I must confess that I find the idea of San Marino entering the Eurovision Song Contest to be something confounding. San Marino, a country with a population of just over 30,000 people is willingly entering a contest that must suck up a lot of the budget of the San Marinese national broadcaster.
I'm certain because of the expense, the artist and song were selected internally:
Valentina Monetta "Crisalide"
You may recognize her from last year, because she performed the song San Marino presented last year
She has a beautiful voice and this song allows her to showcase her vocal range. And I like that.
Yet I'm a bit confused by the structure of the song. "Crisalide" starts out as a ballad, then in the last minute goes into a big dance number. It's like two songs have been grafted together that have absolutely no business being grafted together... I want it to work. I want San Marino to make the final. But I just don't see it moving forward to the final with this song.
Although I've been spending most of my time watching songs from the current year's crop of Eurovision hopefuls, my group of Alaskan jurors has been looking back at the songs from the contest in 1965.
The tenth Eurovision Song Contest took place in Naples on March 20th, 1965, put on by the Italian broadcaster, RAI. All the countries who participated in 1964 returned and a new country debuted:
Butch Moore "Walking the Streets in the Rain" Ireland
And for a debuting country in the Eurovision Song Contest, Butch did a pretty good job. He placed sixth overall in Naples--garnering votes from Yugoslavia, Portugal, and Italy. He even did one better in our voting, with one of the Alaska judges declaring him "dreamy".
There was also a bit of scandal this year from the Swedes.
Ingvar Wixell "Absent Friends" Sweden
Wixell performed his song in English, breaking an unwritten rule that songs at Eurovision would be performed in a national language. That unwritten rule was quickly written into the rules for the following year's contest.
But when all of the dust settled, the winner of the Eurovision Contest was a young French girl singing an entendre laced song for Luxembourg, bringing the contest out of the 1950s and bringing it closer to the musical tastes of the time.
France Gall "Poupée de cire, poupée de son" Luxembourg
France Gall's performance won on the night in Naples, but it was performance that divided our jury on gender lines. The men in the contest ranked it highly--considering it the best song in the contest. The women, on the other hand,found Gall's overly childish performance grating, rating it at the bottom of their list, putting "Poupée" into ninth place in the the eyes of the Alaskan judges.
Our winner, however, is a little less surprising.
Kathy Kirby "I Belong" United Kingdom
Kirby's performance did well on the night in Naples, coming in second. It scored well with all the jurors as well, making it "Alaska's Choice".
What is surprising are the two songs that were close runners up.
Conchita Bautista "¡Qué bueno, qué bueno!" Spain
Simone de Olivera "Sol de inverno" Portugal
These two songs from the Iberian Peninsula didn't do well during the voting in Naples--de Olivera received only one point from Monegasque juror while Bautista received the dreaded "nul points". But forty-eight years later, their dramatic performances and powerful vocals put them second and third respectively.
It proves why I love doing this blog... It highlights performances and songs buried in the depths of Eurovision history.
She's had a number one hit in the United States! She a platinum selling artist in the US, Canada, France, Australia, Ireland, and the United Kingdom.
But you probably know her from this meme that was passed around a couple years back:
"Total Eclipse of The Heart" (Literal Version)
Yes that raspy-voiced Welsh songstress, Bonnie Tyler has been chosen to represent the UK in this year's Eurovision Song Contest, with this little number, that was released back on the 6th of March.
Bonnie Tyler "Believe In Me"
The song is comfortably country and catchy as hell, I've been humming it since I've first heard it--something that I can't say for any of the other songs that I've listened to so far.
Will it win? Probably not. Yet I suspect that Bonnie Tyler will give a much better performance than Englebert Humperdinck did last year and it will score better than many people think.
And now back to listening to Bonnie's back catalogue.
I've been spending the past couple of weeks watching the finals from Northern Europe, so when I say Armenia's national final posted up online, I couln't resist watching the show online.
Armenia has returned to the contest after a one year absence from the contest, due to an ongoing conflict with Azerbaijan, where Eurovision was hosted last year. The show, Եվրատեսիլ 2013-ի երգի ընտրություն, was held on March 2nd, where the singer Gor Sujyan, supported by the band Dorians, performed four chosen by the national broadcaster as possible songs sent to Malmö.
Out of the four songs presented, this one was chosen:
Gor Sujyan and Dorians "Lonely Planet"
I'm not a fan of the song; it's a mediocre metal song. Sujyan has a strong, clear, compelling voice, yet he seems under served by the song he's singing. But it's the right song for Armenia to send to Malmö because it's the best of the four songs that Sujyan performed.
Trust me on this one, listen to one of the other four songs performed and you'll understand why.
Gor Sujyan and Dorians "Toy Planet"
"Lonely Planet" was the only song whose English lyrics actually made sense when you listen to them; the other three seem to be written by lyricists whose first language was not English, and it shows. (And if I'm wrong about this, please feel free to correct me in the comments.)
It's also kind of sad for me to report that the most compelling performance in the Armenian national final was not done by the artist representing Armenia this year, but a collection of teenagers who have represented the country in other Eurovision related contests.
Dalita, Compass Band, and Narek Kazazyan "Sweetie Baby"
When the lip synced song performed by a group of teenagers is more interesting and accessible than the song representing you in the "adult" Eurovision, it's not a good thing.
Well, there's something that I can say about Germany after watching their national contest, Unser Song für Malmö. Germany wants to win the Eurovision Song Contest again badly.
Very badly.
Out of the twelve songs in their national finals only one of them was really a duff one:
Die Priester & Mojca Erdmann "Meerstern, sei gegrüßt"
And even then, the singers aren't particularly bad, it's just that the gimmick wasn't the greatest and the vocal mix between Die Priester and Ms. Erdmann was kind of off.
