492/917 Al Bano & Romina Power: Magic oh magic (Italy 1985)

Italy has always been one of my favourite countries in the Eurovision song contest. But they can't always do right. Their 1985 entry failed in almost all aspects to reach the high San Remo standards I was accustomed to. But what did it matter, it still fared rather well in the final results.

Al Bano & Romina Power were an established pop act and the song was crafted by professionals, so everything should have been perfect. Instead the song was dull, repetitive and laboriously arranged. Song starts promisingly but very soon it was evident that it didn't go nowhere.

But the melody or the arrangement were not the worst thing. It seemed, at least to me, that more work had been done to sew the glittering gown of Romina than had been done to rehearse her to sing properly. Maybe it was the excitement (which is unlikely, because the duo had taken part nine years earlier) or maybe she didn't hear the orchestra enough (some other artists seem to have the same problem). Whatever the reason, she barely sung a right note during her solo. To make matters worse, her singing was backed by one of the backing singers, who DID sing in tune making Romina's detuning stand out like a tomato in a vanilla sauce.

Al Bano being a charismatic and skillful singer manages to prevent the performance turn into disaster. His voice and presence is joy to the ear and eye. However, even he cannot save a mediocre tune and a poor performance of his wife.

If you think that I am too harsh on the song, you may be right. At least the juries didn't agree with me as the song was voted seventh among 19 entries. That does not change the fact, that I have never liked the Italian entry from 1985 and probably never will.

My points 1/5.