Eurovision 2012 Entrants: Ukraine

Instead of my standard introduction, I want you to listen to the Ukrainian song first.

Gaitana "Be My Guest"

Gaitana won the Ukrainian national final handily with this song, coming in first with the jury and second with the Ukrainian public. 

Personally find it a perfectly peppy number with a nice dance groove, a little ethnicity with the horns, and Gaitana has a lovely R&B voice that seems reminiscent of Mary J. Blige and Tina Turner.

However, her win of the contest has brought to attention the rampant racism that is a part of  Ukrainian society not necessarily noticeable.

Yuriy Syrotyuk, a member of the nationalist Svoboda party, told the Kiev Post that Gaitana is "not an organic representation of Ukrainian culture", and although she is "a great singer", she "represents another race, will provoke an association of Ukraine as a country of a different continent”.

Gaitana provoked these comments because he is ethnically only half Ukrainian, her father was born in the Republic of Congo.

It isn't particularly surprising coming from a leader of a nationalist party, which according to Wikipedia (so take this with a grain of salt) has a desire to promote ethnic identity, like quotas for ethnic Ukrainians in governmental bodies and universities and stopping adoption of Ukrainian children by non-Ukrainians.

And what's even more infuriating is the fact that almost nobody in the political sphere of the country has spoken out against Syrotyuk's speech.  As an American, this is absolutely unbelievable, but unsurprising.

But this political kerfuffle really shouldn't have any bearing on the song, and I expect that it's going to do well.  Gaitana's R&B voice and the bouncy music should go down really well across Europe, and hopefully she's going to do really well come the night of the finals. 

Eurovisionaries: Olivia Newton-John

You mention the name of Olivia Newton John to any American woman under the age of 40 and one thing pops into their mind:

 

If you didn't already know, "Grease" is the word with many Americans.

Yet before Newton-John sashayed herself into American girls' hearts as the good girl turned bad Sandy, she represented the United Kingdom at the Eurovision Song Contest in 1974.

Olivia Newton-John  "Long Live Love"

She came in a respectable fourth in the contest, but this was the year of ABBA, so in retrospect it's not surprising that she placed where she did. 

(And if you think the song's pretty insipid, it's well known that Olivia herself didn't like the song chosen for her by the British public.)

But really her lack of success didn't hurt her career.  The month after the Contest, Olivia's first US album, If You Love Me, Let Me Know, was released.  Her first single from the album, "I Honestly Love You", went on to win two awards at the 1975 Grammy Awards and she was named Female Vocalist of the Year at the 1974 Country Music Association (CMA) Awards before she went on to become synonymous with good girls gone bad in Grease and released songs like this:

Olivia Newton-John  "Physical"



 

She's still around, filming movies and television shows while continuing to perform as a singer.

 

Her splash at Eurovision may be minor, but her career after Eurovision definitely makes her Eurovisionary.

Countries in Review: Andorra

Compared to all of the other countries in Western Europe, Andorra is a newcomer to the Eurovision Song Contest, and the reason is simple.  To take part in the Eurovision Song Contest the country must have a broadcaster that is a member in good standing of the European Broadcasting Union, and Andorra didn't have a national broadcaster until 1989, when the Andorran government created  Rádio i Televisió d'Andorra and didn't join the EBU until 2002.

Considering the city of Anchorage, Alaska is more than three times as big as the country of Andorra, I was shocked to find that the Caldera Spa in Andorra is the continent's largest.

Andorra has entered the contest only six times, from 2004 to 2009, without any success in making it to the finals, and has not competed since, for financial reasons and is not likely to participate in the Eurovision Song Contest again.

Had the country had more success in the contest, I suspect that that they would still be participating, but in their six years, they never made it out of the semifinals.

The reason is pure and simple--a small country new to broadcasting and on a very tight budget is not likely to be capable of putting on the quality of performance that other countries--like Sweden or Azerbaijan are capable of putting on.  So they're at a disadvantage in getting votes, and having a small talent pool to draw from, you're not likely to be able to pull the quality of singers you could get from countries like Russia or Greece.

That means these songs have to be graded on a curve much lower than the Albainian songs.

The Worst

After listening to this song more times than I care to admit, I have to say that the worst song in my mind is this one:

Marian van der Wal  "La Mirada Interior"  2005

It's not because of the singing.  Ms. van der Wal is able to stay on key, which can't be said by other entrants.  What this song suffers from is "let's throw a lot of crap on stage and see if it works" syndrome. 

