Finland hasn't been one of the most successful Eurovision countries in the past few years, so listening to this year's entry was a surprise.
Norma John "Blackbird"
The dark, moody song by the duo Norma John isn't like any other song in the contest. Instead of tending towards the pop sensibilities of today, the son brings to mind the music of Eva Cassidy--not a name you necessarily associate with the Eurovision Song Contest.
Sadly, this song in another song that could easily not qualify, since there are more Eurovision fan friendly songs in the contest and that makes me sad, since it's one of my three favorite songs in the contest and I'd willingly spend a bit of money to vote for it.
Every year a country makes a choice less on the musical ability of the performer and more on the backstory.
This year, Finland's entry is the that entry.
Pertti Kurikan Nimipäivät "Aina mun pitää"
I have mad respect for the four gentlemen in this group. This band formed back in 2009 and has been releasing singles and albums ever since. The fact that they have Downs Syndrome and autism makes them much more intriguing and their accomplishments even more sweet.
However, this song isn't likely to get out of the semifinal based on this performance.
Punk isn't a musical style that hasn't really shown up at Eurovision, and although "Aina mun pitää" is going to be the shortest song ever performed onstage at a contest, this song dragged during the national final. Because of that, I fear it's not memorable enough on its own to connect to the television viewers.
And trust me, there were a lot of songs that had that connected.
Satin Circus "Crossroads"
This could have been a top 10 finish. (Although Satin Circus is perhaps the dumbest band name I've heard in a while.)
Opera Skaala "Heart of Light"
Crazy song but she's an impressive coloratura.
And my personal favorite:
Shava "Ostrailla"
I love bhangra, so I'm predisposed to it (even though I couldn't find a clip from the UMK final).
That said, I could be completely wrong about Finland's song. Pertti Kurikan Nimipäivät is going to be the story of this Eurovision Song Contest and they could use that press to become a contender...
Thanks to eurovision.tv, the official web site for the Eurovision Song Contest, I'm able to view many of the national finals in their entirety, and last night's viewing was the Finnish national final, Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu.
Finland has used UMK for the past three years to choose their song to send, and after a three show preliminary, the final was broadcast on February 1st.
Watching Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu, the Finnish national final, I feel like I've been sucked into a world where things don't make much sense, starting off with the opening number.
It's like a black comedy version of an Olympic opening number--colorful, confusing, and really foreign. It's not bad--just very Finnish.
The songs were confounding as well. I still can't figure out why some of these songs were in the final of the Finnish national final.
MadCraft "Shining Bright"
I hadn't realized that skater culture had a following in Finland, and MadCraft is aping the look and feel of skater punk bands like Blink-182.
Nor had I realized that punk girl groups were still alive in Finland.
MIAU "God/Drug"
Hukka ja Mama "Selja"
And I have no clue what this is--Finnish folk country? Or just the song to accompany one of my pizza induced dreams...
But when all was said and done, the Finnish jury and public chose the most commercial song in the finals
Softengine "Something Better"
It's a rock song that doesn't sound dissimilar to something Coldplay or U2 might have performed about five years ago and feels very much like this song from the 2011 contest.
A Friend in London "New Tomorrow" Denmark 2011
Denmark did quite well with their rock anthem, coming in fifth back in 2011, and Finland has a chance to do the same with Softengine.
The only thing they need to work on is their performance. There's a lack of energy in "Something Better" that makes the song feel generic. With a little bit of work on the presentation of the song, I could see this finishing quite well on the night of the finals.
After taking care of the discussion of the winning song, I can move on to things that are much more interesting.
This section I'm going to call the "sacrificial lambs". These are songs that deserved to do much better than they did, but due to placement in the running order they got lost in the shuffle.
The best example of this is the starting song in the contest.
Amandine Bourgeois "L'enfer et moi" France
SVT put Ms. Bourgeois in the starting position of the contest with her very French song. Her pitch perfect performance was the best way for the contest to start out, and she killed it. And gave a rather nice Tina Turner impersonation in her leather fringe dress.
Problem is was she was forgotten. Bourgeois landed in 23rd place, gaining almost all of her paltry 14 points from the microstate of San Marino.
The same thing could be said for the song that SVT placed three songs after Ms. Bourgeois.
After watching the semifinal, I had pegged the Finnish entry as a possible dark horse to win the contest.
Krista Sigfrieds "Marry Me" Finland
But being placed as the first upbeat number in the contest meant that it was forgotten by the end, getting a few votes from around Europe and wound up 24th.
(I know many people would think it's because of the "lesbian" kiss at the end, but had this been placed in the last six songs of the contest, that "controversy" would have have been a moot point.)
The last of my "sacrificial lambs" is one that I could see being argued with more, the song from Iceland.
Eyþór Ingi Gunnlaugsson "Ég á líf" Iceland
Mr. Gunnlaugsson ballad was placed after the winner and in my mind he performed the song better than the winning song. But unfortunately, being after the "fan favorite" meant that he was was going to get the unfair comparisons or completely ignored by the people still swooning over Denmark.
Iceland wound up in 17th place with points coming from all over "Western" Europe. with a song that is, in my opinion, much more appealing.
Ah, the sacrificial lambs. I hope to goodness that the EBU goes back to the previous, random, drawing of song places. What makes for a good show is really subjective and I prefer the idea of randomness giving the songs a chance to be placed in prime spots in the show, not the machinations of a few producers.
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!
Goodbye Albania, San Marino, and Israel. Hello Iceland, Armenia, and Romania.
I must admit I found this semifinal much less exciting that the first semifinal. You would have thought otherwise, since there were fewer obvious songs that were going to the final. But I suppose since my favorite song wasn't in this semi, I didn't feel the personal connection.
