How time has flown
by! It’s already almost a quarter into 2019 and this year’s
Eurovision lineup is all set. For various reasons I wasn’t able to
collect my thoughts during preselection season, but before getting
into my thoughts on the actual entries I wanted to highlight some of
the entries from this year’s national finals.
Australia’s
Courtney Act remained
the only performer from this season that I have seen in solo
concert. She was great so it was hard to say that “Fight
For Love” wasn’t on the
right choice. The verses take too long to get going and the chorus
has some really awkward high notes. It’s a house We Got Love with
a sprinkling of If Love Was a Crime, but without its catchiness.
After a month I liked it a lot more through exposure therapy and at
least it’s gaining traction on Spotify.
The
Electric Fields were the real breakout stars of Australia’s first
national final. “2000 and Whatever”
is a new age banger with a unique soulful voice that completely
stomps over the competition, but in an uplifting way. We could have
heard Its downfall might have been the amount of vocal sampling both
in the lead and backing vocals which would have been hard to
reproduce live. I hope this isn’t the last opportunity for us to
hear Australian Aboriginal languages at Eurovision.
Speaking
of new languages, Bella Santiago’s “Army of Love”
was the best song in the
Romanian national
final. This slice of
ethno-dance-pop would have been a natural fit for the Eurovision
stage, with a tropical update for the late 2010’s, but the real
unique selling point was the Tagalog rap bridge. She would have
earned the Filipino/a diaspora vote for sure.
The
final lineup is missing a good, strong,
catchy rock song,
maybe because by now the genre is a little dated (not like that
stops anyone in Eurovision). The best such contender was “Cosa ti
aspetti da me” by Loredana Bertè in Italy. Musically the
successor to last year’s entry (listen to them one after the
other, the intros echo each other) with a classic gravely Italian
vocal. The melody is immediate and I can’t stop listening to this
one.
Portugal
has really stepped up their game after winning and seemed to have
more good songs in this year’s Festival da Canção than the
entire 2000s. “Igual a Ti” by NBC was a powerful emotional
ballad that might have been undid by the overemotive, theatrical
gesturing in its performance. I want to find a time machine and drop
it in a random year before 2016 so it can get a top 10 like it
deserves.
On
the opposite end of the quality spectrum, the Belarussian open
audition selection brought us “Kinky Boots” by the UK’s own
Daz Sampson & Nona. This is a blessing that would have been
contemporary only in the Gina G days and was outdated by the time
semifinals were introduced. If it did not have contemporary
technological references, I would have assumed this was written in
the mid-to-late 1990s. It would be completely horrible for
eurovision but it brings me such nostalgia for those Dance Dance
Revolution days when Konami kept releasing new entries.
Another
audition round casualty was “Ca Adriano Celentano” by LUME from
Moldova. Though this is also dated, especially those English lyrics
in the verses, it’s unmistakably Eurovision fun. It’s basically
“Hora Din Moldova” 10 years later, which isn’t a bad thing.
Estonia’s
Eesti Laul has a bit of a reputation for offbeat and experimental
songs, despite safer winners as of late. The reputation was
reconfirmed this year by “Wo sind die katzen?” by Kaia Tamm.
It’s an electroclash song with lyrics in German and meowing.
Judging the song without the live performance would be a mistake,
with its renegade Alice in Wonderland catgirl and superimposed cat
heads.
Sweden
time! This year’s Melodifestivalen was notable for the number of
good songs staying in the semifinals, most notably “Tempo” by
Margaret, but my favorite of the bunch was “Somebody Wants” by
The Lovers of Valdaro. This
funky synthpop song immediately let me to look up their back catalog
on Spotify, which is far too short. I hope this isn’t the last we
see of them.
Melodifestivalen
was also personally notable for two past winners with songs that
were better than the ones they won with. Anne Bergendahl was back
with a schlager
vengeance with "Ashes to Ashes." Impressively, the lyrics are
made up of incomprehensible imagery to surpass her first song (“Like
the top of the mountain/Like a wishing well fountain/I am the luck
of the draw”). And I far
prefer “I Do” by Arvingarna to “Eloise,” both thematically
and musically.
Of course, it wouldn't be appropriate to talk about Eurovision entries that missed out without talking about the controversial selection in Ukraine which ultimately withdrew. "Siren Song" by MARUV is contemporary, sexy, and mysterious, pulling you deeper into dangerous water like the mythological creature of its title. MARUV and her song will be sorely missed, and would have been in my and many others' top 10s.
Next week, I will start my ranking of all of this year's Eurovision entries, in reverse order as in all past years.
