11/02/12 HUNGARY

The Hungarian Final was held on February 11th at the MTV Studios in Budapest, hosted by Zsóka Kapócs & Gábor Gundel-Takács. Before the final there were 2 semi-finals where 20 songs were reduced to a final of 8.

Compact Disco was the winning act with their song “Sound of our hearts”. The song is a slow electronic ballad which seems to sound a bit like a Hurts song…. But not quite. The song itself is quite straightforward although the chorus is quite strong and memorable. The singer used an old fashioned microphone, probably as juxtaposition from the style of song, during the semi but it whistled a lot during the slower verse part, which did not work. Luckily he changed to a hand held mic in the final which worked much better.

There is not much performance to the song as the band seem to spend most of their time standing around playing their instruments. It is something when the visuals behind them are more interesting than the band themselves. Their dress sense also has much to be desired as they seem to have employed the same stylist as the Greek entry from 2002. They also *all* need a hairbrush and a good shave.

At least the song is different, and possibly on the progressive side but it will not be at all memorable enough to gain enough votes to progress this year.

SONG  - Sound of our hearts

ARTIST – Compact Disco

COMPOSERS – Walkó Csaba, Pál Gábor, Sándor Attila and Benham Lotfi.

LANGUAGE – English

UPDATE 3

Although most of the songs have been presented, songs are re-written, re-produced and changes made and finalised. Aslo offical video clips are madepublic. Here is around up of some news over the past few days.

HUNGARY – As reported a few days so, the Hungarian song “What about my dreams?” has finally been released with a very professional looking video clip. The song is mostly in English, but the second verse is in the original Hngarian




BELGIUM – Witloof Bay have finally released their video for their entry “With love, baby” The style of the video really suits the song but this type of visual with be almost impossible to recreate on the ESC stage.




SPAIN – Lucia Perez has been very busy over the past 2 weeks making her music video which was filmed during the carnival at Sitges. The song has been slowed very slightly and sounds much more folky than before with more instruments used rather than electronics. I think is needsto be speeded back up again slighty.




IRELAND – the video clip for “Lipstick” has been released. Not sure whether they are at the Eiffel tower or Blackpool tower XD I hope that Jedward are working hard on their choreography for the Semi-final and don’t do their Michael Jackson impressions half way through !




BELARUS – as expected the entry “I am Belarusian” has been replaced due to the fact it had been performed before the EBU opening date. A new song and video imaginatively titled “I love Belarus” has been recorded and filmed over the past few days. The song will be presented on March 14th.

HUNGARY

After a year long break, Hungary decided to re-enter the 2011 contest. After careful consideration they decided to go for an internal selection. Many names and songs had been rumoured to have been put forward. On the 9th of March MTV held a public press conference to announce their entry. As it happened, one of the rumoured internet favourites for the ticket was chosen as their entry, as Kati Wolf will sing for Hungary with the song “"What About My Dreams?"

The song, which was released in February, had the Hungarian title “Szerelem, Miért Múlsz” (Love why do you pass?). The song is a dance song with different tempo changes. The verses are sung quite slowly, whilst the choruses are such quicker. The tempo changes work really well and the chorus itself is vey well constructed. She seems to have a good voice and good range and she can certainly sing live (as the live video below shows) This year’s Eurovision lacks a lot of dance numbers like this in this year’s contest and I think this is a very ‘Eurovision’ song without being overly cheesy or formulaic.

There are quite a few buts though.
The rumours seem to be that the song will be a partly Hungarian/English affair, which I am not sure I agree with. I think the Hungarian version itself stands alone and they need to be very careful with messing about with a proven format!
The live version does show that she can sing and move at the same time, which is a plus point for performance. She will probably need a number of backing singers on stage with her. Part of me thinks some dancers might emphasise the song whilst part f methinks that the song should be able to sell itself.
Plus it must also be pointed out that the full Hungarian version is over 4 minutes long. Now, this will need a severe cut for the Eurovision stage. There are a few instrumental points in the song as well as a few verses that could be omitted with would not detract the pull of the song.

I think the whole of the Eurovision community will be looking forward with some trepidation to the final version –however that might sound!


SINGER – Kati Wolf
SONG – What about my dreams?
MUSIC – Viktor Rakonczay, Gergő Rácz
WORDS – Johnny K. Palmer