My review of "Spirit Of The Night":
-What would have been San Marino without Valentina in Eurovision? Probably nothing! She made history in 2014 by qualifying with "Maybe" after two unsuccessful attempts, and her personality won the hearts of many fans. What a surprise to see her comeback unannounced this year! With hindsight, this fourth participation strongly smelled of spontaneity and Valentina herself explained it clearly: SMTV called Ralph Siegel (probably due to a lack of other viable options), who then called Valentina. She accepted the offer but it had to be an interracial duet with a europop song, she was probably in a festive mood. That's how the "Spirit Of The Night" project was born, even though I suspect the song wasn't written specifically for the occasion: it must have been a track lost in one of Siegel's dusty drawers and... I have to admit it shows. I'm one of the very few people on earth who liked every single song Siegel had composed for the microstate ("The Social Network Song", "Crisalide", "Maybe", "Chain Of Lights") and - the inevitable finally occurred - "Spirit Of The Night" is definitely the first song from him I'm unable to be positive about. Now, I'm not judging Valentina's good intentions: she seemed very carefree about her achievements and stated it was all about fun this time, that she returned mainly for her fans (by the way, she enjoyed being called "Queen of San Marino"
), but I wish it were with a better song. "Spirit Of The Night" is an old-fashioned and formulaic piece of disco-europop: as I said over the years, I can get past old-fashioned arrangements if there is musical merit and a certain charming vibe going on, which I don't find here. It's very cliché and all heard before, cheesy and almost parody-material. The verses sound like a conversation with music in the background. The chorus is very ininspired and the repetition of the title annoys me actually: which is probably why the more I listen to the song, the less I can stand it. The melody doesn't live up to the richness of Siegel's past efforts, I don't find any part interesting composition-wise and the multiple key changes are pointless and uneventful imo: it's nothing more than an unfunny high-camp song imo. When I first heard it, I thought it would have been nice to see this make it to the final, but now that I came to my senses, it's probably the song of semi 2 that I dislike the most. Siegel maybe didn't watch the contest last year, but I believe the comparison is inevitable: Serhat managed to present a piece of disco music with an original melody, tasteful hook and sleek production which made the final product sound more "expensive contemporary throwback" than anything else. Even if it is meant to be taken lightly - it's supposed to be a fun dance song after all - I'm seriously disappointed by that effort. Pros: none I can think of, other than featuring Valentina. Cons: the dated arrangements, the non-inventive and quite annoying melody, the pointless key-changes, the camp beat...
As said above, there is no highlight to me in this song. It's equally dull and annoying throughout it imo.
-Vocally, of course Valentina is the best thing out of this, but even the melody - between almost spoken verses and borderline cacophonous choruses - didn't allow her voice to shine properly. Regarding Jimmy, he can sing and his voice wasn't unpleasant, however I feel like the two of them didn't ever match vocally: their singing was very plain imo. As expected, they delivered on the night - they seemed to have fun on stage, which was contagious to a certain extent - but it was nowhere near sufficient for me to reconsider my negative stance about the song.
-Visually, both singers explained it was meant not to look staged because they wanted people to feel how spontaneous and natural they are. I'm not against this idea at all, I think it's commendable within the framework of Eurovision actually, but I fear the final product might have come across as slightly unprepared and amateurish instead. The colour scheme used on stage (blue, orange and shades of purple and red) were the same as last year - for obvious reasons - but the comparison ends here. I didn't mind the spotlights in the background in the beginning, and the moving coloured rectangles and as soon as the pre-chorus arrived, not very fancy but I guess it could have been worse. The camera work isn't as bad as I remembered, I wish there had been tighter shots though, but that issue was a recurrent one this year. Thankfully, there were closeups during the verses, which demanded some degree of intimacy in this regard. The use of the "chandelier" towards the end was appropriate and welcome - it gave more dynamism and structured the stage, I wish they had used it earlier. Outfit-wise, both were wearing casual-looking shining black clothes, somehow they kept it simple. Overall, the presentation was ok-ish, not a shameful mess, but not inspiring or particularly interesting to watch imo. Meh.
-Results-wise, they were non-qualifiers from day 1, but I thought they would have done better than last with 1 point. A big fat zero from the juries was expected even though the stuff they supported like crazy was at least as dated and unexciting as "Spirit Of The Night", if not more. Televoting-wise, 1 point from Siegel's home country, that hurts... In all honesty, it pains me to say such things because I've always been so supportive towards San Marino and especially Valentina, but for once their non-qualification was 100% deserved to me. In my personal ranking, I think the song is in my bottom 10, it's not the worst song of the year but definitely the second weakest Sammarinese effort ever (after the dreadful "Stand By" in 2011). I truly hope San Marino doesn't withdraw and succeeds in finding other options: if multimillionaire singers aren't going for it, record companies might be interested in this opportunity (like Sony and Manel Navarro this year, I guess Greece also used this method). Ideally, Valentina would come back with her true self and a jazz song, but who would pay the participation fee? That's the issue. Anyway, I hope to see our beloved microstate in Portugal, preferably without Siegel, unless he seriously ups his game (which I doubt, and change would be welcome anyway). I'm not here for a second "Spirit Of The Night". Fingers crossed!
