If only French Eurovision entries could be as entertaining as their politics nowadays.
The French were really on to something last year, with Amir being the most delightful, genuine and talented artist representing the once so great Eurovision nation in years. Arguably, the only thing that kept us from ending up in Paris instead of Kyiv this year was the French’s usual habit of messing up their staging.
According to the German delegation’s zealous PR-people their entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2017 is the perfect liaison of Nordic metropolitan charm, a husky voice of international class, and a song that will delight Europe. Oh, how we beg to differ.
Germany seems to have made a habit out of churning last places lately and by the look if it, they’ve done it again with Levina’s Perfect Life. This is of course very fortunate for the UK, but we would imagine it wouldn’t take too much effort to aim a tiny tad higher. Continue reading
With all the Nordic countries relegated in the semi finals we can at least take comfort in Sweden being directly qualified as the host country. Now we know who to send all those friendly neighbor votes to! Then we have the Big 5 countries that can’t be bothered to actually go the trouble of qualifying so they pop up rather unexpectedly in the Grand Final. At the very least a couple of them sent a cracking tune this year! Here are our reviews, nicely lined up for you:
We can only assume that all the artists competing in this year’s Unser Lied für Stockholm understood the part about winning would actually imply getting on a plane and performing in Globen in May. And we gather the broadcaster NDR vetted them all very carefully to make sure no one had as much as a parking ticket since they obviously forgot to do just that when they initially selected Xavier Naidoo. Who knew Germany could create so much drama? Pass us the popcorn!
There are a lot of things we simply don’t get about UK’s participation in Eurovision over the past few years. Like how the BBC insists on sending the LEAST experienced artists they could possibly manage to pick up from a pool of talent show rejects. Or alternatively, some random geriatric hasbeen they almost have to wheelchair on stage. Finding some sort of middle ground here would probably been perfectly acceptable, and could not by any means have done any worse.
Sigh, every year it’s the same story:
1. Lots of fuss surrounding the build-up to the TVE internal selection/national final. Fans, broadcaster’s PR executives and artist managements rave on about how the next entry from Spain is going to be THE BEST ENTRY EVER, AND IT’S GOING TO WIN EUROVISION!
It’s the most wonderful time of the year. Tis the season to be jolly! O come, all ye faithful. And have yourself a merry little Eurovision season!
We can’t wait to start tearing apart all those entries and reporting live from the audience for you, but sadly there are very few chosen ones yet. A few songs will be rendered a thousand times still. And then there is the need to do a recess and have a look at what has been going on the last couple of months. Here’s some of the gossip, predictions and prayers and hopes for you:
Great things could happen in Hungary
So, we closed our eyes for a minute and made a wish. That one day Hungary would bring us a good looking, well behaved bloke with a voice and song to match. Turns out his name is Freddie. Which is short for Fehérvári Gábor Alfréd and a synonym for pretty perfect. He hasn’t conquered his national final yet, but there is no chance he wouldn’t, right? Meet us in Stockholm, baby, we’ll mess around.
We want to congratulate Edurne from Spain for just having confirmed the most common prejudice held against WAGs: they have too much money and precious little taste.
This ginormous turkey of a song has been over-hyped from the very beginning, and the prefix over can be added to just about every word to describe it. Over-produced, over-performed, overrated, over-the-top, you name it. It’s a vulgar display of every worn out cliché in the book and surprise, surprise, you will find a certain lank haired Swede lurking around backstage. Goodness gracious us, we dare not to think about what it will be like some 20 years down the line when Thomas G:son has been relegated to writing songs for San Marino.
Our relationship with Italy is deep, heartfelt and renown. So when they showed up with all of their grande amore this year, it’s safe to say the feeling was mutual and our happiness was complete:
Italy pretty much sums up the highlights of our life, really. And no, they are not only gelato, pizza and Brunello.
One of our finest childhood memories is related to Toto Cutugno. It was the year of 1990. We were still to be called young, the Maastricht treaty was yet to be signed and EU still seemed like a swell idea. Enter the man in white with women in all sorts of colors preaching love and togetherness in the name of Italy. La canzone Italiana won. Of course it did. Who the hell could compete with Toto Cutugno? No one. Not then, not ever.
Remember The Scatman? After a long and much appreciated leave of absence he is discovered in the British Isles:
The British tend to elect the wrong people these days, no doubt about that. That’s why we were quite surprised when Electro Velvet showed up in Eurovision and a) were not a useless boyband and b) did not wear less clothes than Kim Kardashian on the beach and c) did not look like anyone that used to be famous for a while, not even like Bonnie Tyler. Bliss.