That's not to be said that it's a bad thing.  In fact, two recent winners--"Believe" and "Fairytale" could be said to have "thrown a lot of crap on stage", but unfortunately in this case, it worked against the song.    The Grecian outfits on the women, the half naked men in velour bell bottoms, and the fans.  They just didn't go together, and distract from the singer, not enhance the performance.

The Best

How I desperately want to say that this song is the best:

Jenny  "Sense Tu"  2006

If I were judging the best on the quality of singing, Jenny is head and shoulders above any of the other Andorran songs.  And it's the only Andorran Eurovision song that I don't skip over when it comes on the stereo in my car.

But the staging is completely wrong.  It's absolutely atrocious, and I can understand why it came in last in the semifinal that year.   I'm certain the choreography and costuming was going for sexy, but it just comes across as sleazy and makes poor Jenny look dumpy.  She's an attractive woman, but in the overlong lace housecoat over a black negligee, she just looks kind of sad.

I'd also like to say this was the best song:

Anonymous  "Salvem el món"  2007

But poor Niki Francesca was absolutely terrified.  His vocals were flat and he appears to he hiding behind the microphone. Lead singers should have charisma, and considering the rest of the staging was so strong

So, to cut the difference, my best is this one.

Susanne Georgi  "La teva decisió (Get A Life)"  2009

The singing is gruff, not up to par with Jenny and the staging isn't as good as Anonymous, but as a whole it's the most pulled together entrant Andorra ever entered.   Besides, Ms. Georgi is pretty darn cute when she's holding her guitar. 

So I'll summarize--from best to worst

1.  Susanne Georgi  "La teva decisió (Get A Life)" 2009
2.  Anonymous "Salvem el món" 2007
3.  Jenny "Sense Tu" 2006
4.  Marta Roure  "Jugarem a estimar-nos"  2004   The dancing was great, sadly the singing wasn't.
5.  Gisela  "Casanova"  2008  My god, what is she wearing?
6.  Marian van der Wal "La Mirada Interior" 2005

And as always, if you're interested, you can listed to all of the songs by following this link. 

Next up, Armenia. 



Eurovision 2012 Entrants: Turkey

Let's keep plugging our way through the entrants for this year's Eurovision Song Contest with the Turkish entrant. 

Turkey, like a number of countries, did an internal selection and selected Can Bonomo.  Can is a radio producer turned DJ, turned singer, turned Turkish entrant to the Eurovision Song Contest.

Turkey has been perennially successful in the Eurovision Song Contest since 2003, when Sertab Erener won the contest with her performance of "Every Way That I Can". 

That was until last year, when the country failed to qualify for the finals for the first time since the semifinals were introduced in 2004. So let's see what Turkey's sending this year. 

Cam Bonomo  "Love Me Back"

And my response is WTF?

I suppose this could be good, but I can't take any song seriously that has lyrics like "Na nanani nanana nanana na na" and "Hop on to my ship, baby, I'll make you fly". 

So of course, it'll make the final.



Eurovision 2012 Entrants: Georgia

I just took a look at the list of countries that I haven't reviewed the songs for, and they can be divided into two main groups--former Soviet republics and Balkan nations.

These are two regions that I traditionally don't understand and try to avoid.  So, let's take a listen to the Georgian entrant:

Anri Jokhadze  "I'm A Joker"

I'm depressed.  This is a song that is a pun on his last name, and as you can imagine about a song based on a pun, the lyrics are horrible.  They've attempted to make the song hookier by throwing as many musical styles as they can at it to hide the bad lyrics.  The problem is you can wrap up crap in a Tiffany and Co box, but it's still crap.

What makes it more depressing is that Georgia may be sending crap to the main competition, but for the Junior Eurovision Song Contest, where kids from 8 to 15 compete, they are really successful--having won in 2008 and this year with the song posted below

CANDY  "Candy Music"

Come on Georgia, if you can come up with winning songs for kids, can't you do the same thing for the main event?

Eurovision 2012 Entrants: the United Kingdom

Rumors were swirling around the United Kingdom's entrant this year.  Since the BBC decided to go with an internal selection, names like Adele, Charlotte Church, and The Spice Girls were bandied about by the media and Eurovision blogs as possible performers. 

