As we all know from Rich Peppiatt at the Leveson Inquiry, tabloids just make up stories to fill up space when they're too lazy to do any real work (or engage in criminal activity).* The Eurovision tends to generate lots of rumours about who is going to be performing, and they're never true. The most fabulous one this year is that the original members of the Sugababes are reuniting to do the Eurovision. Oh the irony if thats true!** But these things never turn out to be true? Le Sigh
Remember the one about Morrissey for UK http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6244153.stm
Actually, that may not have been a rumour, since it's on BBC News, and they don't tend to be the gossip types. Never happened though. Why not BBC? Why not? He'd have been awesome. Better than Scooch! (though that's not saying a lot)
and then there was the one about System of a Down for Armenia http://www.news.az/articles/armenia/42547
Who wasn't all like "FUCKING BLOODY YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!" when they heard that?
Bloody Journalists! Making us all excited and then disappointing us.
I used to go to uni with a person who described everything as sexy. It was very odd. Sexy coffee, sexy sandwiches, sexy fonts, sexy photocopiers. But I digress.
France released their sexy entry. In this very tiring national final season, it's nice when someone just saves you a lot of trouble and just picks the song. I mean, most of those shows only have two good songs in them anyway. Which the public never pick. (Plumbo? REALLY, NORWAY?)
In 2008 there was a sexy storm in a teacup when Sebastien Tellier sang part of 'Divine' in English. This year there doesn't seem to be the same fuss. The way this one was built up, I thought there'd be more English in it. Actually, it's limited to the chorus. I like the French bits better.
Hej!
Jag sa jag skulle ville skriv i Svenska, nu hår ar min fem favorit sången från Sverige. :D
Jag gillar intesången, eller det har skulle tio sånger.
Fem: ABBA, Waterloo: 1974
okej, vi vilja start med DET DAR sang. jag gillade Italiens sangen i sekund. Om ABBAs sånger var inte hela tiden spelat, jag kunna har gillade det. Eller, om jag var fodd i 1960.
Men de där byxorna O_O
Fyra: Tommy Korberg, Judy Min Van, 1969
Ni kan marka jag gillar inte manga contemporary sanger fran Sverige. Forlat. Sveriges poster inte aldras val.
Tre: Monica Zetterlund, En Gang i Stockholm, 1963
Mer 1960s. Jag hade inte hört det tills nyligen. Det har bra i imorse.
Jag ar alltid förvånad över att hitta dessa videor! Jag alskar interneten!
Tva: Ingar Vixell, Annostade Vals: 1965
Han sjong sangen i Engelska pa Eurovision, och då sprak regeln vara presente efter tills 1973. Men ni ar inte låså det har. :( Ni ar Trakig!
Ett: The Ark, The Worrying Kind: 2007
Min favorit moderna! Glam! Det har vad jag menar nar jag sa om ABBA hade modern, jag skulle hade gillade dem.
*there may have been a little google translate involved here.
There was a lot of off-key combinations in Norway's semi final tonight, with cutesy disney tweens singing electro pop, and a bunch of hipsters and fashionistas with questionable english. And bad fake piano playing. This national final season isn't halfway through, and i think i'm beginning to hate eurovision.
The culmination of the awkwardly juxtaposed image/sound was Ola Nordmann. AAARGH!!!!!!!! He's got a tin whistle and tattoos! It's Norwegian Irish-Trad Rock!
RUN FOR YOUR LIVES
Seriously, did we not ban those things with bodhrans after Dervish? Apparently we should have!
See, there are so many semi-finals on at the moment it's kinda hard to choose. Iceland though, I just think they're sorta cool (well, it's ICE-Land, I imagine it's literally cool aswell). They're so low-budget and considering the repetition of contestants, it's more like a get-together than a competition.
So, Magni got through, as expected. I think I like this song more than when I first heard it, but that facial hair will always offend me!
He has more hair on his face than his head!
I loved the shocked expression on the songwriter's* face when they announced the wildcard entry from last week, which i guess they'd forgotten to tell everyone, since the host did look slightly confused by the envelopes. So Rosa Birgitta Isfeld will also join the final. Yay! I kinda liked this one. I'd also like the green cape in the picture below
Although, considering she was heavily pregnant last week, she might be the first Eurovision live birth!
