07/03/12 RUSSIA

The Russian Final was held on March 7th at the Akademicheskiy Concert Hall in Moscow, hosted by Olga Shelest & Vladimir Zelenskiy. The winner, after a 50-50 combination of televoting and jury vote, was Buranovskiye Babushki with “Party for Everybody”

“The grannies” are not exactly the most energetic of performers – ‘old school’ doesn’t even describe it at they’ve probably been alive so long they remember a time there was no such thing as school.

Enough of the bitching and onto the facts. The group itself is its own gimmick, its own advertisement its own publicity machine and no matter what the ladies do they will get the press. People will find the group intriguing and will get a lot of ‘sympathy votes’ although I’m not quite sure why they should get any sympathy.

The song is basically structured around the chorus which is in English. The rest of the song is their regional tongue of Udmurt. The fact that they stand there going “boom boom boom boom” quite hilarious. Because of the sound of the song it will get a lot of Eastern European votes as well as that of Scandinavia. They will also get votes from the mad quarter too.

The song and performance are incredibly indulgent almost to the point of a saccharine overdose. Yes they are rather cute and old and cuddly and make you go “awwwww”. Yes they are dressed in a very old fashioned ethnic way (nothing like it has been seen since Mattis Hætta in 1980) and are singing a song you wouldn’t expect. But behind the rose tinted façade I’m not quite sure what is left of any substance. It is quite a catchy song however I find myself laughing at it more that wanting to join in.

Only the ‘granny’ on the left seems to conscious of what she is doing and one of them seems totally bemused at to what she is doing. I am also concerned to see what looks like a smouldering piece of Chernobyl rotating and smoking away behind them. It is almost a shame there are 6 of them as a couple of Cossack dancers either side would have polished the look off to a tee.

So, will it qualify? Yes.    Will it do well ? Yes.    Will it win? Probably.    Do I like it? NO

This year’s Eric Saade.

SONG – Party for everybody

ARTIST – Buranovskiye Babushki

COMPOSERS – Vikton Drobych, Olga Tuktaryova

LANGUAGE – Udmurt & English

07/03/12 SLOVAKIA

On 7^th March, Slovakia TV announced that their entry for Eurovision this year would be “Don’t close your eyes” sung by Max Jason Mai. It has been known since Slovakia confirmed its participation in December that their song and entry would be decided internally.

On the plus side this song is very different to anything else that has been put forward this year. It is a song that does catch your ear and the chorus is not too bad. The song is very much hard rock and I expect a performance to match it. The song has lots of rhythm changes and goes from quick to slow very quickly. This on the positive side keeps you on your toes but on the negative side means it is very difficult to get in your head or sing along to.

Of course as this news was released generally, there was no live performance to go on. From what has been written about him, he is an energetic performer so it will be interesting to see what kind of show he comes to Baku with. Also, the song is very OTT and although he seems to reach everything on the recorded version one wonders if he can work the magic live.

Hard rock generally does not do well at Eurovision, although I guess acts such as Lordi and Wig Wam may disagree, that said it is not a genre that is often sent. I don’t think the song will qualify but I don’t think it is a bad song. The style is too narrow and will not appeal to the general ordinary viewers or voter, nay the juries. Will get Eastern Europe and Scandinavian votes though.

SONG – Don’t close your eyes

ARTIST – Max Jason Mai

COMPOSER – Max Jason Mai

LANGUAGE – English

Gimmicks

The podcast is back !!!

As you will learn from listening  -podcasts will now be recorded on a Friday night rather than the normal Thursday. It's a busy old ime at the mo so things are all higgldy-piggldy!!!

Recorded from my bed !!! (that's bound to gain more listeners!!!)

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


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

03/03/12 LITHUANIA

The Lithuanian Final was held on March 3rd, hosted by Liepa Rimkeviciene & Darius Uzkuraitis. Before the final there were 4 semi-finals where the long list of 36 was reduced to a final of 14. The winner was chosen in two rounds of voting. In the first round the top 3 was chosen by televoting (50%) & an "expert" jury (50%), whilst in the second round the winner was chosen by an "expert" jury.  After an epic show that seemed to last hours the winner was announced as Donny Montell with the song “Love is Blind”

One would say that this is a song of 2 halves. During the first half of the song, Donny is wearing a black blindfold, mirroring the title of the song whilst singing quite a slow melodic melody with a very minimal soulful backing track. During this time he is still emoting using his hands and does move a little. He then starts the chorus which then builds in the backing track with a more noticeable beat. Halfway through he then removes the blindfold, does a one handed somersault and then starts disco dancing and interacting with the audience.

