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...


 



 



Eurovision 2013: Iceland



Iceland chose their representative to the Eurovision Song contest back on February 2nd, in the fabulously named Söngvakeppnin 2013.

Nordic graphic design.  Awesome.

Like many countries, RÚV, the Icelandic national broadcaster, decided to cut back on their national finals, with only two semifinals leading to the national final, which is quite understandable. 

For most Eurovision watchers, the biggest surprise was the failure of Yohanna, the singer of one of the most successful Icelandic Eurovision entries, making it out of the first semifinal.

 

Yohanna  "Þú"

 

And although I'm surprised to say this, I have to agree.  Although I have a soft spot for former contestants trying again, this song wasn't good.  It's a lousy song, and to use a cliche "you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear".  

 

 



The Winner

 



 

 

Eyþór Ingi Gunnlaugsson  "Ég á Líf"

 

 

I have to say I like this song, although the look of the singer and the song don't match.  Gunnlaugsson looks like he's out of a heavy metal band, but his song is a simple ballad that pulls from Celtic folk and church music. 

 

It's very reminiscent of this song, entered in Söngvakeppnin 2012, which happened to be my favorite in last years Icelandic Eurovision selection process.

 

 

 

Íris Lind Verudóttir  "Aldrei segja aldrei"

 

As for it's success in Malmö, I can't really say one way or the other, and right now it is really all down to Gunnlaugsson's appearance.

 

Right now his look is very odd--the long hair and the beard matched with the shiny suit don't feel modern at all and made me do a double take when I saw it was the winner of this year's contest.  It immediately made me think of songs like this:

 



 

Scott Fitzgerald  "Go"  United Kingdom  1988

 



I'm all for the throwback song, but to be immediately reminded of the late 1980s isn't necessarily a good thing in my book.

 

But it's going to be down to the staging, and Iceland has been successful in prior years at Eurovision, so this song may very well have a chance to make it to the top of the table come the night of the finals...   We'll see.

 

 

Should Have Won

 

 This one is hard, because really, any of the songs could have been contenders, but I'm going to go with this number as my choice as the song that should have won:

 



 





Jógvan Hansen & Stefanía Svavarsdóttir  "Til þín"

 

I have no real reason other that Hansen had the more stage presence than anybody else in the final.  I get why it didn't win, Iceland sent a male/female duo last year, but it would have been just as worthy as "Ég á Líf".

 

 

My Favorites

 

As I mentioned before, I liked a lot of the songs, and I could probably feature all of them, but I'm going to put up one for a note I learned back in my days in choirs:

 



 

Magni Ásgeirsson  "Ekki Líta Undan"

 

The lesson is no matter how sucked up into performing the song, you always need to watch what your hands are doing.  In Ásgeirsson's case, it looked like he was milking a cow or doing something a little less appropriate for me to type.  And that greatly distracted me from his performance--no matter how much I liked the song.

 

But as for my personal favorite, I have to go with this number:

 

 





 

Haraldur Reynisson  "Vinátta"

 

I do like a mellow song, and the "MTV Unplugged" staging was surprisingly appealing to me.  Does this mean I'll start complaining about the music that the young kids are listening to soon?  More than likely.  Then I'll be yelling at them to stay off my lawn.  Yep, it's the next natural step.   Pretty soon it's going to be Metamucil and orthopedic shoes...

 

Seriously, though, I could put two more songs in this section without any trouble.  Iceland had a very strong final this year, and I highly recommend you go searching out all of the songs youself and take a listen.  It's worth the 30 minutes to listen to all of them.

 

 





Eurovision 2013: Albania

Slowly but surely I'm making my way through the national finals, and finally I'm getting to the results from Albania, who chose their winner back in December.

The Albanian representative was chosen through Festivali i Këngës, the Albanian show has chosen Albania's Eurovision representative since they first entered the contest in 2004.

I'm personally partial to the format of Festivali i Këngës, where the contest is much more of a concert instead of a stadium show.  The format puts the songs and the artists front and center, not the lights, dancers, or distracting video displays...like Eurovision seems to have become in the past few years.

