Carlo Conti will announce the names of the Sanremo 2025 competitors during the TG1 at 1.30 pm on Sunday 1 December. He said it this morning during the Milan Music Week panel “The Sanremo to come”. The big names will not be 24 as initially expected, but more.
Host (“not presenter, anyone can do that, even an actor or a footballer”) and artistic director of the next festival, Conti has until November 29th to select the songs we will hear in February. «This is the essence of the festival: choosing the big names, which is very difficult, everything else is a side dish». He doesn't yet know how many he will bring to the Ariston stage: «I have a clear idea of about twenty. Then there are another 15 or 20 that I'm undecided about. I don't sleep there at night. Maybe while I'm sleeping I hear the refrain of a song that I've put aside and I ask myself: wasn't I wrong to discard it?”.
He signed for two years and takes over the festival “in amazing shape thanks to Amadeus and Baglioni”. He invites us not to make comparisons with the latest editions, «also because from January 1st the way in which the share is calculated will change. It will be a week of football matches. We will finish soon to give space to the Dopofestival. Comparisons cannot be made even in gold and platinum records, which have gone up to 100,000 and 200,000 respectively.” Addressed to journalists: «I'm sorry, but you won't be able to write “this beats that”. These are outdated things. The important thing is to give beautiful songs to Italians.”
He downplays his role (“I don't do open heart operations”), he says that the idea is that of celebration and not of competition, he claims the idea of separating the big names and the new proposals as in the past, “so that young people have their path and their victory. It's also a way to give space to independent labels. When I see my photo of the young people from an old Sanremo of mine with Mahmood, Irama, Gabbani, Ermal Meta I tell myself that I was right to put the new proposals back”
There are two new features relating to the sixth of the covers. The first, already announced, is that it will be a separate competition, meaning the result will not influence the winning song of the festival. «And therefore the singers will be able to live that evening more lightly because it will not influence the path». The news announced this morning: «On the cover evening the singers will be able to duet with each other» and this will lead to fewer songs and making the evening less long. «And in any case, if Carlucci makes the 1st with DancingI can do half past one with the festival.”
Some time ago, even important newspapers reported on Conti's meeting with David Gilmour in the dressing rooms of the Circo Massimo. The aim would have been to convince the musician to bring Pink Floyd as guests to Sanremo 2025. It was absurd news and in fact it was false. «Someone who looks like me may have gone into the dressing rooms at David Gilmour's, but anything goes, even the lists that come out with the possible competing singers. I don't read it. In fact, I only read them if they end up on the bounce Dagospia».
