Opera Is The New White

At the same time that most Americans are watching the Super Bowl, I am sitting at my computer typing another Eurovision post. I'm just not one for sports, I don't really care about the halftime show (true story: I missed the Janet Jackson boob scandal in '04 because I was READING THE PAPER AS IT HAPPENED), and with the advent of YouTube I don't have to bother watching the commercials and using the actual game as a snack break.

The big news of the week is that four countries selected their songs, and I only correctly predicted one. As the title says, Slovenia chose opera singer Alenka Gotar's song "Cvet Z Juga". I personally wanted Sebastian to win - with the flag routine of "Invincible" and the music of "Show Me Your Love", mathematically it could have come 6th. Alenka's song is still very good, her vocals are strong live, and she has the ever-popular wind machine. I wonder if opera will be an unlikely trend just as wearing white was in last year's final (hence the title of this post) - Finland (Katra) and Croatia (Trio Fantasticus) also have opera songs in their preselections. This observation would have worked better if the hilarity that is"Starlight" had won in Malta, but that wasn't really opera but bad musical theatre.

The only prediction I got right was "Time to Party" by The Jet Set for Poland. It's a very fun and modern song, so it has a chance to do well. If Fergie was singing it would be a hit. One of the predictions I got wrong was Estonia, who picked Gerli Padar and her song "Partners In Crime". I'm not disappointed, though, because it was my second favorite after "Birds of Peace". The other prediction I got wrong was Malta, who selected "Vertigo" by Olivia Lewis. This also was my second favorite from its country, but the song and the camera work in the national final performance make me a little dizzy. I'm sure that's intentional, though.

Besides a few finals, there were also a bunch of semifinals. Bulgaria narrowed down their 18 songs to 12, and luckily for me (maybe not so lucky for the results) kept boy band Grupata. In Denmark, Me & My made it through to the final, where it is their destiny to win in order to be the third artist in a row featured in Dance Dance Revolution to also be in Eurovision. It's not the best song ever, but it's a nice simple inspirational pop song so it's easily accessible. I'd change the outfits though - the black and shiny gold superhero outfits are just ridiculous. If they don't win, my second choice would be James Sampson with his 60's-sounding "Say You Love Me". In Finland, all the semifinals have been strong so far, but I think the third one was the strongest. I think Lovex has a good chance of winning the Finnish preselection because their song is strong, and according to my younger brother (everyone should have one, to keep in touch with what's cool with kids today) they're more than a little bit emo (at the very least, their hair is).Iceland had another semifinal, which had no songs qualify that I was particularly passionate about. I still think the first two had better songs.

Latvia narrowed down their songs for the final...three weeks from now. I didn't really like any of the songs, but they picked the best from what they had for the final. In Lithuania there was another semifinal but apparently a computer glitch gave the wrong results. In Norway, the last semifinal had songs that weren't that bad, but I think the previous two had better songs. Romania had its last semifinal, which included a hip hop song about Dracula. Seriously.

Finally, Sweden started the semifinals of Melodifestivalen, which requires a whole new paragraph because it's the "important" one. My favorite from this semifinal was Elin Lanto's "Money", which didn't quite make it to the final but is going to the second chance round. Lyrically it is similar to a Pay TV song, and musically it sounds a little like, predictably, "Money, Money, Money". The favorite to win, "Samba sambero" by Anna Book, is very good but it broke my schlagerometer, and I think if they add a keyboard and some spacey sounds it might become eurobeat (I could probably DDR to it as is).

Now for the predictions. Four countries have finals next week, and my favorite song is probably not the one that will win in any of them. I predict Me&My for Denmark, Dusty Cowshit for Norway (but I want Infinity to win), and that Dracula song for Romania. I haven't heard any of the Dutch songs so I can't make a prediction. Come back next week to see how wrong I am, and if you made it all the way through this post, thank you!