Donny is alone on stage and the song (as it is) does not require backing singers. I feel that Donny is able to command the stage by himself and I actually feel that more bodies on the stage would detract from the fact that Donny is a very strong singer and performer. The song is OK. I would say that the first half is much stronger then the second visually and melodically. There is also a strange part about two minutes in when her repeats the ‘love is blind’ part like a stuck record which sounds very odd and could go wrong very easily.

I would say that this is quite an interesting choice by the Lithuanians. As I have already stated Donny is a strong performer and singer. Not the strongest of songs, not even the more Eurovision of songs, but it is pleasant enough. Maybe a bit too pleasant…

A video of his winning performance can be found on LRT's youtube site below.

http://www.youtube.com/user/LRTinklas?feature=watch

SONG – Love is blind

ARTIST – Donny Montell (Donatas Montvydas)

COMPOSERS –

LANGUAGE – English

03/03/12 SPAIN

The Spanish Final was held on March 3rd at Prado del Rey Studios in Madrid, hosted by Anne Irgatiburu. Pastora Soler sang 3 songs and the winner was chosen by a 50-50 mix of televoting and "expert" jury. Pastora chose 2 songs herself whilst the other 2 songs were voted for on the internet to be here third choice for the final. Unusually the teletoving started way before the televised final - on February 22nd - and finished during the show.

The winning song with both jury and televote was “Quédate conmigo” meaning Stay with me. Quédate conmigo is a very atmospheric and emotional ballad is Spanish, co written by one of the most prolific Eurovision writers of late, Thomas G:son. Because of its international writing team, I would not say it is typically Spanish and could probably work in any language, although this is very unlikely to change for Baku. The song is not exactly singable but the repetition of the same words and same melody in the chorus makes it really stick in your mind.

Pastora is a fantastic singer and performer. She looks really into the song and had a very good emotional performance. Although she was alone on stage (backing singers will be need to be added though) she really did own the stage and looked very professional. The song really showed off her vocal range and strength especially during the high and long notes in the chorus.

Obviously being part of the Big 5 means that the song automatically qualifies for the final. This song will do really well, especially with the juries, as well as those countries who appreciate the more dramatic ballads. I have no worries about Pastor being able to pull this off in Back. Another possible contender…

SONG – Quédate conmigo (Stay with me)

ARTIST – Pastora Soler

COMPOSERS – Thomas G:son, Tony Sánchez-Ohlsson, Erik Bernholm

LANGUAGE – Spanish

03/03/12 ESTONIA

The Estonian Final was held on March 3rd at the Nokia Concert Hall in Tallinn. Before the final there were 2 semi-finals where the list of 20 was whittled down to a final of 10. Lenna and Ott Lepland made it to the superfinal where Ott Lepland was announced as the winner of Eesti Laul.

During the semi final Ott was seated at a piano whilst in the final he sang the whole song stood in the middle of the stage. He is backed by a female singer who is stuck right at the back of the stage where you cannot see her, which I don’t like. Ott does not do very much and stays very much on the spot. It may well benefit the flow of the song if he starts n the piano and then does the rest of the song stood up as this will create some movement and help build the song.

The song is a slow quiet ballad that does gain some strength through the choruses. That said it just feels a little flat and samey and is not very memorable. I don’t even think having some dancers would help the song. This said Ott does put emotion into the song and sings it well. Now of course many will be wondering if the song will be left in the original Estonian or translated into English. Unfortunately I don’t think changing the language will save this at all.

Estonia picked a really, really good top 3 for Eesti Laul butended up choosing the wrong song for Baku. Lenna or Tenfold Rabbit (who came 3^rd) would have been much more original choices and would have made a mark on the contest, even if they were a little too different for Eurovision. Unless major staging, styling or even language changes are made this is a definite DNQ.

