It seems like a million years ago that Switzerland chose their representative for ESC 2011. And after going through the hardships of several practically Eurovision free months we were pretty damn eager to kick off the new national selection season back in December. With shivering hands and racing hearts we tuned in online to watch the Swiss national final and not even the host’s constant blabbering in Schweizerdeutsch could put us off. A language which btw to us is completely incomprehensible, even with four long years of German back in high school on our résumés. Was it time well spent? Eh, nope, and that goes both for the years we spent in high school trying to learn German and for the couple of hours we wasted on a mid December Saturday evening last year.
The Swiss chose Anna Rosselini’s simple little ukulele ditty, and we suppose they’re trying to play it safe after last year’s epic fail. And every year there’s a Tom Dice who unexpectedly does remarkably well with a calm, confident and played down performance. There’s currently a vacant spot for the 2011 edition which Anna can rightfully aspire to fill. Only too bad that Finland’s Paradise Oskar is way ahead of her in the running, and even in the same semi-final.
One of the trends this year is to go all over board with damtidams, oooohoohowoows, haba habas, åh-åh-åh-åh-åhs, nanananas and boom chackalackas, with Switzerland being one of the worst exponents. We simply don’t get the point with songs that have a whole verse made out of nananana’s. What’s wrong with regular words, sentences that form some sort of meaning, it can’t be that hard? And when the song finishes off with wailing improvisations we just lose interest completely. Anna has a good voice all-right and she can sing, but what’s with this show off, why try to murder what started off as a song quite nice and easy on the ear?
Taking a look at the fierce competition this entry will meet in semi-final 1, we don’t think it will stand a chance of reaching the big Saturday final. But hey, you got us bored for a while there, and this might very well be our best chance for a toilet break on Tuesday in Espirit Arena.