I cannot believe that I'm going to say this. I really like the Georgian entry.
Nodi Tatishvili & Sophie Gelovani "Waterfall"
I'll be the first to admit that this is a very calculated choice by the Georgian broadcaster, GPB. They got the composer of the winning entry from last year, Thomas G:son, and looked at the staging of the winner from two years ago and came up with this song.
Usually I would deride this sort of thing, but the choice of Tatishvili & Gelovani have something that Eurovision duets in previous years tend not to have--chemistry.
If you take a look back a prior years' duets, the singers feel like they're singing in different worlds.
Chanée and N'evergreen "In A Moment Like This" Denmark 2010
Ell and Nikki "Running Scared" Azerbaijan 2011
Greta Salóme & Jónsi "Never Forget" Iceland 2012
You may feel differently, but I feel that there was no connection between the singers in the three songs I've posted above, while the Georgian entry has that connection. It looks like the two actually like each other. For me, that goes a long way to sell the song, since my idea of a good duet is set up by this song.
Dolly Parton & Kenny Rogers "Islands in the Stream"
Tatishvili and Gelovani are the singers who come closest to that level of chemistry that Parton and Rogers have. That means I'm flying the flag for the Georgian entry, even though I tend to hate duets in Eurovision.
It has been a couple of weeks since I last updated my journal, and in that time a lot of things have changed--including my residence. That means that I have finally gotten back around to updating my Eurovision blog and I can continue with the next country in my review posts--Azerbaijan.
Baku, Azerbaijan's capital, is a leader in ambitious buildings like the planned Hotel Crescent
Azerbaijan is the newest country in the Eurovision Song Contest, first sending a song in 2008. And in those five years, they have been they have been extremely successful, having placed no lower than eighth in the final contest. It's a track record that most other countries would envy.
Personally, I've never been much of a fan of Azerbaijani entrants. I've always found them to be more of a part of Azerbaijani international policy that actually being representative of their actual musical culture.
A case in point is the song that won the contest back in 2011:
Ell and Nikki "Running Scared" 2011
I've made my opinion known in my introductory post to this series of blog posts, and I still consider it to be pretty horrible--which is only compounded by the fact that really only one person involved with the song was actually living in Azerbaijan at the time--Eldar Gasimov, the male singer in the duet.
But it did exactly what the Azerbaijani government wanted it to do. It won the contest, brought Eurovision to the country, and the government used it to try to propel Azerbaijan onto the world stage and a place where large events could be held.
It still doesn't change the fact that I despise the song and cannot believe it beat out a group of much better songs to win the contest.
But it's not surprising. They tried the same thing a few years previously and came in third with this song:
Aysel and Arash "Always" 2009
This time the only Azerbaijani was the lovely Aysel. Better song too.
Really the only song that doesn't come of completely prepackaged is the first song Azerbaijan sent to Eurovision
.
Elnur and Samir "Day After Day" 2008
I will be the first to admit the staging is absolutely ridiculous; it's pretty self-evident how cheesy it is. However, the song was written by two Azerbaijanis and feels more authentic than anything else they've sent afterwords. So this one gets the vote for best Azerbaijani entry.
3. Safura "Drip Drop" 2010 If a song could try too hard, this would be the song.
4. Aysel and Arash "Always" 2009
5. Ell and Nikki "Running Scared" 2011
Yeah, I must admit I'm pretty savage on Azerbaijan Eurovision entrants. But I have hope that now they have won the contest, proven that they are a country on par with the rest of Europe, they will pull back on the hyper-packaged songs and send music that is more reflective of their own musical culture.
For the past few years, usually on the weekend of the Eurovision Song Contest, I throw a party, invite some friends around, cook a mess of food, and otherwise have a great time watching Europe present the "best" songs that they can come up with.
It's a blast, but there's one thing that we don't understand in the Last Frontier. Why do you choose the songs that you do?
Case in point:
In the last Eurovision Song Contest, the Azerbaijani entry won the kit and caboodle.
Ell and Nikki "Running Scared"
In our voting, this song came in dead last. She was flat, and the two of them had absolutely no chemistry on stage whatsoever. The collective groan from the group in Anchorage when it won over the rest of the songs was audible.
Our choice was one that barely made it to the middle of the table, the Serbian entrant
Nina "Caroban"
Nina, was cute, the staging was peppy, she stayed on key, it was in a language other than English, and the song is damn infectious. In other words, everything that Ell and Nikki's song wasn't.
It's really rather frustrating.
So some of my friends and I have decided to go back through all the years of Eurovision and crown our own winner--Alaska's Choice. Watch this blog in the next week or two for the first entrant, our choice for the winner of the very first Eurovision Song Contest, all the way back in 1956.
