Super Saturday And Much More!

In theory this weekend has given us four more songs to Eurovision 2016. Starting with Austria’s final on Friday night, where the odds-on favourite Zoe won the Super Final with her song ‘Loin d’ici’. Yes, it’s in French and it’s a song bringing back a few musical reminders of the old chanson. Kudos as well to the Austrian broadcaster for re-using all the Eurovision branding from last year to make us all nostalgic (or to keep the budget down).

Danish broadcaster DR also did some recycling with the same intro music to each song from their recent hosting as well, with 10 songs battling for the ticket to Stockholm. In the three-song super final (with 100% tele voting), the two blonde bombshells and heavy favourites of Anja Nissen and Simone cancelled each other out, leaving the ‘boy’ band Lighthouse X to win with 42% of the televoting. 'Oops,' thought everyone else watching. The Danish entry ‘Soldiers of Love’ is Danish and pleasant without the wow factor. I think I’ll stick to the original 1987 entry.

Switzerland had six songs to choose from as well on Saturday night. No shock here, for Canadian (yes, say Celine now) Rykka to win with ‘Last Of Our Kind’. Somehow Switzerland managed to out-bland Denmark through the entire selection process and this forgettable tune will no doubt be highlighted as a Semi Final toilet break by SVT’s running order.

Finally in Ital,y Sanremo came to end at some ungodly hour well after I smartly fell asleep. The winning act this year, Stadio, declined the offer to go to Eurovision anyway, leaving RAI to select as they wish. Quite simply, they are sending the second placed artist, Francesca Michielin, who really wants to go to Eurovision. For Sanremo lovers or haters, you might want a read of my essay about live music in the Eurovision Song Contest, which compromised with those wishing for the orchestra’s return.

We Are Your Tomorrow

The big winner of Melodifestivalen’s second heat was Charlotte Perrelli. By a country mile her interval act cover of Helene Fischer’s ‘Atemlos Durch Die Nacht’ about the destruction of schlager divas was the hit of the night. David Lindgren’s worst song of three attempts qualified direct, along with unknown Wiktoria who stood still as a demo of projection technology was put over her body. Krista Siegfrids was knocked out in 5th place, ‘Faller’ lacking the frantic energy to go over the line.

Krista had to leave hosting Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu to attend MF. Qualifiers in Finland included Cristal Snow with ‘Love Is Blind’ and ‘Good Enough’ by Annika Milan and Kimmo Blom, but the hype’s about Mikael Saari and ‘On It Goes’. Dramatic and intimate musical theatre in its purest form, this would be the ultimate dark horse for May with a huge jury swing.

Further north Iceland’s second semi got some rap, another song called ‘Augnablik’ and another song by Greta Salome into the Icelandic final next week. It seems nothing will be able to stop Greta’s song from last week winning here. There are also the first of four qualifiers for Hungary’s final now confirmed, a minor shock here being that the Kallay Saunders Band only trickled through in third place. ‘Trouble In My Mind’ from Petruska and his 2014 hipster beard was the winner here.

In Estonia Eesti Laul began with 5 songs being selected from the field of ten in the first Semi Final. In the pre-recorded show fancy graphics were the order of the day, the highlights being the cartoon music video for ‘Immortality’, the multiple images of Laura in ‘Supersonic’ and the projections-that-actually-tell-a-story-unlike-Melfest face mapping on the bizarrely mood killing and wonderfully Eesti ‘Seis’. Ukraine’s second Semi Final might be stopping the coronation of Jamala just for a moment, as this show was won by SunSay with ‘Love Manifest’ with a higher televote percentage than Jamala scored last week. This, for better or worse, seems completely apolitical, but seems to have been performed in St. Petersburg before September 1st, muddying the disqualification waters even more. Finally our tour of selections ends this week in Latvia 2nd heat. Markus Riva won, but is second favourite to Justs still by a long way, and the Riga Beaver did an exercise class in the ad breaks this week.

You may also want to see the first live performance of Ireland’s entry ‘Sunlight’, with all the potential an Irish TV studio brings (but keep your eye out for Friend of the Parish Garrett Mulhall from Eurovision Ireland in the audience). Looking forward the next week sees us find out the entries from Georgia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Iceland and Ukraine as well as hearing the songs in the Polish National Final scheduled for March 5th.

Stand Here Please!

Robertson's Reflection

I liked Zoe’s song that won in Austria. It’ll go down great in Stockholm with the clap-happy Swedish crowd, and a remix of it I can guarantee will be the storm of EuroClub. I even enjoy the Siegel-esque disco production which makes it feel like the little sister to ‘Crisalide’. In the tougher field of Semi Final One though, qualification is a difficult task with a genre of music that’s politely described as fanwank.

The French language is the most obvious barrier, and it would take more than the inclusion of France in their Semi Final to help. A song in French has never qualified from a Eurovision Semi Final, indeed never even coming close from the top 10 in the four attempts so far. In the same era since Semi Finals began in 2004, France itself has struggled. 7 attempts out of 11 resulting in placings 22nd or worse tell its own story (for comparison, it's 6 for the UK and 3 for Germany and Spain), and only global megastar Patricia Kaas and her unapologetic entry got a top 10 placing.

The French language has an identity problem within the Eurovision Song Contest. Demoted from its heady days of the 1950's where French was an equal, or even superior to English, now French is arguably behind many others in the pecking order. More school students are picking up Spanish at school, Germany is the economic centre of the continent again and in terms of first language speakers it’s the Russian language that is number one across our Contest. All these factors mean that presenters rarely have conversational French (Petra Mede, the obvious exception, is played up for her French fluency to the point of parody) and it becomes jarring when France or Belgium read out their douze points in their own language.

In one degree it’s very easy to dismiss anything not in English nowadays, Yes we all know ‘Grande Amore’ happened, but perhaps things as pastiche as this are the only exception. Could three good-looking Mediterranean men croon in any other language than that of romance? Could the Balkan ballads ever have a beauty about them in anything other than the mystery of the Balkan languages? And is the language of points-from-every-country pop stuck in the new lingua franca of English? Certainly the decision from Barei to perform fully in English in Stockholm was a no-brainer. Writing in English is not even a conscious decision for many of the songwriters across our continent, that is what comes naturally.

And this makes the inclusion of Zoe representing Austria all the more interesting. To her with her nine years of French language schooling, this is what comes naturally. The same can be said for her co-composer father, a musical star of the 90’s with gentle productions just like ‘Loin d’ici’. On paper, Austria’s far from likely to be getting themselves a third victory with this song, but they’ve got something that they can be proud of. The only way you do win is without compromise to who you are and being the best that you can be, and for sticking with that despite last year’s nil points is the right attitude. There’s no other way to give birth to the next Conchita moment.

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Photos from DR (Bjarne B Hermansen) and ORF (Christian Öser)