But I did get a couple of surprises. I wound up loving a song that I hated when I first heard it.
Krista Sigfrieds "Marry Me" Finland
Congratulations, Ms. Sigfrieds. I get the song now. I'm no longer offended; I'm completely on board.
I'm going to be perfectly honest. I don't understand how Armenia made it through. It wasn't a good performance and unlike the Belgian entry that I'm not particularly fond of it didn't even feel modern and fun. In fact the lead singer went off key a bit at the end.
Dorians "Lonely Planet" Armenia
Block voting? Probably. Did it keep out better songs. Hell yes. But good for Armenia. You're back in the final even with a lousy song and a lackluster performance.
Would I have preferred to see another song in? Yes. I loved Israel's ballad, Valentina Monetta's redemption song from San Marino, or this:
Adrian Lulgjuraj and Bledar Sejko "Identitet" Albania
It was so disappointing to see how poorly it looked on stage. Had it been shot differently, the energy level would have been higher and it could have qualified. Maybe.
But that's just the nature of Eurovision, songs you love don't make it through while songs that don't rate do.
Tomorrow, the fun begins! The build up to Saturday's final!
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...
Back again with the next entry for the Alaska's Choice, this time for 1964.
First the basic facts--Denmark, the winner of the prior year's contest hosted and the show was presented from Copenhagen's Tivoli Koncertsal on March 21st, 1964. Unfortunately, due to a fire at the Dutch broadcaster, no recording of the full contest exists to view, so like the 1956 contest, we had to use recordings. Luckily this year an audio recording still survives--so our votes were taken from that recording.
For the first time in a number of years, there were a change in the countries that participated. Sweden withdrew from the contest due to a boycott from their singers, while Portugal entered for the first time. With Spain and Portugal in the contest, Eurovision became politicized and a protester stormed the stage after the Swiss entrant, holding a sign protesting the autocratic governments of the two countries on the Iberian Peninsula.
Unfortunately, the political climate may have had an affect on the results of Portugal's first entry:
António Calvário "Oração"
Calvário's song received no points from any of the other juries, and came in dead last in the competition (along with the songs from Germany, Switzerland, and Yugoslavia).
I suppose the "nul points" results for four countries really is unsurprising, because the winner of the contest received a third of all the possible votes, marking Italy's first victory in Eurovision.
Gigliola Cinquetti "Non ho l'età"
And, of course, nether of these songs fell in the same place in our voting. Calvário landed in 10th place, while Cinquetti came in fifth.
To be honest, the voting for this year's Eurovision Song Contest surprised me--I had expected Cinquetti to do as well with our group as it had done with the voters in 1964, but she was beaten by a number of "also rans"/
Finland took fourth with this number about doing nothing on Sunday:
Lasse Mårtenson "Lasikotellen"
And the Dutch moved up from tenth to second with Anneke Grönloh's upbeat song about a very forgiving girlfriend:
Anneke Grönloh "Jij bent mijn leven"
But the big shocker is the winner of our poll:
Udo Jürgens "Warum nur warum"
Good old Udo kept coming back in the mid 60s trying again and again to win the contest, but for us, he won the first time out. Had Europe been as sensible as we were, and voted for what I considered his best song, perhaps we wouldn't have been subjected to two more years of his sleep inducing music..
So there's 1964 in a nutshell and a surprising Austrian win. Stay tuned for 1965...
Well, tomorrow is the day when Eurovision begins in earnest, with semifinal one.
Sadly, I'm going to be stuck at my office, crunching numbers while Europe votes for their favorite songs. So between projects I'll be furiously refreshing my web browser to find out the ten songs that will move on to the final.
And like most people who blog on the Eurovision Song Contest, I'm choosing my ten songs and we'll see how they do.
This song in my favorite of all the songs in the contest this year; I would have never thought that a Swedish language song would be that way. I hope that Ms. Karlsson will get enough jury votes to make it through to the final, because where it's placed, I don't think the viewing audience will vote for it.
Although I can see why this song can offend people, I like it and hope it makes it to the final. It has a crazy energy that no other song has this year, and that energy makes it one of my favorites.
Out of all the songs in the contest, this is the song that has the seal of approval of the lovely Janet S., which means that it's going to delight the other people at my Eurovision viewing party. Any Eurovision song that is accessible to my Gen X friends is A-OK in my book.
I have to say this song has grown on me, but I doubt that this will appeal to enough people who hear it for the first time to make it through. It's just so dramatically different than anything else, having it in the finals will
6. Russia "Party for Everybody" Buranovskiye Babushki
I love the idea of them more than I like the song, but they're sure to make it through to the final, but there's still
This is the catchiest song in the semifinal and probably my guilty secret song, because it's not the type of song I go for.
The sad thing is that I'm certain one or more of the songs on my list are going to be dropped, and I'm suspecting the two weakest songs on my list are Finland and/or Albania. One of them is going to get replaced by the "dynamic" duo from Ireland for certain, and a number of other songs could take out the other without any problem.
Ah Finland... Land of Lordi. Let's take a listen to the song the Finns have chosen this year.
Pernilla Karlsson "När jag blundar"
Finnish broadcaster YLE decided to change up the format of the their national selection for this year. This new selection process, Uuden Musiiken Kilpailu, wasn't without controversy; however, the song the Finns chose is probably the prettiest song I've listened to for this year's contest.
"När jag blundar" is performed in Swedish, an official language in Finland, and if 'm reading the translation correctly, it's a about a mother sung by her daughter. (Swedish singers feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.)
After some thought, I have to say that this is currently my favorite song. I just hope that the non-Eurovision feel of the song, which has more of the feel of Scandinavian folk music than schlager, makes the final. It certainly deserves to.
