Polished from Poland

Monika Kuszyńska, the Polish entrant in Vienna has a strong and personal message to present with the song In The Name Of Love. Too bad she squanders the opportunity away with wrapping it in a toothless, bleak melody in the adult contemporary category.

We are painfully aware of the fact that quite a few people like the lush, soothing and highly polished qualities of this genre. There’s a reason why Celine Dion has sold some 220 million albums worldwide. But selling truckloads of records doesn’t necessarily bode for real quality, as most people tend to have rather bad taste. Most people want inoffensive, easily digestible, conventionally pretty things. A cute face, a nice melody, Facebook poems written on pictures of unicorns and sunsets. And it’s so much easier to deal with the harsh reality when it’s being simplified and reduced into clichés drowned in weightless fluff.

Maybe we’re being too cynical here, and don’t get us wrong. We have the utmost respect for Monika’s genuine wish to convey a message that’s both deeply personal and very important to her. We salute her for her strength and hope she will have a long and successful career doing what she loves the most. After all no one is forcing us to buy her records or go to her concerts, so as long as she has her fans she should go on doing her thing.

We are also in favor of using the Eurovision stage to make a statement and create attention and focus on something of real importance to the performing artist. When it’s done well, with the proper gusto and conviction it can make some of the best and most memorable performances, with last year’s winner as a perfect example.

We’re just not that into this kind of music. It doesn’t hit us in the gut, or even catch our attention. The song just goes on for three minutes like aggravating muzak and we start longing for it to end before the first chorus is over. Shooting the promo video through a sepia filter with transparent curtains fluttering in a light breeze just further amplifies the almost unbearable lightness such a heavy theme is being treated with. It simply does not resonate well with us.

Perhaps a good staging and a strong live performance will provide more substance and give us something more to grab onto. We do however fear that this will end the second semi final with one long yawn.

Monika proves that it’s not only that Slovenian girl who can work the “my headphones are glued on to my head and I look smoking hot” look!

3 comments

  1. I admire her for having the strength to carry on with her life and musical career after the accident. Maximum respect for that!

    The song is really bland unfortunately. I like her voice, but the song is just wrong. I mean, I get the impression that the song ends after 1 minute and then she just keeps on singing the chorus over and over again until it’s 3 minutes. Nothing really happens.

    1. Sums up our thoughts on this one nicely, all though we’re actually not too keen on her voice, and she should work on her English pronunciation before Vienna. We predict it will be hard for her to reach the final solely based on musical merit.

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