Seeing Red

The most Eurovisiony thing on my TV this week was Olympic men's figure skating. It's definitely the best daytime weekday programming on right now, if not the best in a while. As for daytime weekend programming, there's these...

Estonia started the weekend with its first semifinal. “Maailm on hull” by Vöörad is a 90's house throwback with a good enough beat that it doesn't matter that you don't understand the lyrics.

Hungary held two semifinals this weekend. From the first semifinal, “Waterfall” by JONI is a very standard pop ballad, but at least it's less maudlin than the Georgian song of the same title from last year's Eurovision.

From the second semifinal, another song with a title that also appeared in a Eurovision past is “This Is My Life” by Muzikfabrik. Actually it's probably for the best that this didn't advance to the final, as disco-funk of this style hasn't seemed to do well in Eurovision, but it probably would have been a good shot of energy.

My favorite non-winner in Iceland's final was “Amor,” which was a second chance pick that I covered two weeks ago. “Eftir eitt lag” by Greta Mjöll Samúelsdóttir is a cute and twee ukelele song (is there any other kind?) that doesn't try too hard, nor is it too much.

My favorite song of the week in Sweden was “Red” by EKO. This is a cool, dark new-wave influenced song, a style that seems to have fallen a little out of favor since all electro-pop is now dance. I love the commitment to the color theme, down to the singer's hair and lipstick.

Next week brings semifinals in Belgium, Estonia, and Sweden. Finals in Hungary, Latvia, and Spain!