Tag: the science of eurovision

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Italy, Latvia, Spain and the UK

ItalyErmal Meta e Fabrizio Moro: Non Mi Avete Fatto Niente

One might easily conclude that Italy’s entry is a happy, toe tapping ditty, probably about summer love or gelato or both. But the upbeat tune is in fact a grim commentary on war, terrorism and displacement. The main message is well illustrated in the video, let’s see what Ermal and Fabrizio dish up on stage. Will political commentaries go anywhere at Eurovision in the 21st century? Probably not…sorry Italy!

Review by Mariella Herberstein

LatviaLaura Rizzotto: Funny Girl

The title and bio pic is deceptive – no sign of Barbara Streisand anywhere in Laura’s performance. There is some staccato singing, a modern version of voguing and a combination of jazz trumpet and cello, leaving me utterly confused. Will Europe be as confused and erroneously allocate douze points?

Review by Mariella Herberstein

SpainAmaia y Alfred: Tu Canción

Look, Spain has sent much, much worse to Eurovision and I am grateful for  young and inoffensive Amaia and Alfred. Still, this sickly sweet, and slightly nasal number will send you to sleep at around 0’21”. While effective, this is somewhat elaborate for a sedative.

Review by Mariella Herberstein

United KingdomSuRie: Storm

 

The UK has cloned Annie Lennox for Eurovision. Obviously, the real Annie declined politely, having seen the humiliation experienced by UK Eurovision entries (cue Engelbert Humperdinck and  Bonnie Tyler). And it almost worked: short blond hair (tick), long, angular face (tick), string riff from Walking on Broken Glass (tick). Yet, CRISPR was unsuccessful in removing the highly annoying For eh-he-he-he-he-ver  chorus. More humiliation awaits!

Review by Mariella Herberstein

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France, Georgia and Greece

FranceMadame Monsieur: Mercy

Political statements are not new to Eurovision. The Ukraine, Georgia and Estonia have all had a go at Russia along the years. Why, Portugal even started a political coup to the sound of ‘E Depois Do Adeus’ by Paulo de Cavalho in 1974.

Similarly, Madam Monsieur are making an unambiguous statement about  plight of asylum seekers (the orange life jackets are a sure give away). However, unlike leather clad Ruslana, with her  thumping performance or Jamala’s ear piercing assault, France’s mercy is lost in elegant subtlety. Definitely no where near the top 10.

Review by Mariella Herberstein

GeorgiaEthno-Jazz Band Iriao: For You

Every wondered what happens to boy bands in Georgia when they mature? Wonder no more! They morph into Ethno-Jazz bands, wear grey knitted wests and bore the hell out of Eurovision. Nil points!

Review by Mariella Herberstein

 

GreeceYianna Terzi: Oniro Mou

Not unlike the goddess Athena, who burst forth from Zeus’ forehead, Yianna ’emerged from a musical family of professional singers’. In young years, she embarked on the heroine’s journey that took Yianna to foreign lands (USA), where she faced hideous beasts (mostly Celine Dion) to reluctantly return home (Cyprus Music Awards). And just like Odysseus’ return to Ithaca, no one really recognises Yianna but for the housekeeper. The song? A tragedy!

Review by Mariella Herberstein

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Estonia, Lithuania and Russia

EstoniaElina Nechayeva: La Forza

Call me Ishmael. A good review is a narrative, and a good narrative has 5 elements:

1. A great first sentence (why mess around? I just went with the best!)

2. A journey. Amongst other things, my first sentence was supposed to simply an allegorical search for the meaning of life, and subtly suggest certain flattering characteristics about myself, all of which have been ruined because I realised it is a cultural reference whose meaning may not be apparent to everyone, and explaining it has negated any beneficial effects. Anyway, we are going one better than a search for the meaning of life – we are on a quest to discover the meaning of Eurovision, one of the greatest mysteries in the universe! Yay!

3. Elegant, lucid, succinct prose.

Two other elements which will hopefully come to me soon, otherwise I’ll have to explain why I said “5 elements” and only listed three.

