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".