*Is the Icelandic final the only one now where you hear more about the songwriter/s than the performers?
Oh dear...
Previews of the Irish National final songs are less than a fortnight away, but no one has been mentioned to prevent the pain of another year of Jedward except Donna McCaul, who you won't remember, because she was Ireland's atrocious flop from 2005. I really wanted an Irish win! *cries*
Allow me to sum up my feelings about Jedward visually:
Hasn't the 'they're-so-bad-they're-good' joke worn out now?
I don't know how you're supposed to choose a song for the Eurovision if the person doesn't perform live. Oh, I'm sure Ivi Adamou is capable of singing live, but do these songs sound any good live.
La La Love sounds like it will be catastrophic live. It sounds far too studio-produced to really work. It's a club anthem. Do you ever think of club anthems as live music?
Knowing how Eurovision performances go lately, I envision this being performed with laser lighting, a glowing dress that will only just cover the necessary things, and she will be standing on a small plinth over a mermaid tank, as the canadian syncronised swimming team spell out La La Love.
As the Eurovision has gotten bigger and more expensive so has the staging for a lot of the songs, with more technical stuff going on. It's the stuff everyone remembers from the show afterwards -- the conehead unicyclist, the robot biker woman, the robot, the turkey in the trolley, yet, strangely these things have never really made winners. I'm really boring, and I hope that the most ridiculous staging elements will disappear from the Eurovision. They're becoming cliched now, like changing costume halfway through the song (Croatia 2011 have surely killed that trick now). So I'd like to dedicate a moment, in this crazed nationals season to the most over-the-top, and completely unnecessary, and probably detrimental, Eurovision stagings.
I miss when ESCToday did these sorts of lists... Sigh.
10 Boxing Ring, Armenia 2011
I actually thought this was more of the song than it is watching the video now, but it's still so stupid. What does any of this have to do with boxing?
9: The wind woman thing, Belarus 2009
This might be a costume thing, I'm unsure, just go with it. When I saw this the first time I couldn't decide if it was intentional, or if some poor backing dancer's dress had taken too much wind machine and she'd gotten stuck in the whole thing and couldn't get out. This never got to the final, so we never got to see. Sigh.
8: Big gaudy heart seat, Greece 2008.
Actually, I hate this song in every way. It's tacky, too pink it's unnecessarily Greek, she rips half her dress off to reveal... slightly less dress underneath. She sings about not wanting to give a guy her secret combination despite the fact that the whole of Europe is close to seeing all of her secrets if she opens her legs again. Urgh, and people liked this. I hate people. Why does she need to have some prom float heart as well? Hasn't the message of the song already come across by now. It just goes and makes the whole thing much more tacky and awful.
7: Dita Von Teese on a sofa, Germany, 2009.
You know, all those bits of furniture and stuff don't get on the stage by themselves. There's a bunch of stage hands and managers and people running around getting this stuff on and off quickly. Do you think they ever stop and think 'What was the point of that?' What was the point of having Dita Von Teese there in the background taking a few items of clothing off? What is the point of that if the camera isn't even looking at her? Why didn't you just have a video of it? It was hyped up at the time, but when it came to it, it was all so meh, and safe for something that should have been much more.
6: Staircase for Safura, Azerbaijan 2010
Again, somewhere someone is thinking 'Do we really need to lug this thing onto the stage.' This is probably the only case where the presentation actually ruined the song. I don't think anyone got why she was on a very little staircase that was, clearly, too difficult to get down by herself. The only purpose I think it had was so the cameraman could get more of an upskirt shot of her. This might have done better if it had stayed simpler, but nooooo, they had to do a bit more. Azerbaijan must have thought better of this in 2011 because Ell and Nikki were the least stagey entry they've had.
5 the 4 screens behind Blue, UK 2011
Maybe this wasn't really over the top in the Eurovision, but I'm in the UK, so I heard a lot about Blue in the build -up to the contest, where they went on a fair bit about 'keeping things simple.' Why did they need 4 monitors with their ugly mugs on them 2 feet behind them, when the stage has a massive screen already. Couldn't they make use of that. did we need a spelling bee behind them. As for those outfits -- Blue in blue? Don't they know that winners wear black or white.