On to the business at hand. Elina from Estonia can sing! She sings like the Diva from 5th Element (see what I did? It’s called foreshadowing in case you are interested), but the real star of the act is the dress, inside of which Elina is propped. I don’t know why this wasn’t mentioned in the official notes, but her dress is so big that it covers 2.4 hectares, and is encrusted in 3 million individally thought-controlled, coloured LEDs. Yes, Elina was singing and controlling the lights on her dress at the same time. She and her dress are a flowing fiesta of colour and light. Darwin would have maintained it was sexual selection at work, and who am I to question the great man? Rumour has it that Elina will be part of Sydney’s Vivid festival this year.

Did I mention that she can sing? Her final note shattered the wine glass in my hand. My prediction? Next year, Eurovision will be held in Tallinn, and by next spring, everyone will be wearing those dresses.

It seems I’ve allowed myself to be carried away by all the excitement of the event, and unintentionally created a metaphor for THE DRESS, whose maker also got carried away, and we both ended up with something way too big to be fit-for-purpose. Sorry.

Review by Jim McLean

 

LithuaniaIeva Zasimauskaitė: When We’re Old

When I see pop singers “playing” the piano I am often sceptical about who actually pressed the keys, but there is absolutely no doubt that Ieva played the whole song. It’s just a special piano, and pressing one key produces all the chords I reckon. Well, around the 40-45 seconds mark you see she got some assistance, but it was mostly he work, surely. The short bio states that she took lessons until she was fifteen, so there you go. Her voice is nice to listen to, and the song itself is very original, it’s about a topic no other song I can remember ever touched — eternal love. More specifically though, it seems to describe how love is powerful and can last forever when you live in a snowy country. Maybe it wears off more slowly due to the low temperatures?

Review by Bruno Buzzato

 

RussiaJulia Samoylova: I Won’t Break

When I was watching this video I had trouble focusing on anything other than the fact that Julia’s right eye sits so much higher on her face than her left eye! But thankfully only about 70% of the video is entirely about on her face. Well, that’s not entirely true, sometimes you see landscapes IN her face, which is, ugh, interesting? And then in the end you see her face in the landscape — on the top of a mountain, more specifically. With a waterfall. And a rainbow. And the moon too. In any case, Julia is not just a pretty face. The song? Sorry I didn’t pay much attention, and honestly, I’m not watching that again, am I?

Review by Bruno Buzzato

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Azerbaijan and Croatia

AzerbaijanAisel: X My Heart

Before I begin, I’ll say this review comes from a genuine Eurovision newbie. I didn’t know what it was, didn’t understand the purpose, or the fuzz around it, now I know … people are singing.

So Azerbaijan has a song that does mention the word “nation”, so I guess that’s good for an international contest, no? This way they might be able to recycle the song if they host an international sports event. The songs for those things are never the greatest, but a couple of lines can stick to your mind … “I’ll never sto o o o op, luna moon me up”

I think that’s my way of saying that there was a bit of “catchy” in the song but nothing more. On second thought,  I think it might be because it sort of resembles a mixture of all Kapy Terry (avoiding any copyright infringements here) songs.

From the video, I enjoy the park or maybe botanical garden where it was filmed. Something to be careful about is that even though the dancers seem to be improvising most of their movements -no very impressively- the jump on minute 2:14 was a real hazard to my physical integrity when I tried to test its apparent low complexity.

Good luck Azerbaijan, thanks for being my first Eurovision experience and “never sto o o op, Luna moon me up” … I guess?

Review by Alfonso Aveces-Aparicio

CroatiaFranka: Crazy

Not even 11 seconds into the video and all of the classic clichés have been shown!! Underwater scene, backlit smoke and sand drawing! Oh, wait there’s more on second 13, there appears a bunch of humans as stairs!

Well, that was it, after those first exciting clichés, the song goes flat. After reading the lyrics, I could find the chorus; I believe Ga Ga would be a bit disappointed. Around 2010 I started to think that all pop songs sounded the same, then I took it back when 2-years ago all radio hits seriously begun to sound the same. But now c’mon I’m pretty sure I heard this before somewhere.

I might be doing this thing wrong, I read comments about the video, and everyone seems so excited, I couldn’t even watch it more than three times. After all, this is just my second review ever for Eurovision. So I will add that: Franka does seem to have a nice voice. So good luck Croatia, maybe one day I’ll understand what this is really about.

