Eurovision 2014: Finland

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.

Eurovision 2013: The Aftermath (part two)

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.

My Predictions: Final 2013

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:

Krista Sigfrieds   "Marry Me"   Finland

Hatred has turned to love on this one.  

But to be honest any number of countries songs would be worthy.   Norway, Georgia, Ireland, Italy, Greece,  France, Russia, Moldova, and Iceland are all songs that I would be happy to see win.  

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!

The Results: Second Semifinal 2013

Well, again I got seven out of the ten songs correct in my predictions.

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!

Eurovision 2013: Finland

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...