Ira And Ivan Off To Stockholm

Kicking off the first of this week’s National Final double header was Belarus, which amazingly only lasted the two hours this year. Televotes for the winner were over seven times last year’s winner (perhaps 100 perecent televoting inspired Belarussians to have a say) and the winner ended up being Ivan with ‘Help You Fly’. There's little hit potential in this song, and Irish eyes will be hoping Belarus falls into their Semi Final come the draw on Monday morning. The Twitter favourite on Friday night was the Belarussian language cutsy folk song ‘Heta Ziamlia’ if you want something a little more happy and lively.

In Malta, after Friday night’s Semi Final of 20 songs knocked out six performers, 14 took part in Saturday night’s shoot-out for Stockholm. The winner was as expected since the names were announced, with Ira Losco performing ‘Chameleon’ to win both jury vote (which included ESC Insight's Alternative Commentator Luke Fisher) and televote. The phrasing in the song is nice, but not particularly revolutionary, ground-breaking or vote worthy in an eighteen- or nineteen-strong song Semi Final. Post-victory rumours suggested, as per the rules, that Ira might change to a new song before the deadline in the middle of March. I wouldn’t be surprised if both Belarus and Malta consider that option.

Saturday night also saw the start of Hungary’s A Dal process with the Quarter Final stage. There were six qualifiers, with Freddie’s ‘Pioneer’ gets the fanboys and fangirls all flustered. Can’t think why. Lithuania continued with some heat in the marathon process, so far 20 acts have qualified, and 8 have been eliminated. Ruthless.

Insignias and Information

Shortly after this Newsletter comes out we will have the Allocation Draw for Eurovision 2016 live from Stockholm City Hall, along with the host country Insignia Ceremony. You can tune in through eurovision.tv to follow proceedings from 11:15 CET. As per usual, countries are divided into pots based on voting history (absolutely no surprises here) to make sure neither Semi Final is too biased. Information such as the artwork and slogan will also be publicly revealed. I’ve been invited to attend and hopefully will feed back what the experience was like in next week’s Newsletter.

As always, we’ll be piling through the draw outcome to make some song-independent qualifying predictions (which no doubt Australia’s addition will just confuse) soon after the draw has been made. Podcasts are still being released on a Thursday, and the team worked together last week to answer ‘what is the worst possible trait in a Eurovision entry?’ Combining them all together is a recipe for disaster.

Scandal Scandi

Denmark’s one-shot final, scheduled for February 13th, is hit with controversy as it appeared the Emmelie de Forest co-composed ‘Never Alone’ was performed by the Eurovision winner in 2014 at eleven different concerts. It remains in the competition at the moment, as both Eurovision and MGP rules are more lax than the formerly hard and fast September 1st earliest release date. The tolerance to this event might be because those eleven concerts were only seen by around 2,000 people, such is Emmelie’s fame.

Up in Norway the scandal is that Melodi Grand Prix entrant Freddy Kalas had his song disqualified as it plagiarized one of his former tracks. No worries though, he’s just re-written the chorus, gave the song a new title, and is good to go. 15 second snippets of the songs are available, and it doesn’t sound Eurovision winner material yet. I’d highlight Agnete’s (of The Black Sheeps fame) ‘Icebreaker’ and The Hungry Hearts’ Russian themed ‘Laika’ as those with biggest potential at the moment. 

We’ll end down south in Spain where six songs will compete in a National Final on February 1st, the newsworthy name is Junior Eurovision winner Maria Isabel performing ‘La Vida Solo Es Una’, yet betting favourite is ‘Say Yay’ from Barei. I’d say yay to that.

Robertson's Reflection

Spain’s Eurovision selection is where I start this week, because my original excitement was not about Maria Isabel or Barei, but about a young Eric Saade look-a-like called Xuso Jones. It was the composers behind him that made that song my first listen when all six came out, as I wondered to see what Peter Boström and Andreas Öhrn produced for the young Spaniard.

Andreas Öhrn, as lead singer for Gravitonas, is a name that perks interest, but of course it was the name of Boström that tantalised most. His highlight came in 2012, where he composed both ‘Euphoria’ and ‘Amazing’ in that epic Melodifestivalen final. The years before he was behind ‘In The Club’ and the production of ‘Popular’ as well as creating Tooji’s ‘Stay’ which suffered last place mainly because Loreen just hoovered up all the votes Norway’s entry was targeting.

More a producer than a composer, his level of production skills through the early part of this decade really lifted Sweden’s game. It wasn’t just that the Swedish songs he was behind were better, it was that the production skills lifted them well above the skills of most other countries. The Boström sound was big arena pop and, post Loreen's victory, I would have thought that would have been the genre to define Eurovision for years to come.

It didn’t really work out like that. 2013 had a top three of Emmelie’s faux folk, Farid’s pop ballad and Zlata’s musical dream sequence. 2014 was a Bond theme, artistic country and the most annoying four chord loop ballad in history (yes, that’s you Sanna). I'll give you Måns’ ‘Heroes’ as a big Swedish arena pop, but the production is far more organic and the build-up more subtle than anything Boström’s electronic sound has ever produced.

Boström has only been responsible for composing one Melodifestivalen finalist since ‘Euphoria’, (this year his only entry is with Dolly Style) and most fans were mightly disappointed in what became of ‘Amanecer’ last year. G:Son and Boström were reunited on that track which still feels like the composers ran out of ideas half-way through. This year, Xuso Jones’ ‘Victorious’ feels back on the Boström music train, well produced electronic arena pop that should go big. Instead it feels dated and formulaic. The Boström era hit a peak, and music has moved on. I’m sure many of you watching Malta’s National Final would agree, the cheery pop blend on offer was way off the pace of modern music. The Swedish pop legacy certainly exists, but some countries are still stuck in their exhaust fumes.

I’d still say arena pop is the way to go, but it’s got to be more off-beat, more quirky, more filled with a post-chorus and pre-chorus as catchy as the chorus itself. The continuous build, rather than the lively production, is what the modern pop song is all about. Peter Boström was a game changer to the Song Contest, with many trying to emulate what he did. However on a personal level I didn’t think his era would fade away as quickly as it did.

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Photos from PBS (Reno Rapa) and SVT (Pär Källman)