SANREMO 2026: THE FESTIVAL THAT’S REWRITING THE MAP OF ITALIAN MUSIC

The wait wasn’t just waiting. It was cultural pressure, suspended for seven days after the passing of Ornella Vanoni. Today, Carlo Conti finally dropped the names of the 30 Big artists of Sanremo 2026, live on TG1.

The result?A lineup that refuses to be “safe” and chooses to be wide, hybrid, generational, chaotic and bright at the same time. The exact mix that has pushed Italian music into a new era, and that in 2026 looks ready to explode.

THE FULL LINEUP: SANREMO 2026 BIG

Tommaso Paradiso - Chiello - Serena Brancale - Fulminacci- Ditonellapiaga - Fedez & Masini - Leo Gassmann - Sayf - Arisa - Tredici Pietro - Sal Da Vinci - Samurai Jay - Malika Ayane - Luchè - Raf - Bambole di pezza - Ermal Meta - Nayt - Elettra Lamborghini - Michele Bravi - J-AxEnrico Nigiotti - Maria Antonietta & Colombre - Francesco Renga - Mara Sattei - LDA & Aka 7even - Dargen D’Amico - Levante - Eddie Brock - Patty Pravo

Plus the new talents selected through Sanremo Giovani and Area Sanremo, ready to bring new codes, languages and cultural frictions to the Festival stage.

“I HOPE THEY ALL BECOME HITS”

Conti describes this year’s selection as:

“A lot of variety. A lot of energy. Italian music is evolving.”

This isn’t just a list of names, it’s a cultural snapshot.More debuts. More hybrids. More genre crossovers. Not “pop for everyone,” but “pop for many.” A Festival that stops pretending to be one thing, and finally admits it’s become multiple things at once.

Conti closes with a promise:

“I hope they will all become hits.”

If the music becomes a soundtrack, then the Festival has done its job.

THE STORIES INSIDE THE LINEUP

ERMAL META E MARIA ANTONIETTA & COLOMBRE

ERMAL META: THE RETURN THAT ISN’T JUST A RETURN

After a deliberate silence, human, reflective, necessary, Ermal Meta steps back into the spotlight with a project built around one idea: reconstruction. His press release describes a work that breathes differently: stripped-down writing, deeper clarity, pain turned into precision, light turned into direction.

Bringing him back to Sanremo means one thing: the Ariston stage still knows how to hold vulnerability without breaking it.

MARIA ANTONIETTA & COLOMBRE: SWEETNESS WITH SHARP EDGES

Their reunion is one of the most coherent moves in Italy’s indie landscape. The press release paints their project as a merging of opposites: her crystalline, poetic, cutting voice and his warm, nervy production.

They arrive at Sanremo as a necessary exception: gentle but not fragile, intimate but far from small, two universes that only work when they collide.

Credit photo 1: PippoMoscati

THE JALISSE AND THEIR 29TH REJECTION: A CULTURAL SAGA

Every year has its rituals. And the Jalisse, with their twenty-ninth consecutive exclusion, have now become a chapter in Sanremo folklore.

This year they celebrated with a playful Instagram video, balloons marked “2” and “9,” and the eternal question lingering in the air:“Why not?”

Some stories stay alive because they never change.

WHAT TO EXPECT FROM SANREMO 2026 (ACCORDING TO US)

Not a younger Festival.Not an older Festival.A wider Festival — complex, layered, unpredictable.

Expect:

• new-wave voices like Sayf, Samurai Jay, Nayt

• emotional returns from Ermal Meta, Malika Ayane, Levante

• pure pop culture from Elettra Lamborghini and LDA/Aka 7even

• generational narratives from Bambole di pezza, Fulminacci, Chiello

• a duo that may redraw the limits of Italian indie: Maria Antonietta & Colombre
  

The rest will be written onstage. The rest will be written in real time.

Sanremo 2026 is not a music contest.

It’s the proof that Italian music is shapeshifting faster than we can decode it.

And we’re here to document every fracture, every light, every collision.

NOT A MAGAZINE — A REVOLUTION. CZMOS.