After the Final Impressions

Because my friends will be watching the Eurovision Song Contest after the fact, I've been asked not to post the winner on my blog.

Because of that, I'm not going to say who won or lost, but I will say the winner isn't one I particularly have quibbles about.  It's one of the better shows in recent years, and for that Azerbaijan should be proud.  They spent enough money on it.

However I am going to post up my personal picks for the best and worst song of the contest.  

The thing that surprises me more than anything else is the fact that the song I would have voted for was not the one I expected I would want to vote for.

Kaliopi   "Crno i Belo:  Macedonia

In my mind, Kaliopi had a great song, performed in flawlessly, and had the crowd on her side.  I wasn't crazy about the song at the beginning, butby the time of the final, she won me over.

I wasn't surprised by the song that I rated the worst.

Jedward  "Waterline"  Ireland

Unlike "Lipstick" the song from the previous year, which played off of their "talent", this song wasn't really written specifically for them, and it showed.  Pretty much all they had was their costumes, which the lovely Janet S. has summed up nicely with her appalled declaration "They're tin men!" combined with a stupid fountain that they get soaked in at the end.  

I'm all for gimmicks (the Buranovskiye Babushki charmed me as much as the last person), but really this song was a train wreck. 

And since I'm analyzing, I'm still sad that this song wasn't in the finals. 

Izabo  "Time"  Israel

They didn't give the best performance, but I'm going to go buy their CDs.  Which is what I'm sure Izabo was hoping to get out of their participation.

Eurovision 2012 Entrants: Ireland and Austria

Both Austria and Ireland chose the songs they're sending to the Eurovision Song Contest this pas weekend, and considering they sent both sent male duos, I figured I'd put them together in one post for comparison and contrast

Ireland's Eurovision Final too place on RTÉ's The Late Late Show, where five acts were presented.  And for the second year running, Jedward won the chance to represent the Emerald Isle

Jedward  "Waterline"

I have to admit, this song from Jedward was a disappointment.  Last year's Irish song, Lipstick, was not the best song, but it was high energy and entertaining.  This song is a bad retread, and really highlights how mediocre the brothers are as singers, but after watching the other four songs competing, I can understand how they won again.

I just can't see them coming in eighth, like they did in last year's contest, though.

Austria, on the other hand, has taken over the "so tasteless it's good" spot Jedward had last year with their entrant

Trackshittaz  "Woki mit deim popo"

Arguments can be made against the song quite easily.  It's tasteless.   It's sexist.  It's tacky.  And I can agree with those arguments.  However, I have to admit I love it for those reasons--it's so different than anything we've seen so far in the contest.  It's high energy, fun, and quite honestly, hilarious.

Who doesn't like a song that translates into English as "Shake Your Ass". 

I just hope the rest of the countries enjoy the joke as well and it does well in the contest.  Austria's great when it does funny.



Eurovision 2012 entrants, Switzerland and Albania

I don't know what you've been doing in your spare time, but in my spare time I've been paying attention to the national selections for this year's Eurovision Song Contest--learning the names of the singers in Austria's national final, listening to the songs in Iceland's first semifinal, and wondering if Jedward will be representing the Emerald Isle again.

But that doesn't really make for a good blog post.

Thankfully, two countries have already chosen their entrants, so let's take a listen:

Switzerland

After a convoluted selection process, where the German, French and Italian broadcasters entered songs into the selection, and eventually this Swiss public selected Sinplus, a duo made up of the brothers Ivan and Gabriel Broggini.

Sinplus  "Unbreakable"

And after listening to this a couple times, I'm still completely underwhelmed.  They come across as a college cover band you'd see at the bar on a Thursday night that were attempting to become legit by playing their own compositions.  In other words, I admire their gumption, but I wish they'd go back to playing "Beautiful Day" or "Clocks".

Albania

Albania's selection process was  a little less convoluted, with the winner, Rona Nishliu, winning the Festivali i Kenges, the process the country has used to select their entrant since 2004.  Rona is Kosovaran, which should make for some interesting political voting, but let's take a listen to the song.

OK.  She has pipes.  The orchestration is pretty.   But the song combined with her look is rather frighening--the high pitched wailing combined with the mess of hair and the Albanian lyrics are off-putting.  Hopefully this will get fixed with a stylist and an English translation of the lyrics.

What do you think of the two entrants?