Eurovision 2013: Austria

Sunshine is a type of shine...

Austria is always a wild card when it comes to Eurovision songs.   Sometimes they're fantastic, some times they are horrible, but most of the time they're out of step with all the other countries of Europe, so finding out what they're going to send is always interesting.

Austria picked their representative to Eurovision on February 15th in the program Österreich rockt den Song Contest. (Which is less fun to say than some of the other national selection programs, but that's probably because I have a good grounding in German.)

The program was rather simple compared to others.  Five acts were asked to perform two songs--the first a previous Eurovision Song Contest winner, then the song they were to perform in Malmö.    Sadly, the cover songs aren't readily available on You Tube, because I'd like to post one or two of them up.  So all I can really do is move on to:

The Winner

Ladies and gentlemen, Austria has also sent an American to represent them at the Eurovision Song Contest.

 

Natália Kelly   "Shine"

 

Ms. Kelly, born in Hartford, Connecticut, handily won the contest by bagging most of the public voting and scoring well with the jury.  It quite obvious.  She has a powerful voice and a confident stage presence.  Combine that with a song that would sound quite comfortably coming out of the British singer Adele, and you have the makings for a winning song.

 

It's a solid choice, but I do hope they have a complete rethink on the staging of the song.  It currently feels like they're copying everything from this song.

 

 

Nadine Beiler  "The Secret Is Love"   2011

 

 

It worked quite well for Ms. Beiler back in 2011, but Ms. Kelly has a completely different look and feel, and the spotlight from above just makes Kelly look rather scary instead of sleek and sophisticated.  But that's a minor quibble.

 

 

My Favorite

 

 

I have to say that shine is quite a strong song for Austria to send, but I doubt I would ever go out of my way to find more of Natália Kelly's music.

 

However, I've discovered a contender for my Eurovision song of the year in the Austrian final.

 

 

 

Yela   "Feels Like Home"

 

 

While listening to the clip, I went out on Spotify and favorited this song.  Her honey-tinged vocals, combined with the drums and ukulele. hit my personal musical sweet spot.

 

 

I can't seen this having much pan-European appeal, though.  I think it would have played much like another song from 2011.

 

 









 

Anna Rossinelli   "In Love For A While"   Switzerland   2011

 

"In Love For A While" had a lot of love from the juries, but didn't score particularly well with the European voters, and I suspect "Feels Like Home" would have done the same thing.

 

But ask me which song from the 2011 Eurovision Song Contest has stuck with me, it's "In Love For A While". And which song from the Austrian final will stick with me?  It's going to be "Feels Like Home".

Eurovision 2013: Denmark

This is "Only Teardrops" too...

Dansk Melodi Grand Prix, the Danish national final, took place back on January 26th, with ten songs competing for a chance to perform just across the Øresund Strait in Malmö, Sweden.

It took me until now to review the contest, because some of the songs and performances were not readily available on YouTube, my source for all of the national finals.

But after some digging, I was able to find the full contest, and I feel like I can comment the contest as a whole, even though I may not be able to post links to the actual performances--like Brinck's performance of  "Human"--which I would love to vivisect because it was bad in so many ways.

But instead I'll write about:

 

The Winner

  

 

Emmilie de Forest    "Only Teardrops"

 

Denmark wants to win the contest again, and their choice of song pretty much proves it.  "Only Teardrops" takes a things from prior successful songs--staging notes from "Euphoria" last year and the Celtic flair from the Irish winners back in the 1990s.  Then they stole the lighting and costuming from this song:

 

 

Aloysha   "Sweet People"   Ukraine   2010

 

Altogether, the song is very eye catching and likely to do well in the contest, fitting in with the goals SVT has for the contest.

 

Do I personally like it?   Not really.  I find the song and performance overly melodramatic.  But then again Loreen and "Euphoria" didn't speak to me either.

