Tonight is a big one coming up for us as Norway is on, and no less than FIVE of the guys on our hotlist. We recommend a bottle of Chardonnay, Valium and an oxygen mask within reach. If all goes well and we don’t pass out with overexcitement before the Czech Republic sings, we hope we will be able to celebrate the following ten countries going through to the Grand Final (click on the links to read our review):
Every year we see a red hot pre-contest favorite crash and burn in the semi-final. The proverbial fanwank who pulls a Kate Ryan. The one everybody said deserved to pass through. The dead-cert qualifier, the top 10 tipped, the bookie favorite, the OGAE fan poll big scorer. This year we fear it’s Slovenia.
This fate is never bestowed upon the worst song in the contest; usually it’s rather a good one. Most people quite like it, but no one seem to love it enough to actually vote for it. Perhaps everybody thinks that everyone else is voting for it so why bother? Maybe its failure is just caused by an unlucky break. A string of unfortunate coincidences.
Yay, the grand final is rapidly approaching in Copenhagen! We just watched the jury final, and here’s a heads up on what to expect:
1.Ukraine: Tick-Tock sung by Mariya Yaremchuk
Struggles to impress us with a man in a hamster wheel. That’s nothing but a nice try when Greece has THREE men on a TRAMPOLINE.
2.Belarus: Cheesecake sung by Teo
Thank God the final at least has one song about cakes. Claims to not be Patrick Swayze, which is great as he never would be able to lift us anyway.
There were rehearsals. Actual, real rehearsals! With artist in clothes! Well, sort of anyway. Here are our first impressions from the second semi final:
1. Malta is definitely coming home with us
Malta’s performance was once again steady as a rock and we’re starting to get that winning feeling. And attention! If you look closely, you will see a selfie of us and Marco Mengoni as a part of their stage backdrop. We are very happy to be up there with the loves of our life during such an important moment in history. Oh, and yeah, we are also glad that 130 million viewers get to see our friendly faces, of course. Vote for us, Marco and Malta. It’s number one, peeps.
2. Mei Feingold is still very angry
Half way through the song we just want to scream “WE GOT YOUR POINT THE FIRST TIME” back at her. Also, her stage backdrop looks like something from an adaption of a not so pleasant Cormac McCarthy novel. But thumbs up for effort and all.
Slovenia was the last country to confirm its participation in Copenhagen and by looking at their poor results the last decade or so we can understand their hesitation. In Malmö Hannah Mancini finished dead last in her semi-final, with an entry that actually stood out with its dub step influenced sound. Which happen to be big the big new trend this year with frontrunners from Armenia and Hungary to mention a few.
Since when did Slovenia become so hip and happening? After the monster fuck-up in Oslo and the misery they sent to Baku last year, we must admit to be pleasantly surprised by this years’ entry. Suppose it proves to show that diversity and new creative takes on how to approach this contest can just as well happen in a relatively small country with limited financial muscles to splash out. Heck, Slovenia has in many ways been a more interesting country in Eurovisional terms than the likes of Azerbaijan and Russia. The Slovenian entries have been crappy, yes. But at least they have dared to try and fail. Continue reading
Exactly how many balkan ballads can there be in semi-final 2? At least a few too many apparently. Hopefully these will steal votes from each other so we’ll manage to get rid of a couple before the big Saturday final. And we wouldn’t mind shedding the Slovenian brunette edition of Christina Aguilera. What’s the deal with sending these X-tina clones anyways? Exit Maja Keuc and enter Eva Boto. Mega yawn. Continue reading
We suddenly realized that we’ve been ignoring the Balkan countries so far in our scrutinizing reviews, and now these are pretty much what’s left to bash around less than a week before the shenanigans takes off for real in Düsseldorf. It hasn’t been done intentionally on our part, we pick and choose entries on a whim, and it makes us wonder if our subconsciousness has played a trick on us. Are these entries so boring that we forget about them altogether? Do we really have to twist our minds so hard to come up with something worth mentioning, that we rather keep avoiding them? Seriously, we’ve now wasted a good 10 minutes of our lives contemplating these questions with not even reaching any sensible conclusions on the matter.
Folk music or Slovenian rock, which do you prefer? None, thank you.
15 times Slovenia has participated since that rainy day in 1993. 15 times of everything from pretty cool ethnochic tunes to not so cool bikerdudes, from screaming divas to way too energetic, ecstatic technofreaks. They have also given us some cool things, though. Of course, being royalists and all, we couldn’t stop loving the queens of all stewardesses in 2002 with their fantastic outfits and choir of elegant captains. And a pretty nice ballad came our way back in 1998, when long hair was the solution for every man thinning on top. Unfortunately the total impression was totally ruined by some horrible pink disco stuff from that not so warm summer night of 2003 and a duet so bad it actually could have been quite funny if it wasn’t for the badbad lyrics in 2004. So much variation in 15 participations without nailing it once. It is actually impressive for such a small country. Continue reading