Eurovision 2015: Belarus

My walk through the national finals continues with Belarus.  BRTC, the Belorussian national broadcaster held a one night final on December 26th.

I look forward to the Belorussian final because unlike most other countries, there's always a little bit of gaming the result--giving fans something to talk about all the way to May.

Well, except for this year....

With the international attention to the squirrelly policies behind their selection process, this year's show was relatively scandal free.   The only thing that could be considered questionable was of the contestants purchased ad time during the national final to advertise upcoming musical dates.

Yeah, it's not necessarily squeaky clean, but for Belarus it's the cleanest Eurovision vote in years.

Muzzart   "Only Dance

And having heard Muzzart, I'd go out and go see their show live, so smart move on the advertising.

But really, the strive for transparency was refreshing, because in previous years this song would have gone through in a heartbeat.

MILKI  "Accent"

Although the song is a bit of disposable Soviet bloc pop, the songwriter behind "Accent" was Alexander Rybak, the Belorussian-born winner of the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest.  In prior years, the contest would have been a Potemkin village of a show to insure this song going to Vienna and adding another feather to one of Belarus' international names.

However, the judges and televoters thought otherwise, relegating it to fourth place.

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But even with the strangeness of the selection process, I always recommend watching the Belorussian National Final since they have a lot of variety on the stage.

Where else would you see this,

Rostany   "Electric Toys"

this,

Beatress  "Fighter"

and whatever this is on the same stage.

Janet   "Supernova"

Each and every song is different and no matter your musical taste, there is something out there for you.

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But after all the voting was in, the winning song was none of ones posted above, but this number.

Uzari and Maimuna   "Time"

Yes, it's rather Eurovision by the numbers, but it's also well written and well performed and should be able to translate to the Eurovision stage easily.

A lot of work needs to be done on the staging, though.   Maimuna needs to share the stage with Uzari and not be relegated to short cuts and bad lighting.  The violin is as integral to the song as the singing and the two performers share billing.   But you can tell there were awkward cuts and bad lighting on the young woman...   

My guess for the shady camera work is the fact Maimuna is Afro-Belorussian and that people in Eastern Europe have major issues with race and didn't want to jinx the success of the song in the final.

OK.  You've won.  Now don't be cowards and keep her in the shadows.

Eurovision 2012 Entrants: Azerbaijan

As you know, since you're reading my blog, Azerbaijan won last year's contest and they have the hard task of following up their winning song.

In recent years, countries have had a hard time repeating the success of their previous year's winner.  A good case in point is Norway in 2010.

Oslo had the honor of hosting the contest after winning the previous year with this song:

 Alexander Rybak  "Fairytale"  Norway  2009

"Fairytale" was the runaway winner of that year's contest, getting 169 more points that the second place finisher. 

The next year, they sent this song:

Didrik Solli-Tangen  "My Heart Is Yours"  Norway  2010

It's a completely different song, and it came in twentieth in the final that year.

With that in mind, take a listen to this year's Azerbaijani entry:

Sabina Babayeva  "When The Music Dies"

I have a suspicion that his is going to fall to the same fate that Solli-Tangen did a few years ago, and get nowhere near the top ohalf of the board at the end of the contest.

But unlike Solli-Tangen, whose issues was really a voice that was burned out, Ms. Babayeva has an even bigger issue--an inability to actually interpret the song.

"When the Music Dies" is a ballad, and you must be able to not only sing the song tunefully, but be able to interpret them in a way that shows you understand the feeling behind the song, and Ms. Babayeva can only do the first.  Since English isn't her first language, Ms. Babayeva comes off sounding like an automaton, not a real live human being.   

It's very difficult to be able to find the emotion when singing in another language--I would have the same difficulty singing in German--a language I have a tenuous grasp on.  Unfortunately, she's trying to appeal to a pan-European audience and I don't think this was the song for her to do that.