It makes me wonder what the Albanians would come up with if they staged the contest:

The Winner  

 

 

Adrian Lulgjuraj & Bledar Sejko  "Identitet"

 

 

I get why the song won the contest.  Bledar Sejko's guitar work is extremely impressive, and the mix of the guitar work contrasted with the string and tympani arrangement is striking.  The music, combined with Adrian Lulgjuraj strong vocals, made it an understandable winner, even if it left me a bit cold.

I must confess that I am a bit distracted by Bledar Sejko.  He looks like an ex-boyfreind of mine, and when I showed a picture of the performers to my friend Janet S., her response was "Albania is pandering to you this year, aren't they?"

Perhaps they are, but sadly, unless I decided to go on a spur of the moment European vacation, I'm not going to be able to vote in the contest.

I just hope that Albania doesn't prerecord the track.  The pull of the song is Sejko's guitar work, and if Sejko can perform as well as he did in this clip, I can see the song making the final easily by getting support from the national juries.

 

Should Have Won 

 

 

Anjeza Shahini  "Love"

 

Shahini was Albania's first representative in the Eurovision Song Contest, and she did quite well, coming in seventh in 2004.  She's also the performer of my favorite Albanian Eurovision entrant.  And I think that that filters over to my preference this entry, even though the song is admittedly weaker than "Identitet".

 

I'll admit that after listening to the song a few more times,"Love" would have needed a lot of work before going to Sweden and for that reason I can understand why Anjeza didn't win the contest.  You can have a fantastic singer, but if the song is weak it's not likely to win.

 

"Identitet" didn't hook me, but I have to say the Albanians picked a stronger song with a strong performance, and I totally respect that.

 

 

My Favorite

 

Besides the two mentioned above, two other artists caught my attention during the finals of Festivali i Këngës and for two very different reasons:

 

 

 

Merland Kademi  "Këtu fillon parajsa"

 

 

The song it a bit of a Frankenstein--take a bit of a James Bond theme song, mix in the drama of last years Albanian entry, and put that on top of the melody of the winner of the 2007 Contest and you have this song.  Kademi sells this Balkan ballad like his life depended on it and it came in a respectable fifth.

 



 





Dr. Flori & Fabi  "Jam ti!"

 

Albanian rap!  With a string section!  And bongo drums!  Pretty freaking awesome, even though it does get a little sketchy towards the end.  Rap is unlikely to go to Eurovision from Albania (that's Montenegro's job), but I'd love to listen to this while driving down the highway.

 

 

All in all, I enjoyed sitting down and watching another Albanian national final, and think they chose a really decent song and one that could do quite well...  Here's hoping that it does...

 

Eurovision 2013: Lithuania

It's been a while since I've updated my blog--the beginning of a new year always takes my focus away from things like Eurovision...

So now, after a couple of weeks of working weekends and dealing with head colds, I'm finally back doing something fun--reviewing the seven songs that were performed in the Lithuanian national final back on December 20th.

I've got to admit that LRT, the Lithuanian national broadcaster, went all out.  The selection process was an eight show program that went from the beginning of November through the end of December.  It's interesting, considering most other countries are feeling the need to minimize the cost of Eurovision.

The Winner

 

 

Andrius Pojavis   "Something"

 

 

I don't get this song really and it's be the contrast between the song and the presentation.   The song is an alternative rock love song--Pojavis reminds me a bit of Michael Stipe or David Byrne.  But the presentation is a circus theme?   Totally confusing.

 

It's quite easy to understand how this one was chosen.  It was the favorite of the jury during the final, and it was their choice to decide which song to send.

 

It's a shame, since this song should have won...

 

 

Should Have Won

 

Sometimes, the jury of professionals is absolutely wrong.  "Something" is nothing compared to this song:

 

 

 

Gerai Gerai and Miss Sheep   "War In The Wardrobe"

 

 

A homage to 1980s art rock trumps a homage to late 1990s alt rock. 

 

Fabulous catchy song?  Check.

Fabulous singer?  Check.

Fabulous visual installation?  Check.

Fabulous dancers?  Check.

 

Weird guy pretending to play the drums.   Oh.  There's the weak point.