But you have to hand it to the producers of the Unser Song, they presented a contest that had a song for pretty much everybody:
And an interesting song from a rap/soul collective:
Söhne Mannheims "One Love"
All of them are quite good for very different reasons, and would be worthy of representing Germany in the Eurovision Song Contest, but Germany chose to send a group that has had success throughout the world.
Cascada "Glorious"
It's an intelligent choice. Cascada has had success throughout Western Europe--particularly in the British Isles. They've even had success here in the United States, with their single "Every Time We Touch" landing at 31 on the Year-End Billboard Hot 100 chart in 2007.
So Germany has placed themselves in a very good place to win the whole kit and caboodle. Cascada has name recognition throughout much of the countries that vote in Eurovision and they have plenty of experience playing in venues much like the one they'll be performing in Malmö.
But as a performance as a whole I found it rather lacking compared to the other performers, and had I had a choice I would have gone with another song
LaBrassBanda "Nackert"
And no, it's not this song, although La BrassBanda looked like they were going to sweep the contest at the early part of the voting.
Germany split the voting into thirds, one third each to televoting and to a jury made up of musical professionals. The third part, however, was online voting at radio stations throughout Germany, and the punk Bavarian folk band looked like they were going to sweep the contest. The received top marks from each regional radio station.
It made for an interesting voting portion of the contest, and I recommend watching this clip of the jury votes to see the audience reaction.
I personally agreed with the audience, I didn't get the song. But I've never been one for frat bands, no matter what the genre they perform in.
For once, I also agreed with the jury on the best song of the night, and it was the one by Bitzkids mvt.
Blitzkids mvt. "Heart on the Line"
Although the singer was undermiked, the combination of dance music, fashion, and performance art was something really fantastic. I'm definitely going to check out more of their work. In fact I'm probably going to check out the work of a number of these artists...
Yes, this came up on the first page of Google Images for "Only Love Survives"
The joys about being a Eurovision fan is that there are a lot of others that are much more fanatical about the show than I am. (And some of my friends would be shocked by that one.)
The EBU has recognized this fanaticism, and has set up the web site www.eurovision.tv to help satiate the need for more information, and one of the ways they do that it provide links to stream a number of the national finals. So instead of watching links posted up on YouTube, I spent a nice afternoon watching the Irish national final as a streamed program on the Internet.
Ireland's national selection process, Eurosong, was broadcast as part of RTE's The Late Late Show on February 22nd. Five artists, mentored by successful people in the Irish musical community, performed their songs and a combination of jury and public voting selected the winner.
Ryan Dolan "Only Love Survives"
Yep, Ireland sent a dance song highly influenced by last year's winning song.
Dolan's a good singer and a pretty compelling performer, and the success of the song is going to depend on him. The song is bland and the music is generically techno--utterly unmemorable in my mind. Yet if he's able to bring it on the night, I can see the song making it into the finals and placing quite well, just like the Maltese entry did last year.
I on the other hand, much prefer the second place song in the contest.
Aimée "Crashing Down"
Who is this young woman? Her voice is like velvet..
I have to admit that it does sound like a song rejected by Adele, but it is pitch perfect. Jaw droppingly so. The fact that this wasn't chosen over "Only Love Survives" surprises me, but again it's a matter of taste, and the Irish public preferred a dance number.
It will be interesting to see how Ireland fares in May...
Austria is always a wild card when it comes to Eurovision songs. Sometimes they're fantastic, some times they are horrible, but most of the time they're out of step with all the other countries of Europe, so finding out what they're going to send is always interesting.
Austria picked their representative to Eurovision on February 15th in the program Österreich rockt den Song Contest. (Which is less fun to say than some of the other national selection programs, but that's probably because I have a good grounding in German.)
The program was rather simple compared to others. Five acts were asked to perform two songs--the first a previous Eurovision Song Contest winner, then the song they were to perform in Malmö. Sadly, the cover songs aren't readily available on You Tube, because I'd like to post one or two of them up. So all I can really do is move on to:
The Winner
Ladies and gentlemen, Austria has also sent an American to represent them at the Eurovision Song Contest.
Natália Kelly "Shine"
Ms. Kelly, born in Hartford, Connecticut, handily won the contest by bagging most of the public voting and scoring well with the jury. It quite obvious. She has a powerful voice and a confident stage presence. Combine that with a song that would sound quite comfortably coming out of the British singer Adele, and you have the makings for a winning song.
It's a solid choice, but I do hope they have a complete rethink on the staging of the song. It currently feels like they're copying everything from this song.
Nadine Beiler "The Secret Is Love" 2011
It worked quite well for Ms. Beiler back in 2011, but Ms. Kelly has a completely different look and feel, and the spotlight from above just makes Kelly look rather scary instead of sleek and sophisticated. But that's a minor quibble.
My Favorite
I have to say that shine is quite a strong song for Austria to send, but I doubt I would ever go out of my way to find more of Natália Kelly's music.
However, I've discovered a contender for my Eurovision song of the year in the Austrian final.
Yela "Feels Like Home"
While listening to the clip, I went out on Spotify and favorited this song. Her honey-tinged vocals, combined with the drums and ukulele. hit my personal musical sweet spot.
I can't seen this having much pan-European appeal, though. I think it would have played much like another song from 2011.
Anna Rossinelli "In Love For A While" Switzerland 2011
"In Love For A While" had a lot of love from the juries, but didn't score particularly well with the European voters, and I suspect "Feels Like Home" would have done the same thing.
But ask me which song from the 2011 Eurovision Song Contest has stuck with me, it's "In Love For A While". And which song from the Austrian final will stick with me? It's going to be "Feels Like Home".