However, when the UK's entrant was announce as Englebert Humperdink, I was secretly delighted.  Eurovision is accused of being out of touch with current musical trends, so why not bring a guy that sings songs out of the early years of the Eurovision Song Contest?

So let's take a listen to the song.

Englebert Humperdink  "Love Will Set You Free"

He's 76 years old and his voice is fantastic.  And he interprets the hell out of the song.  The simple melody and the guitar should set it apart from the rest of the songs in the contest. 

And I will admit that the lyrics are pretty mediocre, but after listening to it a couple of times before heading into the office, I found that I was belting the chorus.  It's an earworm, this song.

So, I'm pulling for Englebert and he's become another personal favorite in this year's contest.

Alaska's Winner 1958: Hiversum

The Third Eurovision Song Contest took place in Hilversum, the Netherlands, on March 12th, 1958.  Like the previous contest, ten countries took part in the contest, with Sweden taking the place of the United Kingdom--who withdrew because they were upset by the placing of the entrant in the 1957 contest.

 

After a contest plagued with technical difficulties, the winner was this song:

André Claveau "Dors, Mon Amour"

Naturally it makes no sense in retrospect, especially since the song "Volare" was performed by the Italian singer Domenico Modugno, which went on the be a worldwide success and came in third.  Third!

And sadly, the prior year's winner, Corry Brokken, came in dead last with her song "Heer de wereld", giving her the unlikely record of being the only person to come in first and last in the contest.

So I sent them off to the jurors for their opinions on the ten songs, and poor André came in seventh.

What was more surprising is that we had a tie for first place--something I hadn't expected.  Like most of the readers, I had expected that Italy's Domenico Mondugno would run away with the voting.



Domenico Mondugno  "Nel blu dipinto di blu  (Volare)"



But after calculating the scores, this famous song tied with the entry from Luxembourg:

Solange Berry "Un grand amour"

So back to the jury I went, because I don't accept ties in the Alaska's Winner.  (Since I create the rules, I can modify them along the way, just like the contest has done.)

After getting answers back from the judges, the winner was Italy's Domenico Mondugno.  So Domenico and "Nel blu dipinto di blu" is the third Alaska's Winner. 

And for those who are interested, here's how the songs placed in our vote:

1.  "Nel blu dipinto di blu"  Domenico Mondugno   Italy

2.  "Un grand amour"  Solange Berry  Luxembourg

3.  "Lilla stärna"  Alice Babs  Sweden 

4.  "Ma petite chatte"  Fud Leclerc  Belgium

5.  "Giorgio"  Lys Assia  Switzerland

6.  "Heel de wereld"  Corry Brokken  the Netherlands

7.  "Dors, mon amour"  André Claveau  France

8.  "Die ganze Welt braucht Liebe"  Liane Augustin  Austria

9.  "Für zwei Groschen Musik"  Margot Heilscher

10.  "Jeg rev et blad un af min dagbog"  Raquel Rastenni



 Next up 1959, with the return of the United Kingdom and the first  song from Monaco.

Eurovision Entrants 2012: Sweden

Probably the biggest qualifying show throughout Europe is Sweden's Melodifestivalen, a multi-week, multi-city competition that started in October and ended just a few minutes ago.

Out of this month-long competition, the following song won:

Loreen "Euphoria"

To me, this song feels like a cross between a Lady Gaga and a Katy Perry song, which,. depending on your opinion, could be a good thing or a bad thing. 

I really don't have much of an opinion on this one other than I think it's both interesting and a bit derivative, so I turned to my friend Annia,  a vivacious Swede (and a damn fine actor) living in the Last Frontier for her analysis of the song.

And here's her thoughts:

"This one was the best in the bunch and I'm VERY happy it isn't a boy band, nor any other kind of coordinated dance groups in the background. Also, she's barefooted as opposed to every other stiletto-wearing, sex-kitten, women-degrading entry. So... not all bad. But, my guess is Sweden will have to qualify next year - no clear top placement with this one..".

So what do you think of this song?  Do you agree with me or Annia?  Or do you have a different opinion? 

Eurovisionaries: Lúcia Moniz

Sometimes I write about singers from the Eurovision Song Contest a newcomer to the contest know, but may not know they were a part of Eurovision--like Celine Dion or ABBA.