 

It won the televote in both the semifinal and final, but the jury ranked it last in the superfinal.

 

 

My Favorite

 

 Gerai Gerai and Miss Sheep "War In The Wardrobe"

 

 

Not a big surprise there.  This was the catchiest song and the song with the best presentation.  I'm still confused by the jury vote, but that's neither here or there.

 

But I do want to highlight another song, that hits another sweet spot for me:

 

 

Božolė  "Happy and Free"

 

 

The song is rather insipid, but these singers, members of larger choral group, are quite good.  Perhaps they'll be back with a better song next time.

 

But neither of them were the winner, and yet again, I'm not particularly satisfied with the choice.  But Lithuania has made the finals for the past to years, so perhaps Pojavis has the stuff...











Eurovisionaries: Lisa Andreas

My final entry of 2012 is to induct another member into the ranks of Eurovisionaries--Lisa Andreas.

In Eurovision, with all the pyrotechnics, writhing dancers, and thumping beats, sometimes the simplest song and production stands out even more.

This was never more noticeable than during the 2004 Eurovision Song Contest, when Cyprus sent this song.

Lisa Andreas  "Stronger Every Minute"

 

"Stronger Every Minute" was a contrast to the winner of the contest, with the winner being the ur-type of the pyrotechinc dance numbers that ruled the song contest in the period:

 

 

Ruslana  "Wild Dances"   Ukraine

 

But for me Andreas' understated number has much more impact that the frenzied gyrating of the winning entry.   And for once, a lot of people agreed with me.  Andreas placed fifth in the final that year, garnering 170 points, the most the country has ever received in the contest.

 

What amazes me more is that Andreas was sixteen years old at the time of her performance.  Her ability to give a mature, nuanced performance at an age where I could barely differentiate my head from a hole in the ground is impressive.

 

Sadly, her performance on the stage in Istanbul was the high point of her career.  Other than making her way to the second round of the fourth season of the UK X-Factor, her post-Eurovision information is sadly lacking, just the basic CV information. 

 

But she is still out there performing, as of 2011 in a group called The Harmonics.

 



 

Lisa Andreas, Josh Roots, Samuel Paul Jacques   "Ain't Nobody"

 

She's still a good singer, and were I living in Kent, I'd definitely be searching her out at one of her gigs. 

 

Eurovision 2013: Ukraine

It's a blustery, warm day here in Anchorage, and all the snow has a coat of ice on it.  So instead of going out and risking falling down on ice (yet again) this year, I've decided to stay home and catch up on some of the national finals that have already been broadcast. 

The Ukrainian national final was held back on December 21st, with twenty different acts vying to represent their country in Malmö, Sweden.   It was, in my opinion, a glitch filled, self-serious event, lacking the fun and showmanship of the Belorussian final.   But as Ukrainian Eurovision finals go, it appears to be above board, with only one act withdrawing after their performance and apparently no ill will from artists after the show.

Which means, good job NTU.  It looks like you're able to run a successful national final. 

The Winner

 

Zlata Ognevich   "Gravity"

 

 

Ognevich won on her third attempt to represent Ukraine and I have to say Ukrainians made a very sensible choice with sending her to Sweden. She's got a clear, powerful voice--well suited to the ballad she's singing.  She was also on key the entire time, which is not something that could be said about some of the other acts.  It also doesn't hurt that Ms. Ognevich is pretty easy on the eye, which will likely go over as well. 

 

The only criticism I have is with the harmonies.  The balance between Ms. Ognevich and her backing singers is out of whack, but I'm certain that this will be fixed by the time May comes around and this song will do very well.

 

Should Have Won

 

Usually this section is reserved for the song that was better than the one that actually one the contest.  And "Gravity" is a well crafted Eurovision pleaser.  So this time I'm using this to highlight a singer instead of the song.

 

 

 

Tetyana Shirko   "Feeling Like A Sir"

 

Ms. Shirko came in a credible fourth with this rather weird song about making someone "feel like a sir". I had to go to the Internet to figure out what "feeling like a sir" meant, and that's a really bad sign for a song lyric. 

 

(For those of you who are interested "feeling like a sir" means feeling elegant and refined.  Follow this link for more information on the etymology.)

