Usually there wouldn't be much to talk about this early in the year, but boy there is a lot of Eurovision news already! Two songs have been chosen and leaked on the interwebs, and many more preselection plans have been discussed with varying levels of excitement. I'll try to be writing this every week until May now, and cover my first impressions of the pre-selection songs, and then in mid-March rank the songs like I did last year. Today I will try to recap a month's worth of news in a couple of paragraphs.
Albania - This was the second song selected and released. I was in the minority last year because I liked the Albanian song, and I am probably in the minority again. Last year's song changed a lot from the original 4+ minute version to the 3 minute version, so I'll leave my final judgement for the final version,
Belarus - My favorite in the first preselection was "Summer Trip" by Litesound because it was very radio friendly and reminded me of summer car trips in the 90's. That didn't make it to the final three. I am disappointed with the actual final three, so I hope that Dimitry Koldun's as of now unknown song is better than the other two (especially since it is supposed to be about magic - at least, I hope it is actually about magic and not just magic as a metaphor for love) and wins.
Bulgaria - I'm not even sure how these got to be available, since all the songs aren't supposed to be decided until Monday. The entries I've heard are nothing special, but this was the only country from which I have heard a hard rock song, the song being "Videnie" by Balkandji. The song itself isn't that great, but it is does a good variation of the "copy last year's winner" method by adding traditional instruments and...guest vocals by R2D2? If they win the preselection they better put him on stage with them. It would be a million times better than Latvia's lame robot last year.
Estonia - I've only heard a few of the songs,but I really like what I've heard so far. Right now I predict that Vanilla Ninja will win since they got such a good result for Switzerland in 2005, and I prefer their new song, "Birds of Peace", to "Cool Vibes".
Latvia - I've only heard clips, and most of them were mediocre to me. My top picks are "In Our Life", "Take Of Your Mask", and "Little Bit of This", but I am not excited about any of them.
Malta - Like Estonia, I've only heard a few songs, but my favorite so far is "L-Imhabba Ghamja". I don't know how well it would fare in the preselection nor the big shows, but I imagine there could be a good dance routine. However, if they want to get last place again, they should pick "Starlight" because it would be hilarious.
Moldova - The first song selected for this year was actually selected in mid-December of last, and is "Fight" by Natalia Barbu. It was my favorite from the Moldovan preselection, and even though I have not heard 26 out of the 27 other songs it will be competing against in the semifinal, I think it has a chance to qualify for the final. You might think, "yes, it will qualify like you were so sure 'Je T'adore' was going to qualify last year." And you could be right and I could be wrong, but I'll wait until the other songs are selected until I talk about this again, and see if I still feel the same way about it.
Poland - After hearing a few songs, I am disappointed. The only song I remotely like is by the Jet Set, and I'm still a little confused about them because last year in the Polish preslection their song, "How Many People", was a total ripoff of "My Humps", and why anyone would want to rip off that song is a mystery. Another interesting song of note is "Open Your Mind" by Ania Szarmach, which sounds very much like something BoA would record.
Spain - Since the method of selection is a bit odd (the song and the singer are selected separately), I will give my opinion on the songs only and not the voice on the demo. As a whole the songs are of good quality. My favorites so far are "Tu voz se apagara" and "I love you mi vida". I also kind of like "Ain veri japi nau" from what I can understand of it, but I'm not sure how it would fare in the actual contest, because humor isn't guaranteed to be a hit.
Switzerland - The song hasn't been released yet, but based on the one song of DJ Bobo's that I've heard ("Chihuahua"), I'm probably not going to like it. But I have friends who swear that he is one of the best things ever, so the song could be good.
United Kingdom - Since Lordi's victory showed that angry teenagers watch Eurovision, BBC is hoping that moody ones also watch, and have thus started rumors that they are going to get Morrissey to be involved with this year's entry. Although I know who he is, I've managed to avoid actually listening to his music so far because I assumed that I wouldn't like it. After the excitement on every Eurovision news website (and some regular news websites), I checked out "You Have Killed Me" and I like it a lot more than I should. So I can only hope that this rumor is true, because already I like him a whole lot better than you-know-who (every time I mention
his name I get flames, so I'm going to play it safe).
There you have it - probably my longest post ever. A trend I have noticed is that there is a lot of very "adult contemporary" rock in all the preselections that have released audio so far. What part of "hard rock" in last year's winning song title do these people not understand?