 

Should Have Won 

 

It's either a good thing or a bad thing that there were really no stand outs for me on what song should have won, and I can't even criticize the songs that made it into the top three and the superfinal.  However of the three songs in the finals, I would have voted for this song:

 

 

 

Simone  "Stay Awake"

 

I will admit this this song feels dated--it looks and sounds like something that might have been sent to the contest in the late 90s or early 00s.  But Simone controls the stage in a way that de Forest didn't, and I must confess I'm all for a Latin beat and girls swirling around in fringe-covered dresses.  So I have to go with my own personal preference here, even though I think "Only Teardrops" will be stronger in May in Malmö.

 

 

My Favorite

 

I'm going to go a little outside the box for my favorite, because I really enjoyed the interval act--a medley of Eurovision winning performances:

 

 





 

 Brotherhood of Man   "Save Your Kisses For Me"   United Kingdom   1976

Herreys   "Diggi-Loo  Diggi-Ley"   Sweden   1984

Johnny Logan   "Hold Me Now"  Ireland   1987

 

I have to say I enjoy having old winners brought out and have them perform their winning songs, and this medley is more watchable than most of the songs that were presented in the actual contest.

 

Is that bad?

 

All in all, I think Denmark put on a good show and chose a strong song.  That's what a successful National final should be.

 





 

 

 







Eurovision 2013: Slovenia

Is hummus really like Slovenia's Eurovision song?  Well, they both pop up in image searches of "Straight Into Love".

The European economic crisis has tightened the pockets of a lot of European broadcasters, and a number of countries, like Bosnia and Herzegovina and (sob) Portugal, have opted out of entering the contest this year.



Other countries have pared down the selection process, choosing the singer and song internally.

Slovenia has gone this route, presenting the singer and song on Valentine's Day. they released this song:

Hannah Mancini  "Straight Into Love"

 

Mancini, originally from Los Angeles, California, has been working in Slovenia for a number of years, and has attempted to represent Slovenia before.

 

Her song is interesting; I would have never thought a song with hard trance elements would be performed at Eurovison.  

 

But other than the heavy electronica, there's nothing particularly memorable about the song.  Hannah has a clear dance diva voice and will likely be able to use this for bigger exposure across Europe, but taken as a whole, the song is completely forgettable. 

 

Right now, I'd say it's not likely to qualify, but stranger things have happened.  



Eurovision 2013: Finland

Well, back again to Scandinavia for my next Eurovision final analysis--if you actually believe that Finland is considered part of Scandinavia...

The final of Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu (another fun national final to type) took place on February 9th, with eight songs competing to go to Malmö.

It really was a night of poorly named bands, with groups named Last Panda, Lucy Was Driving, and Great Wide North, but none of them were successful., because they were all beaten by

 

The Winner

 

 

 

 

Krista Siegfrids  "Marry Me"

 

I really, really, really despise this song.   The music is fun, poppy and very reminiscent of a Katy Perry number.  But the lyrics.  Oh, the lyrics.  Here's the chorus:

 

So marry me, I'll be your queen bee/

I love you endlessly/

I do it for you, for you, for you/

Yeah, I do it for you, marry me, baby

 

I'll play your game, I'll change my last name/

I'll walk the walk of shame/

I do it for you, for you, for you/

Yeah, I do it for you, marry me, baby

 

And we have to blame these terrible lyrics to Swedish-based American songwriter Sharon Vaughn.  Vaughn had some minor hits in the 1970s on the American country charts, but had her biggest success back in 1980 as the songwriter of the Willie Nelson hit  "My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys".

 

She's a fairly prolific writer, but this song just offends me. 

Update: Sadly, I misread the lyricist of the song. It's not Sarah Vaughn, who actually wrote the lyrics to the song performed by Diandra. My mistake for misreading the line where the lyricists were noted.

The lyrics to marry me were actually written by committee--by Krista Siegfrieds, Erik Nyholm, Kristofer Karlsson and Jessika Lundström.  It also makes me think that my analysis below is less likely to be true, which is even more depressing.

This song is very much in the style of Katy Perry, who does empowering pop songs, and the juxtaposition of the girl power anthem with the frankly misogynist lyrics is disconcerting.  

 

But I'm a guy, so I needed to get a woman's opinion on the song.  So I walked into the next office and played the song for  my coworker Samantha S., who has just gone through her own wedding, so in my mind she would be the perfect person to give another opinion on the lyrics.  

