Alexander Rybak and a bunch of his closest friends all ready for their high school picture. Pic by NRK.
Hooray, our national final is soon ready to blow the roof off Oslo Spektrum. We think. Must admit we are not always super happy with Norway’s finals, but we actually think it is pretty good this year. And we’re not only saying that because we desperately want NRK to give us an accreditation for Lisbon. True story. We swear.
In fact, we’re mostly saying that because we were in the listening group that helped picked the songs for MGP this year, and if the result wasn’t good, who else to blame but…ourselves? NOT a blame game we like playing in GEE HQ. Also the listening group looked a bit like this:
– Attention, everyone! Do we have the GEE ladies in the audience? We repeat: Any GEE ladies on our precious little rock?
OMG, it’s time for our favorite national final again: MALTA. And we have been way to sloppy on giving you updates. We are not even on our favourite Mediterranean rock at this moment which is no less than a scandal. But we follow it closely on our beloved Internet of course. And so should you. Here’s what to expect from tonight:
Daniel Testa is not in the show, which is scandal number two. Repeat after us, please: There should never be a Maltese final without Daniel Testa, just like there should never be a Eurovision final without Italy. Someone fix this situation promptly.
Yeah, MGP went as expected. Norway gathered a lot of hobgoblins onstage, let the only good artist down and voted for a rubbish song. We are utterly disappointed we won’t be packing our sami flags and sølje jewellery in May. But at least we had a great party with Elin and her wood, got rid of Kristian Valen early and can still count of Hungary’s Joci for some ethnic vibe in Kyiv (that is if he is not bullied to silence first, shame on you, Hungarians).
First task of the day: Finding out what it takes to achieve a sami background just in time to be wearing these at the after party. (Pic from our fav choir chic Mari, thnx!)
It is that time of the year again. Whilst most people are busy enjoying that Stockholm sun and figuring out who is going to win Melodifestivalen in Sweden, Norway is desperately seeking attention for our national final and our “MGP general” Jan Fredrik Karlsen is running around in the media telling everyone who he wants to win so he himself can have someone to drink vodka with in his hotel room in Kyiv.
Just like last year, it’s mostly a sob story for two Norwegian Eurovision fans, really. But we stand by our country in good times and in bad. So we’ll bring our 9 year old associated jury member and show up in Oslo spektrum. And if you are stil wondering who WE would like to shot vodka with in Kyiv’s Euro club, here’s our quick run-through in order of appearance:
So, we already told you we had a great time in Estonia’s Eesti Laul. But did we tell you we also brought Elin and Robin, aka Elin and the Woods, aka our absolute favorites to win MGP this year? We needed to introduce them to the Estonians, of course.
Robin was so excited he decided to take a tour on his own. Here’s what he stopped to look at along his way:
Looking at all these lights, thinking Estonia has a lot to learn from Finnmark and their more natural, norhtern lightsLooking at an endless stream of cheerleaders, all ready to entertain him. Eesti Laul FTW!
Ready for greatness in Saku Suurhall. Go Elin and the Woods!
So, we went to Estonia, had a great time and came back in one piece. Hooray! And we brought with us Koit Toome & Laura and their fabulous little tune Verona – for you to enjoy in Kyiv. Hooray again!
We, of course, have quite a few awards to hand out after a weekend of extravaganza. Here goes.
Best use of all elements and then some: Kerli. With all that snow, flames, air and whatnot on stage at the same time we were convinced the whole UN sustainable development summit itself would sort of manifest itself and remind us of those ever so annoying climate changes going on.
Best move of the evening: Lenna Kuurmaa, flying around in the air like some other Freaky Fortune PeterPan RiskyKidd Greek God. We like. A lot. Now maybe she can give a few performing tips to Romeo and Juliet over there?
Biggest waste of good looks: Daniel Levi. Being totally hidden in darkness and neon. We recommend that for Ivo Linna next time.
Not so many people showed up so far, but you know, we are getting there! Pic by Siim Lõvi /ERR.
Yay, we’re at Eesti Laul! Or at least in Tallinn, where we arrived on the same plane as Måns Zelmerlöw. We saw that he travelled on tourist class and even though that was highly inappropriate of SAS, we love him for accepting it. So far we have had our vokda and caviar (isn’t this Russia?), tried on a few vintage Chanel dresses, helped a Russian babushka who fell over in the street, avoided all the people pretending we are in the Middle Ages although people clearly are using iPhones to take their pictures and recieved our free VIP guest cards from the Tourist office so we can get a long and good look at occupation history. Safe to say we love this place, and we haven’t even had our cocktails yet.
With MGP going down the drain for yet another year here in Norway, we have decided to seek refuge in Estonia, our Nordic neighbor in the Baltics! With flight tickets and a suite at the Radisson booked, a dinner reservation at Alexander’s Table and front row seats in Saku Suurhall secured, we can hardly wait to jet off to Tallinn in a couple of weeks.
Here’s our review of the five finalists proceeding from the first semi-final in Eesti Laul 2017: Continue reading
Don’t get us wrong. While we might occassionaly hit a few sarcastic notes when covering our home country on this site, we love Norway. It is a glorious country. So glorious. Chuck-full of fiords and mountains and carefully farmed salmon and clean water and at least a little bit of clean air outside of Oslo and an opera house and great drip coffee and more than one good bar and an endless supply of aquavit and moonshine on every street corner. Oh, and Alexander Rybak. There is a lot to be proud of. And we are the proudest. So why this lack of enthusiasm when it comes to MGP?
Let’s do an analysis. We see three possible explanations:
A) We are so afraid of being labeled nationalistic that we positively discriminate anything related to our own country. Harshly.
B) There is no good music in Norway, hence no potential for good music in MGP.
C) The entire group of songwriters in Norway are prohibited from using any tricks related to Sweden, such as bridges, catchy choruses, pre-choruses to catchy choruses, key changes, good lyrics, structure, a proper melody…and so on and so forth.
“Monkey see, monkey do, as Berlusconi used to say”Ah, the glorious Sanremo. Full of american actors dubbed to Italian, Tiziano Ferro doing unspeakable things to Saint Luigi Tenco (that’s just blasphemy, man), Francesco Totti trying to control his balls and the annoyingly irreplaceable Carlo Conti. When the latter dies, he’ll surely create a new festival to host in heaven while we’ll be having a neverending ball in purgatory with Marco Mengoni.
But most of all Sanremo is a celebration of the greatest musical nation in history and the selection of who gets to represent it in this year’s Eurovision in Kyiv, at least in theory. Never mind the totally incomprehensible voting system and let’s concentrate on the contestants. Here are all the finalists and what to expect from them – at least in our humble opinion (click on name to see the whole performance on RAI, never mind the chitchat in the beginning):
Surely this act must be included only to make Carlo Conti feel better about his age. We must admit he knows how to sing, this one, but why can’t he just shut up about it? Has the most hideous glasses ever shown on stage in San Remo. Miuccia Prada must be weeping.
In a country where most women try to look like hungry, underage fashion models, it is a serious accomplishment to show up with pink, short hair and Gigi Hadid’s eyebrows. Elodie is nothing short of fabulous, and neither is her performance. The song is a bit boring, though. Consider changing that part.