 

However, I can only compare Ms. Shirko's vocals to Minnie Riperton, one of my favorite soul singers ever.  I hope Shirko comes back in future years with better songs...

 

My Favorite

 

Hmm.  I don't necessarily have a favorite, none of them made me want to jump out and embrace the singers whole-heartedly, like Jamala did in 2011 and Gaitana did in 2012, but I'd like to highlight a couple of other songs that were interesting if nothing else.

 

 

 

DiO.Filmy   "Medlyak:

 

 

If I were choosing a song to amuse my friends at my Eurovision party, "Medlyak" would be the obvious choice.  They're the only performer to have quirk in spades.

 

 





 

Matvey Vermiyenko   "Otkryvay menya"

 

 

I'm also impressed by the performance of Matvey Vermiyenko.  Vermiyenko's genderfuck, much influenced by David Bowie circa Ziggy Stardust, is not something I particularly expected.   He came in dead last, but his performance was surprising in a very conservative country.  I'm not a fan of the song or performance, but I admire him trying to win a place in the Eurovision Song Contest.

 

And that's Ukraine's national final in a nutshell.  Now to tackle Festivali i Këngës, the Albanian selection show...





 



Countries in Review: Belgium (part 3)



Belgian chocolates, perhaps the most famous in the world.
(It was either that or Belgian waffles...)

And finally my top five Eurovision songs from Belgium:

Starting with number five:

Kate Ryan "Je t'adore" 2006

Before I sat down and actually watched this performance, I had written this one off as a a typical dance song performed poorly and hadn't given the song a second thought.

I was wrong, Ryan comes off admirably and the harmonies with the two backup singers is superb.  The only quibble I have is with the choreography.  Everything that the dancers do distracts from the song (like the fluorescent mike stands) and combined with the lack of friendly countries in the contest didn't put it into the finals.  Shame.  It's a great song and Ryan gave a solid performance.

My number four:

 

  Dream Express   "A Million In One, Two, Three"  1977

This one popping up in the top five shouldn't be surprising, considering I cited it in my review of the 2013 Belgian entry. 

Bianca, Stella, and Patricia Maessen are no strangers to the Eurovision Song Contest, having represented the Netherlands in 1970, but here, along with Bianca's husband Luc Smets, they had one of my favorite Eurovision songs from the late 1970s.  Sure, it's kind of a ripoff of Brotherhood of Man's Save Your Kisses For Me, but the infectious music and the personality of the singers just won me over and has won a frequent rotation in my own personal Eurovision mix.

Number three:

  

Sandra Kim "J'aime la vie" 1986

 

Belgium has only won the Eurovision Song Contest once, and even I can't deny that this is a perfect example of mid eighties Europop. 

 

Sandra Kim was all of thirteen years old when she performed this song in Bergen, Norway, and comfortably won the contest, and it's understandable.   The satin jacket with huge shoulder pads, acid pink pants and pink bow tie were adorable and perfect for the so-called fifteen-year-old, and her performance was flawless.  And the song even ages well--it's good twenty six years later.

My second favorite:

Witloof Bay   "With Love Baby"  2011

Even I'm shocked by how highly I rated this one.  After going through all of the songs, I would thought I would have put this somewhere in the middle.  But after watching their performance in Dusseldorf, I had a complete change of heart and put their performance above almost every other Belgian entry.

I must admit this is due to my own background in choral music.  A capella music was always my Waterloo--I had a tendency to go flat and take down the rest of the group I was singing with, so the ability of the six singers of Witloof Bay to both stay on key and not be cringe worthy--another issue I have with a capella singers--puts "With Love Baby" above almost every other Belgian song.

And finally, my pick for best Belgian Eurovision entry.

Pas de Doux   "Rendez-vous"   1983

 

When "Rendez-vous" was presented in 1983, it was radically different than anything else presented in Eurovision.  The two singers only sing one phrase over and over again over some faux-Asian synth pop.   It's pretty "out there" and it's fantastic risk taking--something that happens very rarely in Eurovision.  And it's a risk I happen to like a lot, and that's why it's my personal pick for best Belgian Eurovision entry.