Sanremo won't let you sleep.
Every February, Italy stops. Millions of people glue themselves to their sofas, phones in hand, snacks on the table, ready for what is unquestionably THE event in Italian pop culture — and the longest-running annual national TV music competition . The hum of the orchestra fills the Ariston Theatre. The lights hit the stage. And then… it just keeps going. And going. And going.
I'm Gerd, and I write this from my wheelchair in Tirana, with the same tired eyes you probably had if you watched the whole thing. Let me be honest with you: I love music. I studied physics, not musicology, but sound waves are sound waves — and some of the ones coming out of Sanremo this year hit my ears like chalk on a blackboard.
A Festival With 75 Years of History — and 5 Hours Per Night
Let's give credit where it's due. Sanremo has 75 years of history, making it the longest-running song contest ever and perhaps the most important in the world . It's launched the careers of countless Italian singers . It gave the world the Eurovision pipeline. That's not nothing.
But here's the thing nobody in charge wants to hear: the format is broken.
The show starts around 8:40 PM and drags past 1:30 AM. Five nights in a row. Thirty artists competing. That's not a music festival — that's a test of human endurance. The smell of cold coffee at midnight becomes your companion. Your eyelids get heavy somewhere around song number eighteen. By song twenty-five, you've forgotten songs one through ten.
And that's the real tragedy. Even if a genuinely beautiful song exists in the lineup, it drowns in a sea of mediocrity and fatigue.
The Songs: Let's Not Pretend
I'll say it plainly — most of the songs are forgettable.
This isn't a new complaint. The 58th edition already faced criticism for weak songs and performances. The pattern repeats year after year. Organisers insist the quality is "really high" and that "songs need to be listened to many times". With respect — if a song needs to be heard five times before it sounds decent, it's not a good song. A great melody grabs you by the collar on the first listen.
Some years produce gems. Rare, shining moments where a voice cracks with real emotion and the whole theatre holds its breath. Those moments exist. But they're buried under hours of filler — tracks that sound like they were written in a hurry, performed without conviction, and forgotten before the next commercial break.
I can't recommend a single standout from this year. Not one. And that stings, because I want to love this festival.
Why Does Italy Still Watch?
This is the question that fascinates me.
The annual Sanremo music festival has always served as a kind of self-reflexive "state of the nation" moment for Italy . It's far more than a simple singing competition . It's a cultural ritual. Families gather. Social media explodes. Office conversations the next morning revolve entirely around who sang what and who wore what.
Sanremo is identity.
I understand this deeply. Growing up between Albania and Italy, I watched how culture binds people together — how a shared song or a shared memory creates belonging. Sanremo does that. The problem isn't the idea of Sanremo. The problem is the execution.
What Needs to Change
Cut the lineup to twenty artists. End the show by midnight. Give each performance room to breathe. Let the audience actually feel something instead of numbing them into submission with a five-hour marathon.
Quality over quantity. It's not a radical concept.
Sanremo doesn't need to die. It needs to respect the people watching it — and the artists performing in it. A shorter, sharper festival would honour those 75 years of history far better than this bloated spectacle ever does.
So Here We Are
I'll probably watch again next year. You will too. We'll complain about the length, groan at the songs, and stay up way too late scrolling memes about it. That's the magic and the curse of Sanremo — it's inescapable.
But wouldn't it be something if, just once, we stayed up late because the music was that good — and not because the show simply refused to end?
Tell me what you think. Did you find anything worth saving this year? I'm genuinely asking.
— Gerd Dani, FreeAstroScience
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