At Eurovision 2019, in Tel Aviv (Israel), Mahmood offered second place to Italy, with his song
Soldi
, which revealed him to international audiences.
The 29-year-old artist will once again defend the transalpine chances in the final of the musical competition which will take place in Turin (Italy) on May 14.
He will perform in duet with Blanco the title
Brividi
(“Thrills”).
A love song that the two singers wrote and composed together.
Mahmood and Blanco won their ticket for this Eurovision at home by winning, on the night of Saturday to Sunday, the 72nd edition of the Sanremo festival, a major meeting of Italian song.
In the final round of voting, they won, with 51.8% of the vote, ahead of Elisa (26.3%) and Gianni Morandi (21.9%).
A result established from the votes of the public, accredited journalists in the press room and a demoscopic jury, that is to say a representative panel of the Italian population.
Blanco, who will turn 19 on February 10, has also become the youngest winner in the history of the Sanremo Festival.
Mahmood, he entered the history of this institution of transalpine song by becoming the twelfth artist to have won it at least twice.
His name was thus added to those of Domenico Modugno, Gigliola Cinquetti or Bobby Solo…
An unsurprising triumph
The victory of the two singers was not a surprise as they were announced as big favorites for this 2022 edition, which kicked off on Tuesday. Second in the first provisional classification on Wednesday, they had taken the lead the next day and never left it the following days. A very different dynamic from that of the 2019 edition at the end of which Mahmood had imposed himself in a wind of controversy. He had triumphed thanks to the votes of the press room while the public preferred another artist, Ultimo. The Italian Interior Minister at the time, Matteo Salvini, even split a tweet to express his disapproval and made his mea culpa a few days later.
The distrust of Italians and Italians towards Mahmood was extinguished three months later after the artist finished in second place at Eurovision with
Soldi
("Money").
This song was subsequently successful in several European countries (number 1 in sales in Italy, Greece and Lithuania; number 2 in Estonia; number 3 in Iceland, number 5 in Spain and Switzerland, number 8 in Sweden… ).
For some years, when an artist wins the Sanremo Festival, he is offered to participate in Eurovision with the same song.
During the traditional press conference that followed their victory, Mahmood and Blanco confirmed that they were ready to take part in the competition which will take place at the PalaOlimpico in Turin, from May 10.
The competition, for which Italy is automatically qualified for the final on May 14, will bring together 41 countries.
It was made official on Wednesday that the event would be presented by Laura Pausini, Mika and Alessandro Cattelan.
“The desire to love freely”
Mahmood and Blanco are already favorites for Eurovision.
With more than 3.5 million streams (online listening),
Brividi
is this Sunday morning the fifth most listened to song in the world on Spotify.
“In
Brividi
, two boys belonging to two different generations, love with the same enthusiasm and the same fears – the fear of being wrong and of feeling uncomfortable, unable to convey what they feel – and with the desire to love, in complete freedom, giving oneself entirely", explained several days ago Mahmood to Radio 2. To the same Italian media, Blanco, explained that, for him,
Brividi
speaks of "all those moments when the emotions reveal to us who we really are and expose us.
The song tells a state of mind that I can only express by singing and shouting.
»
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