Review by Alfonso Aveces-Aparicio

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Germany, Montenegro and Norway

GermanyMichael Schulte: You Let Me Walk Alone

Germanys entrant Michael Schulte started his career playing covers on youtube, and he possibly should have stayed there. He has a pleasing, clear voice, and the piano accompaniment gives the performance heart, but I feel like he doesn’t have the oompf to win this competition. Then again, Eurovision does have a long running obsession with lustrous hair, so Schultes thick curly locks may give him the edge he needs.

 

Review by Lizzy Lowe

 

MontenegroVanja Radovanović: Inje

Well, the odd’s aren’t in Montenegros favour. In fact they come in right about last alongside San Marino and Slovenia. But that doesn’t mean that this year’s entrant Vanja Radovanović doesn’t have a lot to offer. His entry has an eery overtone and tells a story of love and loss in a snow swept landscape. The natural vistas and accompanying ballroom string orchestra (not to mention the giant chess set) give the entry a sense of drama and suspense. I look forward to the full length movie feature.

Review by Lizzy Lowe

 

NorwayAlexander Rybak: That’s How You Write A Song

Call me a pushover, but I was instantly charmed by Alexander Rybak’s profile photo, where he wears a plain t-shirt and an earnest smile. His entry “that’s how you write a song” is just as sweet, and follows the story of a young boy who writes to ask Alexander advice on how to write a song (surprisingly enough). The catchy beat will definitely appeal to the tweens in the audience and his open, friendly demeanour is hard not to like. The video is simple but includes people from all walks of like, so I give him extra points for community spirit.

Review by Lizzy Lowe

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Hungary, Israel and Malta

HungaryAWS: Viszlát Nyár

AWS will be shouting at us in Hungarian to the background of heavy metal music. The performance contains all the endearing metal characteristics:  brutal guitar riffs, relentless drumming and mid-pitch screaming. Whist true to the genre, AWS manages to squeeze in a Eurovision-style keychange – impressive. I think the bio description says it all: “The band wrote their Eurovision entry, Viszlát Nyár, themselves”

Review by Mariella Herberstein

IsraelNetta: TOY

‘Pam pam pa hoo, Turram pam pa hoo’ – no truer words have been sung at Eurovision. Admittedly, the lyrics are senseless (even Wonder Women can’t rescue them), but the song is catchy, poppy,  quirky and could be, dare I say it,  a winner! Not since Dana International (in 1998) was Israel the favourite for Eurovision, so I have high hopes for Netta – douze points from me!

Review by Mariella Herberstein

Malta Christabelle: Taboo

Christabelle’s song is set in a dystopian future, where ruthless tyrants stage brutal fights and go ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha (in that tyrannical fashion). Despite being savagely oppressed, Christabelle keeps her soul intact and travels to Lisbon for Eurovision. Sadly she does not make it through the Semi-finals, which will probably not bode well for her upon returning to Malta. End of story.

Review by Mariella Herberstein

 

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Ukraine and Sweden

UkraineMelovin: Under the Ladder

The live-rehearsal version of Melovin’s “Under the Ladder” is the story of man’s desperate search for a key, which doesn’t bode well for this X-Factor Ukraine alumnus come crunch time. The moody (and shaky) verse builds to a punchy chorus that admittedly has some pick-up and an appropriate number of “woah oh oh uh”s, but it’s too little too late for my money.

Review by Tom White

SwedenBenjamin Ingrosso: Dance You Off

The pressures of Eurovision are well known to select for mimetic extremes, yet the fidelity of Benjamin Ingrosso still took me by surprise. In a direct channelling of Justin Bieber & The Weekend, with a dash of Daft Punk underneath, the 20 year old Swedish national delivers the electro-pop banger “Dance You Off” (a threat? a promise?). The vocal style isn’t for everyone, such as me, but the rolling funk-bass is worth the price of admission, and there’s no denying the piece is on trend. I predict another strong finish for Sweden this year, but not enough to really stand out from the crowd.

