DENMARK

The Danish Final was held on February 25th at Jyske Bank Boxen in Herning, hosted by Annette Heick & Johannes Nymark. The winner as chosen by a ESC fans jury (50%) and SMS & mobile app voting (50%), In the first round they selected a top three, then the second round selected a winner. Going to Kyiv is Anja Nissen with “Where I am”

Anja, who is wearing a long red dress, is alone on stage for the entire performance however it is obvious from the off that there are prominent backing singers on the track. She starts with her back to the audience which is blacked out with lights in the audience like stars. The screens show slow motion videos of dropsof water creating cicles in a pool of water and the lights behind her are shades of blue. The camera then spins around her showing her now facing the audience she then manoeuvres herself to the centre of the stage to start the first chorus. The whole of the stage glows a burning orange and the video screen shows flames of fire. During the end chorus she spends a lot of time doing vocal runs whilst the wind machines start up. She does look very alone on stage and the use of fire behind her scarlet dress is a very strange choice of backdrop indeed.

In all honesty there is nothing much to say about the song. It starts off with chanting from the backing singers – which is quite an odd way to begin a song, especially as none of the chanting contains the title of the song. The song is a mid-tempo song with a contemporary radio feel to it. The verses are a little weak and quite forgettable. The chorus is more memorabl although the pitch seems to be at the top of her range and seems a little screechy at times. The main trick the chus has is that the title fo the song is repeated twice as the last line, which makes you remember it. Neverthess Anja give it all she’s got and does a really good job at belting out the song and reaching some of the higher notes at the end.

This is so bland. It also didn’t help that the three songs in the superfinal were all bland and generic too. There is nothing in the song or the performance that hooks me and I feel that this will be the reaction throughout Europe. It also doesn’t help that there are already songs chose for ESC that one might confuse or mix this up with. Ideally they need to get a more narrative in the stagecraft to be able to strike out for the other songs.
Anja is Australian but has Danish parents but this won’t help as Australia is in semi 1 and therefore cannot vote as Denmark are is semi 2. This song really doesn’t deserve to qualify however Anja can take some solace in the fact that she is much, much better than this song and maybe we might see her again for Denmark OR Australia in the future.

ARTIST - Anja Nissen

SONG - Where I am

MUSIC - Anja Nissen, Angel Tupai, Michael D'Arcy

LYRICS - Anja Nissen, Angel Tupai, Michael D'Arcy