2014/03

Some unexpected goings on in Eurovision land called for an unexpected round up podcast!

Obviously the *big* news was the semi final allocation draw made on Monday 20th January. For those of you not so Eurovision savvy, I try and explain what the draw is really about, why the draw is made so early in advance and also if it REALLY means anything in term of who is going to qualify...

As well as this, we have news from Slovenia, Lithuania, Finland and some unexpected news from Spain! I also play what is becoming my favourite Dutch song, The House of the Rising Sun (not really) and a prodigious semi-final song.


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You can download or listen to it here http://www.archive.org/details/recap2014_03

Click here to listen to this podcast in your usual music player (M3U Playlist)

BELARUS

The Belarussian Final was held at BTRC Studio 600 in Minsk on January 10th, hosted by Olga Ryzhikova & Denis Dudinskiy. The winner was chosen by televoting (50%) and an "expert" jury (50%). As there was a tie at the end of the voting between Max Lorens & Didyulya (who won the televote) and Teo (who won the jury vote) The "expert" jury had to vote again for the winner, voting unanimously for Teo and his song "Cheesecake".

I didn't intend to watch the Belarusian final but I found myself home alone because the husband was having a late night at work and so I kind of fell into it! I felt that the show was a bit oddball. The visual enthusiasm of the crowd (i.e. ZILCH) didn't seem to match with the aural enthusiasm of the crowd (i.e. FRENZIED) I will give BTRC its due and came up with a very slick show. The stage was a decent size and the screen at the back accommodated all of the settings. also the introductions were slick and all the entries were covered in a quite a short amount of time.

I can't really tell you if Teo is a great singer or not because this is not really a song to show off vocal talents. The verses are quite slow and speed up slightly in the chorus. There are no ups and downs, crescendos or diminuendos its all very samey.  It is a very wordy song at times and this does point out some of his off pronunciations e.g. "I don't want to be your trippy hamster today" Off the bat he announces "I'm not Patrick Swayze, you're not Jennifer Gray" This is not Booker Prize winning writing...

The staging of the show is very simple. Teo is backed by 3 singers dressed smartly with braces and hats however they don't do very much apart from holding up song-related paddles - last seen in "Leto Svet". Teo's dancing however leaves a lot to be desired. I can hear Len Goodman harking on about 'pigeon toes' and 'sickled ankles'. Teo also has a look of Robin Thicke about him (the shirt the suit, the spiky hair, the dead slugs on his face). I don't think this is coincidence and certainly don't think it does him ANY favours at all.

However this is Belarus. Within 5 days of his win, it was put in jeopardy.

The quite disgruntled 'runners up'  Max Lorens & Didyulya called for the results to be annulled. They are protesting on the fact that the final result, with the jury choosing between the tied entries, took no opinions of the televote into account (They got about  3000 votes more than Teo) and there fore it was rigged. The duo are hoping to appeal to the Belarussian president in order to reverse the result through the signing of a petition. Also they have announced that they would hold a concert under the slogan “For Fair Voting,” As I type, nothing has changed this result but one never knows!

How do I rate the chances of this song - I really don't know. I think it has some charm and some appeal, as well as being rather contemporary but it is NOT a Eurovision song. The subject of the song is sickly and cheesy (no pun intended there) Not even with some stage tweaking could this improve. Maybe the only way for this to improve is for it to be disqualified...

Artist - Teo
Song - Cheesecake
Music - Yuri Vaschuk (Teo)
Lyrics - Dmitry Novik

2014/02

The second podcast of the national finals season!

After a premature start in the last throws of December, Eurovision seems to have chickened out and gone back into its shell for hibernation. I *try* valiantly to scrape the remnants of news together but as you will hear not much is going on... Nothing significant anyway...

There is a brief recap of the Belarusian final (blogpost about the winning song will be up mid-week) as well as a roundup of the news and goings on from Azerbaijan, Finland, France, Hungary, Israel, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania and Romania.

If anybody *does* know if any cheese is made in Israel - let me know....

Follow us on twitter at https://www.twitter.com/DVVHolland
or like our facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/DVVHolland to find get the latest information about blogposts and podcasts or even have a look back at our old ones :o)

You can download or listen to it here http://www.archive.org/details/recap2014_02

Click here to listen to this podcast in your usual music player (M3U Playlist)