Review by Tom White

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FYR Macedonia and Portugal

FYR Macedonia

Well where should I start? The video amazed me: well studied dance moves, a guitarist who definitly had some kind of model career (how else would he manage to be that natural in front of a camera) and a beautiful pink latex dress worn by the lead singer lying on a yellow bed showing us impressivly why one should never ever use those coulors for a powerpoint presentation.

The song caught me with his energetic reggae beat right from the beginning. The lyrics tell the story of a deep, emotional relationship with her soulmate…obviously in other, slightly sexualised words. The end of the song (we’ll be lost and we’ll be..) leaves the audience full of questions how this sentence and the love story might end and keeps you thinking about the song for much longer.

It has all it needs, now lets see how far they make it.

Review by Macelo Christian

Portugal

The position of the host is always a difficult one. The expectations are high and everybody keeps an eye on you… Well, at least if you are not song writer and composer Isaura, who wrote this song. If you saw the video you might have noticed the person in the background that is literally hiding by turning here back to the audience and has like 20 seconds to sing, before she turns her back again. Even in the picture she is in the background, like it is part of the contract, that she has to appear on the profile photo, so at least keep her blurry.

I mean its understandable if you’re on stage with superstar Claudia Pascoal, who has participated (!) at two national music contest and plays guitar since she turned 15.

Well despite these equality issues we’ll see if a very emotional song combined with advanced gardening skills will be enough for Portugal in their home game.

Review Marcelo Christian

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Netherlands, Serbia and Romania

NetherlandsWaylon: Outlaw In ‘Em

Waylon seem to be a proper band. Solid vocals, tight playing, this puts them at an immediate disadvantage at Eurovision. Their brand of Dutch-Americana might not be too bad with a couple of pints of NEIPA down at your local on Friday night. Eurovision, however, demands more of performers than competent musicianship (this is hardly required!). No soaring key changes and all the wind machine will do is blow away the atmospheric stage smoke. Sorry lowlanders, another year in the second division for you, I’m off for a pint.

Review by Matt Bruce

SerbiaSanja Ilić & Balkanika: Nova Deca

Bald guy with a long beard, women in matching outfits with an appropriate amount of hair for wind machine awesomeness, a drummer with lots of chains and Einstein playing (smoking?) some sortof pipe. Looks promising….…. Nope, boring song.

Review by Matt Bruce

RomaniaThe Humans: Goodbye

Adi, Alin, Alex, Alex, Corina and Cristina (must be confusing at band practice) could be the Romanian Brady Bunch, but they aren’t, they’re The Humans (not sure what that implies about the rest of us). “Goodbye” is a pretty standard Eurovision power ballad, likely to get lost in a lukewarm porridge of mediocrity. There is however one hope, that the creepy horror movie mask people from the video make it onto the stage. At least then we can imagine that it might turn into some sort of horror movie version of the Brady Bunch (Un Foarte Brady Halloween?). Otherwise this one isn’t going anywhere near the final.

Review by Matt Bruce

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Czech Republic and Belgium

Czech RepublicMikolas Josef: Lie To Me

Welcome to the 21st Century, Czech Republic! So good to finally have you along! Mikolas is a renaissance man, he had good marks at school and could have studied at a prestigious UK college, he worked as an international model, and now, dressed as a librarian, is fighting for the Eurovision crown!

This peppy number is sure to impress, some cool jazz trumpet, an obscure reference to Marilyn Monroe and suspenders holding up Mikolas’s pants. The dancing is outsourced to a break dancing lad seemingly trapped in a cube. The lyrics were ravaged by google translate: But steady plenty these greedies wanna eat my spaghetti

All in all, I quite like this….definitely entry into the finales!

Review by Mariella Herberstein

 

BelgiumSennek: A Matter Of Time

 Belgium’s Sennek is a 100 percent the love child of Portishead and Tina Turner (Goldeneye)! She even participated in 007 In Concert.

I am a sucker for the musical pizzazz dished up by Bond – it is sassy and schmalzy all at the same time. Bond swept Conchita Wurst to certain Eurovision glory….and of course her marvellous beige frock was a winner in itself!

Europe might be stirred by Sennek, but not shaken!

 Review by Mariella Herberstein