 

I'm glad I did, because she didn't see the song as being misogynist, but a sly commentary on "all the things that women do, but we know what we shouldn't do", especially when it comes to men.  It's a read that I can get behind, and makes me feel a little less infuriated by the lyrics.

 

The problem, though, is that this read requires a command of the English language and a willingness to parse the lyrics.  But the average listener to the song in Europe, who may not have that strong command of English, won't be able to get that subtlety and that is a problem for me.

 

That said:

 

Should Have Won

 

 



 

 Krista Siegfrids "Marry Me"

 

 

Even though I consider the song to be rather horrid, it was the only song that I could potentially go anywhere in Malmö.   The rest of the songs were more along these lines:

 

 

Arion   "Lost"

 

Compared to Siegfrids' performance, which was fun and polished, most every other performance looked like amateur hour at a local bar. 

 

However, one of the other performances did stand out:

 

 

 Mikael Saari  "We Should Be Through"

 

I have to admit I appreciated this song more for the sheer audacity of the performance than the song itself.   "We Should Be Through" put the focus on the music more than any Eurovision song I can remember since this entry:

 

 

 

Secret Garden   "Nocturne"  1995   Norway

 

 

I don't think Saari would have been as successful as Secret Garden (which won the whole shebang back in 1995), but I do love the attempt to send something so orchestral to a modern Eurovision Song Contest.

 

It was a fairly lackluster contest, and for once, I don't recommend watching the other songs, but I am waiting to see how "Marry Me" fares in May.  It's either going to sink like a dead weight or be a contender.  It should be pretty interesting...


 



 



Eurovision 2013: Iceland



Iceland chose their representative to the Eurovision Song contest back on February 2nd, in the fabulously named Söngvakeppnin 2013.

Nordic graphic design.  Awesome.

Like many countries, RÚV, the Icelandic national broadcaster, decided to cut back on their national finals, with only two semifinals leading to the national final, which is quite understandable. 

For most Eurovision watchers, the biggest surprise was the failure of Yohanna, the singer of one of the most successful Icelandic Eurovision entries, making it out of the first semifinal.

 

Yohanna  "Þú"

 

And although I'm surprised to say this, I have to agree.  Although I have a soft spot for former contestants trying again, this song wasn't good.  It's a lousy song, and to use a cliche "you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear".  

 

 



The Winner

 



 

 

Eyþór Ingi Gunnlaugsson  "Ég á Líf"

 

 

I have to say I like this song, although the look of the singer and the song don't match.  Gunnlaugsson looks like he's out of a heavy metal band, but his song is a simple ballad that pulls from Celtic folk and church music. 

 

It's very reminiscent of this song, entered in Söngvakeppnin 2012, which happened to be my favorite in last years Icelandic Eurovision selection process.

 

 

 

Íris Lind Verudóttir  "Aldrei segja aldrei"

 

As for it's success in Malmö, I can't really say one way or the other, and right now it is really all down to Gunnlaugsson's appearance.

 

Right now his look is very odd--the long hair and the beard matched with the shiny suit don't feel modern at all and made me do a double take when I saw it was the winner of this year's contest.  It immediately made me think of songs like this:

 



 

Scott Fitzgerald  "Go"  United Kingdom  1988

 



I'm all for the throwback song, but to be immediately reminded of the late 1980s isn't necessarily a good thing in my book.

 

But it's going to be down to the staging, and Iceland has been successful in prior years at Eurovision, so this song may very well have a chance to make it to the top of the table come the night of the finals...   We'll see.

 

 

Should Have Won

 

 This one is hard, because really, any of the songs could have been contenders, but I'm going to go with this number as my choice as the song that should have won:

 



 





Jógvan Hansen & Stefanía Svavarsdóttir  "Til þín"

 

I have no real reason other that Hansen had the more stage presence than anybody else in the final.  I get why it didn't win, Iceland sent a male/female duo last year, but it would have been just as worthy as "Ég á Líf".