This one is me introducing you to a Eurovision Song Contest participant that I think you should know.

If you're a lover of romantic comedies, you know who she is already.

I'll confess it, Lúcia Moniz is my Eurovision crush and the singer of my favorite Portuguese song in the Contest.  (Which is saying something.)

Lúcia Moniz  "O meu coração não tem cor"  Portugal  1996

It came in sixth in the competition, and is Portugal's best placing in the contest to date. 

After the contest, she has kept herself busy, working steadily in television and releasing five albums in her native country, the most recent of which, "Fio de Luz", is available on Spotify.   (I highly recommend it.)  

 

However, for Americans she's famous for the movie she was cast in, Love Actually. 



Moniz lives the dream of many people--getting proposed to by Colin Firth.

 

Shame she hasn't done more English language movies...  I'd pay to see them.

Eurovision 2012 Entrants: Bulgaria

I've listened to the Bulgarian song five times in a row, and I'm trying to figure out something to say about it that makes it distinct.   

Sofi Marinova  "Love Unlimited"

I really can't.  It takes a lot of of generic dance track beats and puts them together with a little bit of Eastern European exoticism with the vocals and we get this song that's not going to make it out of the semi-final.  It's just a snooze fest.

And because I feel bad about not having anything interesting to say about this song, I'll post up Bulgaria's entry from last year, and a song that should have made the final...

Poli Genova  "Na Inat"





Countries In Review: Albania

Welcome to the first of my "Country In Review" Eurovision posts. 

The nice thing about deciding to to the "Country In Review" blog posts is that I get a chance to take a look at the songs from a country at a whole instead of looking at the songs in comparison to other songs in a given year.

(Although I have to admit that I might enjoy this because I like ranking things and have since I was a little kid.)

And since I'm anything if not methodical, I'm staring alphabetically, and that means Albania is the first country I'm reviewing.

The former Enver Hoxha Museum in Tirana.  From what I understand, a good place for some high-speed tobogganing.

  

Albania has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest since 1994 and has always been sponsored by Radio Televizioni Shqiptar and has chosen their entrant through their year-end concert program Festivali i Këngës.  Festivali is a multi-day show performed in the Pallati i Kongreseve and is pretty impressive as national finals go, with a full orchestra, high productions values, and a lot of talented Albanian singers.  (I recommend looking around for clips from Festivali.  It's well worth your trouble.)

And after listening to all of the Albanian entrants a number of times, I have to admit I had judged the country's songs rather harshly in the past.  I had just dismissed the Albania's songs because it's in the Balkans, which in my mind means that you can send crappy songs and they'll do well because the other countries in the region will vote for you.

But after listening to the Albanian Eurovision songs, I'm shocked by the quality of them.  The songs are for the most part, quite good.
So let get going:

The Worst

By far, the worst song is the Albanian entrant from 2005:

Ledina Çelo  "Tomorrow I Go"

Pretty much it's a cheap rehash of the winner of the 2003's contest,

Sertab Erener  "Every Way That I Can"  Turkey

except that Ms. Erener has stage presence out the wazoo and singer/dancers with a great gimmick, while Çelo has refugees from a Greek vaudeville act.

The Best

I thought that this one was going to be easy.  Before I decided to do this post, there was only one Albanian entry that I've ever rated highly, and it's the entrant from 2010:

Juliana Pasha  "It's All About You"

Ms. Pasha is pitch perfect on the song, the backing singers are fantastic, and the person who did the lighting design for the stage in Oslo deserves an award.  I like playing it loud in the summertime with the windows down in my car and it's gotten me through mile 20 of a marathon.  I still don't understand why it came in sixteenth, but then again, my personal favorites never seem to do well.

But while listening to all the entrants, I had to add the the first Albanian entry to the best list as well.

Anjeza Shahini  "The Image of You"

Ms. Shahini can sing can't she?

Ever since I first heard this song, I've been singing it.  The chorus is super catchy and the melody is tricky enough to stay hooked in my brain.

It's still give the top prize to Pasha, but instead of by a country mile, I'll have to give it to her by a nose. 

 

 

For those of  you who are interested, here's a ranking of all the songs, and if you'd like to hear them all, just click this link.