4. The treadmill stapler thing, Greece 2009
I would say this was the ultimate in ridiculous, over-the-top and unnecessary Eurovision performances but.... I don't know. It was so ridiculous it became awesome again... as did
3. the giant hamster wheel thing, Ukraine, 2009
Oh My God, this is the song that makes people think of the Eurovision as camp, gay and ridiculous. But this song is just so awful, that without it, this really would never have been in the final.
2: The ice rink, Russia 2008
I'm always confused by this one. Did Dima Bilan really want to be an ice skater or something? Where did they even find that? How did the skater not accidentally cut someone's fingers off. Did Bilan have really cold feet after? Why, just why? And did anyone find it impressive? Wasn't Bilan enough by himself? Did he need all that stuff. Admittedly, it does look sorta interesting, but I don't really get why they bothered. I dunno, maybe it's a Russian thing
1: The glass box, Sweden 2011,
Oh I just hate this smug preening tosspot anyway. He makes Alexander Rybak look just charming. Urgh, Just look at him. How I hate him, how i hate this song, how I hate anyone who liked this song.
That glass box though. What the hell are you doing? Why. It's so fake, so stagey, and does nothing. I think he's supposed to look cool, but considering most of us hardcore fans saw him throw a little strop when the technical people couldn't get it to work in rehearsals, mostly it just comes across as a rather bothersome, unnecessary gimmick in a repetitive, ugly song about wanting to be popular. Yeah, being popular, Eric, that'll make the girl like you more. You don't get rejected because you're not cool, it's because you're a tosser.
I really hate Eric Saade. I really hoped the glass wouldn't break in the final and he'd be stuck in that box. But that might have meant he'd have to do the song again. Urgh. Fuck Eric Saade.
... nothing will ever beat the fabulous non-entry that was Born in Belarussia.
It's so brilliantly awful! The audience look so embarassed and majorly disinterested (0:14, 0:34), Anatassia isn't a great singer, and can't dance, it seems like a karaoke competition entry. And then there's an old guy in the middle smiling and clapping and chair-bopping ():35. someone, answer, who is that guy???)
Urgh, so many songs! I opened both this and the final song at the same time. Lady Gaga has so much to answer for. Neither of these songs impressed. I'm tired now, too many songs, this national final stuff is hard!
My picks: Erasmus, Soundclear, my future husband Malcolm Lincoln, Mimicry.
The link is here, if you haven't already been there. To be honest, I never find Eurovision songs that impressive on first listen, and can't usually tell before they've been performed.
I wonder why Iceland has three semi-finals when they seem to repeat songwriters and performers by then. Why don't they ask them to just choose one? In the end, we'll only choose one song. One of my fave things about Iceland's national final is how friendly they all seem with one another, because a lot of them have worked together before.
After Saturday's fishermen made it to the final, I have hopes for this one. Sadly they're not there. Sigh.
I think we can guess on Magni getting through, though. He will have his time in the Eurovision spotlight, oh yeah!
However, I don't think there's anything to be done about the facial hair.
I'm also fond of the folksy Aldrei segja aldrei.
Overall though, I don't have high hopes for Iceland this year. *sniff* My Rekjavik dream will never come true.
I may be alone in saying this, and I realise the irony considering the language this is in, but I'd really like to see less English in the Eurovision this year. Here is a picture of last years linguistic spread in the ESC:
It's very yellow, isn't it. Doesn't everyone else want to see more red?
Watching Albania and Iceland's national finals, you hear songs that will later, most likely, be changed into English. But WHY!!!!!!!! We fans already like the songs, you don't have to change it for us. It's so disappointing. Denmark's final suggested very much that they think the way to a win is an English language song, with only one Danish finalist. Is it really though? Serbia managed it, surely it can happen again?
More languages please!
ETA: Yeah, Turkey's border is in the wrong place, because I coloured the map wrong, and that bit off Sicily should be in red. Let's just assume that's San Marino, for the sake of this conversation.
Since I've stated my indifference to Denmark's entry I'd like to point to my favourite from the night, Ditte Marie's Overflow, some fabulous glam pop, which would be perfect but for one thing: TROUSERS! Get some TROUSERS! Or a skirt!