 

 

My Favorites

 

As I mentioned before, I liked a lot of the songs, and I could probably feature all of them, but I'm going to put up one for a note I learned back in my days in choirs:

 



 

Magni Ásgeirsson  "Ekki Líta Undan"

 

The lesson is no matter how sucked up into performing the song, you always need to watch what your hands are doing.  In Ásgeirsson's case, it looked like he was milking a cow or doing something a little less appropriate for me to type.  And that greatly distracted me from his performance--no matter how much I liked the song.

 

But as for my personal favorite, I have to go with this number:

 

 





 

Haraldur Reynisson  "Vinátta"

 

I do like a mellow song, and the "MTV Unplugged" staging was surprisingly appealing to me.  Does this mean I'll start complaining about the music that the young kids are listening to soon?  More than likely.  Then I'll be yelling at them to stay off my lawn.  Yep, it's the next natural step.   Pretty soon it's going to be Metamucil and orthopedic shoes...

 

Seriously, though, I could put two more songs in this section without any trouble.  Iceland had a very strong final this year, and I highly recommend you go searching out all of the songs youself and take a listen.  It's worth the 30 minutes to listen to all of them.

 

 





Eurovision 2013: Albania

Slowly but surely I'm making my way through the national finals, and finally I'm getting to the results from Albania, who chose their winner back in December.

The Albanian representative was chosen through Festivali i Këngës, the Albanian show has chosen Albania's Eurovision representative since they first entered the contest in 2004.

I'm personally partial to the format of Festivali i Këngës, where the contest is much more of a concert instead of a stadium show.  The format puts the songs and the artists front and center, not the lights, dancers, or distracting video displays...like Eurovision seems to have become in the past few years.

It makes me wonder what the Albanians would come up with if they staged the contest:

The Winner  

 

 

Adrian Lulgjuraj & Bledar Sejko  "Identitet"

 

 

I get why the song won the contest.  Bledar Sejko's guitar work is extremely impressive, and the mix of the guitar work contrasted with the string and tympani arrangement is striking.  The music, combined with Adrian Lulgjuraj strong vocals, made it an understandable winner, even if it left me a bit cold.

I must confess that I am a bit distracted by Bledar Sejko.  He looks like an ex-boyfreind of mine, and when I showed a picture of the performers to my friend Janet S., her response was "Albania is pandering to you this year, aren't they?"

Perhaps they are, but sadly, unless I decided to go on a spur of the moment European vacation, I'm not going to be able to vote in the contest.

I just hope that Albania doesn't prerecord the track.  The pull of the song is Sejko's guitar work, and if Sejko can perform as well as he did in this clip, I can see the song making the final easily by getting support from the national juries.

 

Should Have Won 

 

 

Anjeza Shahini  "Love"

 

Shahini was Albania's first representative in the Eurovision Song Contest, and she did quite well, coming in seventh in 2004.  She's also the performer of my favorite Albanian Eurovision entrant.  And I think that that filters over to my preference this entry, even though the song is admittedly weaker than "Identitet".

 

I'll admit that after listening to the song a few more times,"Love" would have needed a lot of work before going to Sweden and for that reason I can understand why Anjeza didn't win the contest.  You can have a fantastic singer, but if the song is weak it's not likely to win.

 

"Identitet" didn't hook me, but I have to say the Albanians picked a stronger song with a strong performance, and I totally respect that.

 

 

My Favorite

 

Besides the two mentioned above, two other artists caught my attention during the finals of Festivali i Këngës and for two very different reasons:

 

 

 

Merland Kademi  "Këtu fillon parajsa"

 

 

The song it a bit of a Frankenstein--take a bit of a James Bond theme song, mix in the drama of last years Albanian entry, and put that on top of the melody of the winner of the 2007 Contest and you have this song.  Kademi sells this Balkan ballad like his life depended on it and it came in a respectable fifth.

 



 





Dr. Flori & Fabi  "Jam ti!"

 

Albanian rap!  With a string section!  And bongo drums!  Pretty freaking awesome, even though it does get a little sketchy towards the end.  Rap is unlikely to go to Eurovision from Albania (that's Montenegro's job), but I'd love to listen to this while driving down the highway.

 

 

All in all, I enjoyed sitting down and watching another Albanian national final, and think they chose a really decent song and one that could do quite well...  Here's hoping that it does...