Every Eurovision cycle there is a song or two that the Eurovision blogosphere goes wild for that I don't understand the reason for such praise.
Two years ago it was this song:
Cascada "Glorious" Germany 2013
Last year it was this song:
Tanja "Amazing" Estonia 2014
This year, it's Spain's entry to Eurovision.
Edurne "Amancer"
Edurne appears to have a pretty stable career in Spain, having released five albums over a nine-year career as well as being a reality TV star in Spain with appearances on a number of high profile television shows.
The song, however, is boring. It's a Spanish dance song that lacks any verve. It's a disappointment in comparison to their entry last year, which was a memorable song and performance (even if it wasn't my favorite.)
Perhaps she'll deliver on the night, but right now it's completely off target.
If someone can explain why this is so popular, I'd love to know.
Like everybody who has a love of the Eurovision Song Contest, I've been sitting down and analyzing the running order for the final.
Here's the running order, as determined by the lovely people at SVT.
1. France
2. Lithuania
3. Moldova
4. Finland
5. Spain
6. Belgium
7. Estonia
8. Belarus
9. Malta
10. Russia
11. Germany
12. Armenia
13. Netherlands
14. Romania
15. UK
16. Sweden
17. Hungary
18. Denmark
19. Iceland
20. Azerbaijan
21. Greece
22. Ukraine
23. Italy
24. Norway
25. Georgia
26. Ireland
Of course, I'm going to be looking at my personal favorite, Anouk for the Netherlands. Unluckily drawn into the first half, she's got a good position--the last song in the first half. She's also between two really lousy songs--the Armenian ecoballad and the (forgive me for offending delicate sensibilities) salute to menstruation--Romania, which will hopefully make the song stand out.
Anouk "Birds" the Netherlands
I hope for a good result for the Dutch entry--maybe a top ten position. I doubt Anouk can win--the song is kind of too classy for the room. If it does, just expect me to be very, very, happy.
As for likely winners, if I were to put down some money, I'd actually go with Ukraine.
Zlata Ognevich "Gravity" Ukraine
It's well placed and if performed the way it was in this clip, it's worthy of winning the Eurovision Song Contest.
And as a long shot, I'd put some money down on this song too:
Really there are only three songs that are likely winners that I don't particularly care for.
Cascada "Glorious" Germany
Emmilie de Forest "Only Teardrops" Denmark
Both of them seem way too generic to actually inspire love, but they are true fan favorites.
Farid Mammadov "Hold Me" Azerbaijan
And on this one, the song is very much back burner to the fantastic gimmick. It's like the sand lady from Ukraine a few years back. That's not a particularly flattering comparison, but it's going to get votes.
But all of this analysis is really pointless. I'm just looking forward to tomorrow morning--the final starts at 11 AM local time here in Alaska. And then comes my favorite part of the Eurovision season. The Eurovision parties to determine Alaska's Choice!
Well, there's something that I can say about Germany after watching their national contest, Unser Song für Malmö. Germany wants to win the Eurovision Song Contest again badly.
Very badly.
Out of the twelve songs in their national finals only one of them was really a duff one:
Die Priester & Mojca Erdmann "Meerstern, sei gegrüßt"
And even then, the singers aren't particularly bad, it's just that the gimmick wasn't the greatest and the vocal mix between Die Priester and Ms. Erdmann was kind of off.
But you have to hand it to the producers of the Unser Song, they presented a contest that had a song for pretty much everybody:
And an interesting song from a rap/soul collective:
Söhne Mannheims "One Love"
All of them are quite good for very different reasons, and would be worthy of representing Germany in the Eurovision Song Contest, but Germany chose to send a group that has had success throughout the world.
Cascada "Glorious"
It's an intelligent choice. Cascada has had success throughout Western Europe--particularly in the British Isles. They've even had success here in the United States, with their single "Every Time We Touch" landing at 31 on the Year-End Billboard Hot 100 chart in 2007.
So Germany has placed themselves in a very good place to win the whole kit and caboodle. Cascada has name recognition throughout much of the countries that vote in Eurovision and they have plenty of experience playing in venues much like the one they'll be performing in Malmö.
But as a performance as a whole I found it rather lacking compared to the other performers, and had I had a choice I would have gone with another song
LaBrassBanda "Nackert"
And no, it's not this song, although La BrassBanda looked like they were going to sweep the contest at the early part of the voting.
Germany split the voting into thirds, one third each to televoting and to a jury made up of musical professionals. The third part, however, was online voting at radio stations throughout Germany, and the punk Bavarian folk band looked like they were going to sweep the contest. The received top marks from each regional radio station.
It made for an interesting voting portion of the contest, and I recommend watching this clip of the jury votes to see the audience reaction.
I personally agreed with the audience, I didn't get the song. But I've never been one for frat bands, no matter what the genre they perform in.
For once, I also agreed with the jury on the best song of the night, and it was the one by Bitzkids mvt.
Blitzkids mvt. "Heart on the Line"
Although the singer was undermiked, the combination of dance music, fashion, and performance art was something really fantastic. I'm definitely going to check out more of their work. In fact I'm probably going to check out the work of a number of these artists...