1.  Juliana Pasha  "It's All About You"  2010

2.  Anjeza Shahini  "The Image of You"  2004

3.  Rona Nishliu "Suus" 2012

4.  Aurelia Gaçe  "Feel the Passion"  2011     Scary stage presentation ruins song
5.  Kejsi Tola  "Carry Me in Your Dreams"  2009       More like nightmare, if your dream is this.
6.  Luiz Eljji  "Zjarr e ftohtë" 2006       Performance was really bland.
7.  Frederik Ndoci  "Hear My Plea"  2007       Performance was melodramatic, too melodramatic.
8.  Olta Boka  "Zemrë e lamë peng"  2008     Completely forgettable.
9.  Ledina Çelo "Tomorrow I Go"  2005

Next up, Andorra!

Eurovision 2012 Entrants: Russia

Squee!

It's Buranovskie Babushki!

Buranovskie Babushki  "Party For Everybody"

Not the greatest song, but who cares!

It's Buranovskie Babushki!

Countries in Review: Introduction

One of the things I always look forward to at the end of the year are the lists of the best and worst that magazines, websites, and television shows publish on the best of movies, music, literature, and almost everything else you can possibly rank.

So I've decided to indulge on own love of the ESC with a set of ongoing posts called "Countries in Review", where I'll give my personal rankings of the countries songs.

Stay tuned for the first entry, all about Albania.

Eurovision 2012 Entrants: Finland

Ah Finland...  Land of Lordi.  Let's take a listen to the song the Finns have chosen this year.

Pernilla Karlsson  "När jag blundar"

Finnish broadcaster YLE decided to change up the format of the their national selection for this year. This new selection process, Uuden Musiiken Kilpailu, wasn't without controversy; however, the song the Finns chose is probably the prettiest song I've listened to for this year's contest.

"När jag blundar" is performed in Swedish, an official language in Finland, and if 'm reading the translation correctly, it's a about a mother sung by her daughter.  (Swedish singers feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.) 

After some thought, I have to say that this is currently my favorite song.  I just hope that the non-Eurovision feel of the song, which has more of the feel of Scandinavian folk music than schlager, makes the final.  It certainly deserves to.

Eurovision 2012 Entrants: the Netherlands

Ah, you crazy Dutch.  You always send interesting songs and lately your choices for the adult Eurovision Song Contest have been duds.  Do you remember the lite rock stylings of 3JS, the überschlager of Sieneke, or the geezer pop of Der Toppers?  

Nope?

I didn't think you did  For the past seven years, the Dutch entrant has wallowed in the bottom of the group in their semi-finals.

This year they went for an act that's desperately trying to be the person pictured below:

Cher circa 1973

It does make you want to hear the song, doesn't it?

Joan Franka  "You and Me"

With her straight black hair, her nose job and the Native American headdress, Franka's trying to channel Cher in the "Half-Breed" video.  It doesn't work.  It's not a melodramatic pop number like the Cher song, it's more like the folk number "Brand New Key" by Melanie.

Since it's more of a folk number the entire Native American princess thing is pretty insulting and takes away from what is already a weak song.  Franka and her dancers look like they found their costume by looking online.  They look cheap, like refugees from a small town production of the Thanksgiving story, and demonstrates the tone-deaf idealism for the American West that shows up in European culture, as exported to them by America.

Hopefully they'll rethink the Princess Othaki shtick.  But I doubt it.  And it means the Dutch are likely to be at the bottom of their semifinal yet again.

Eurovision 2012 Entrants: Germany

Unser Star für Baku finished up a couple of weeks ago, and a young man by the name of Roman Lob came out on top.  It's not much of a surprise, since he led the competition's voting from the beginning.

Roman Lob  "Standing Still"

 

 

Yet again, the German entrant is mimicking English pop music.  The last time this contest was run, Lena Meyer-Landrut won the contest by singing songs by English singers like Adele and Kate Nash, the latter's singing style Landrut borrowed from heavily.  And what happened?  She won the contest...

So Germany sticks with the English pop sound, this time choosing a co-written by a somewhat successful English jazz pianist that VH1 attempted to push down my throat a couple of years ago by playing his videos while I was working out on the elliptical trainer.

What do I think of the song?  It's good.  And if clips from Unser Star für Baku are any indication, he's going to do quite well.   Germany's found a pattern for success--a fresh young singer singing a song like they're a singer from England.