump it for an internal selection. That said, it's nice to see them going in a slightly different direction with this year's entry, Emma Marrone's "La Mia Citta"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Si9K0ChHzDI
There's a nice pop-rock edge to the track, although the video seems to work against it. It feels like Emma's playing dress-up and I don't know which of these looks is the closest to what she'll bring on the Eurovision stage. Overall, I find the song a little generic - it sounds like something you'd hear playing in the background of a street scene in a shoe commercial((DSW, get in contact with Emma!)). I think we could see this in the top 10, but I'm also concerned that there's a lot of entries in the contest that have the potential to give a more memorable performance. From a few live performances of the song, I'm hoping that Emma finds a balance between the standard Italian Eurovision performance style ((stand at the microphone, only moving for the final chorus)) and some of the more raucous versions she's done on live TV - too much energy and her vocals suffer, not enough and I think we'll see Italy dip below the top 10 for the first time since their return to the contest.