Are you sure, oh mighty people of Denmark, that you wouldn't have preferred this song? Are you really sure? :(
I'm so in love with this. My love is in, like, overflow for this. :D Booo, Denmark, boooo!
Dear Broadcasters. When you know a lot of obsessives from across the world are going to be watching your internet live feed, could you try and make it work properly. Please! I gather I was not the only one who couldn't make much of most of last nights Danish entries because the video kept jumping constantly.
The song that won in the end was Soluna Samay's Should Have Known Better
Does anyone else hear Seal's Crazy in the chorus or is that just me? Barely 30 seconds into a song, and I'm thinking of something else. I'm also thinking, what is that outfit? Is she planning on invading Europe after the contest? I can't decide if that outfit makes me think more of Cheryl Cole or Colonel Gadaffi. I don't really want to thin of either.
This song leaves no impression on me at all, and it kinda bores me. So it's probably going to be a winner. Sigh.
Finalist: Yeah. She's young, she's pretty, she's singing in English about love, it's inoffensive, easy-going. Still, at least I know what I can go to the toilet during on the 26 May.
Second Chance -- songs from the National Finals that we (or me!) think deserve another go for Eurovision glory.
With semi finals and lengthy national finals, there are always a few songs that seem genuinely good, but somehow don't grab the audience enough to win. Here is the first I've seen so far, from Iceland, the cool-synth Rytingur by Fatherz'n'Sonz
I think this is a pretty cool song, and outside the Eurovision, I could see a place for this. Stylistically, is it a bit too odd. The chorus is a bit subtle, and there's no real hook. It's a song that could be 6 minutes long rather than 3. We've never heard this sort of music at the competition, who knows. It's on my ipod though, and I still like it, unlike the songs that did get through.
I don't know very much about Albania. From watching their national final, Festivali i Këngës, I am going to assume they are a country with a limited budget, with a somewhat staid approach to musical competitions. The songs seemed to rattle through quite quickly, and performers walked on, sang and walked off again, with barely a breath between them. Though with 20 songs to get through, and a lot of very stale 80s dross, I will say I was quite grateful.
I gave up after what I believed to be, and correctly guessed was, the winner had performed: Rona Nishliu with Suus.
I like this song, I think it's very dramatic and emotional. But I really don't think it will suit Eurovision very well. Notice that the song is 4 and a half minutes. Us freaks will know that eurovision entries must be a maximum of 3 minutes. I'm not sure where you would cut this song down without butchering it, and making it a bit too loud, or a bit too quiet, or just very uneven.
Albania have repeatedly changed their songs to English for the final, I hope they leave this one as is. I think the idea of the song comes across anyway.
Finalist: I don't know. II like it, it's very dramatic, but I'm not sure if it's not too depressing and dragging for the rest of the show. It will be hilarious inbetween the two comedy entries of the year. (there's usually at least two!) Please keep it in Albanian, translating this seems unnecessary.
So, since I only created this blog today I've kinda forgotten about Switzerland's National Final. That's ok though. I don't think the final created a winner, nor do I think there was a winner that was missed. The 2 and a bit hour show dragged, with so many songs I forgot what was even going on, except every so often the fat trendy DJ guy would say mean things, and everyone would boo.
Sinplus was the victor. I like the wave of indie/rock genre that has really appeared since Lordi's victory. However, this is a bit too soft for me, with lots of empty pep-talk of the you can be want you want to, believe in yourself etc variety. At least, I think that's what they're saying, in all honesty, the only word I understand 'Unbreakable.'
On the plus side though, at just over two minutes, this is going to be one of the shortest songs in the competition
Overall feeling: A song that might scrape into the final if it's the last song in the semis, not very memorable, but not offensively bad.
So, this is my Eurovision blog. I always wanted one, now I have one. I have achieved all I ever wanted to in life.
But what to say here? Well, as luck would have it, I'm writing at the beginning of another year of Eurovision with national finals kicking off every where. I plan to watch them all. The finals at least -- some select semi-finals. So far three have taken place, Switzerland, Albania and Denmark. And wow, there have been some bad songs, and some good ones... Another year begins, I love Eurovision!!!
