There’s something about Australia. No matter what they try to make it all ends up a little too plastic fantastic.
As we all know, this the second time Australia participates in Eurovision, and that is so highly welcomed as a tradition by us, aye? But sadly it is also the second time we end up thinking “Well, that was nice, mate. Next, please!”. It’s not like the song is bad or anything. And both artists have been equally great performers. The song just doesn’t stick with us. We keep wondering if Australia is capable of making anything genuine besides kangaroos, shiraz and Hugh Jackman, and we keep landing on ‘no’.
We just don’t see the point of trying to be the best of USA when everybody knows USA is not welcomed into Eurovision anyway. Why can’t Australia dig into their not exactly ancient roots, discover what they are good at and present us with that? After all, that is what we do in Europe. Even though Australia might think of Europe as one country, they really should see how we are all a little different and try to bring that out in a contest where we’re meant to get to know each other.
One way of doing that would be through a decent production, which is way too seldom acknowledged as a road to success in this contest. Given that the artists are in fact singing playback, no country can come by with a strong live performance and a carefully chosen staging. There is bound to have been some producer swinging his or her magic wand over the song prior to the rehersals, which make the entries stand out. Just you listen to Georgia, Netherlands and Russia this year and know that we are right.
Dami Im’s Sound of Silence is the perfect sound of 2005, really, and there are producers to blame. We keep thinking the song would fit perfectly in the background of a random episode of Grey’s Anatomy, where one doctor breaks up with another doctor for the gazillionth time and walks out into the cold Seattle rain in slow motion to reflect over their tough reality saving everyone’s lives but their own. Probably great for Shonda Rhimes, that. Not so great for Eurovision.
Dear Australia. We hereby ask you for a little bit more passion and tenderness. A little bit of love. And a huge bit of genuineness. Get that in check, and we’re talking. Because there is nothing that would please us more than the whole of Europe moving into that Sydney opera house for a few weeks in May. In a few years, maybe.