SONG – Kuula (Listen)

ARTIST – Ott Lepland

COMPOSERS – Ott Lepland and Aapo Ilves

LANGUAGE – Estonian

01/03/12 ISRAEL

Prior to the unveiling of the song, the band Izabo was internally selected by Israeli Television to represent them at Eurovision. Strangely, the song was premiered via the internet and not via a special TV show.

The song fluctuates between English verses and A chorus in Hebrewplus the singer’s English is not too bad, although the lyrics are a little bit weak. The song’s feel is very modern yet has a 60’s feel to the melody especially in the chorus. However it is far too busy. The synthesizer parts are too complicated and the tune is very complicated.  In addition it also finishes too abruptly for my liking.

The next day they played the song at the Zappa club which was also placed onto the internet. The band looks a little odd, with the greatest amount of respect they look a little older than what their style of music suggests. They will also (hopefully) look a bit different stylistically in Baku. They don’t sing too bad really and do deliver the song well. However I am worried that the song won’t be enough of a show as it really could do with more of a visual element to it.

The song for me is too odd and really not what I would consider to be a Eurovision song. Maybe it will grow on me in time, however the average Eurovision viewer who will only hear this once may well forget this too easily.

Below is the formal released version as well as the live version,

SONG - Time

ARTIST – Izabo

COMPOSERS – Ran Shem-Tov, Shiri Hadar

LANGUAGE – Hebrew and English

29/02 12 FYR MACEDONIA

The Macedonian presentation took place in February 19^th during a special show on MKTV featuring Kaliopi, the artist internally selected by MKTV sme time ago. During the show she unveiled her song for Baku “Crno I belo” which translates as Black and White.

Kaliopi starts on the piano then makes her way to the centre of the stage where she sings the rest of the song. She is wearing quite a plain black trouser suit with black net train. Behind her are a gaggle of other musicians which in the space given looks a little too busy. This said her stage is not big, so the performance and staging will need some tweaking.

The song is not that bad. A Balkan style song which gets rockier as it progresses. The guitar solo is really not necessary and really stops the flow of the song. Kaliopl’s vocal sounds good although it sounds strained at times, but this might just be her style. It does make me worry whether she is going to be able to pull this off live. Later on in the show, she performed the song in its full English version which was really quite well written.

There are too many ‘maybes’ about this song. Maybe she will sing it well, maybe her visual performance will be good. Will she sing in Macedonian, English or both? Maybe it will qualify – maybe it won’t. On the fence.

Below are her Macedonian and English versions of the song.

SONG - Crno i belo (Black and white)

ARTIST – Kaliopi

COMPOSERS – Kaliopi and Roman Grill

LANGUAGE – Macedonian

29/02/12 BULGARIA

The Bulgarian Final was held on February 29th at the National Palace of Culture in Sofia, hosted by Milenita Nikolova, Drago Draganov & Alexander Sano. Before the final there was a semi-final where the list of 22 was whittled down to 12.  The winner was chosen by  SMS voting (50%) and "expert" jury (50%). However when the results came in there was a tie for first place between Sofi Marinova and New 5, therefore the SMS voting took precedence so Sofi took the ticket to Baku.

The song is an uptempo dance song. It starts off with a small ear worm or Sofi kind of yodelling which is repeated a few times during the song. The song is pretty formulaic and you can see where it is going quite easily. Most of the song is in Bulgarian so having a predictable melody isn’t such a bad thing. The chorus contains several different languages and it does come across as a little bit garbled. Also the chorus is sand at a very high pitch, almost to the point that every time she sings it you really fear that she isn’t going to hit those notes !

In both the semi and final, Sofi is on stage alone. She is able to command the stage quite well but I feel that the power of the song would benefit from some kind of extra presence on the stage. I also feel that giving her less to do will enable her to focus on her vocals, which as I have already stated need to be bang on during the chorus.

I would say that this kind of song will go down well with the Eastern European crowd with the language at that Romanian-style production values. I think this one will qualify and may do well with voters at home. I do feel that the song might benefit from a change of language at some point in the song.

Below are her performances from the final and semi-final

SONG - Love Unlimited

ARTIST – Sofi Marinova

COMPOSERS – Doni Vasileva,Yasen Kozev, Krum Georgiev

LANGUAGE – Bulgarian (plus a few words in various languages)

Pointless

In homage to my appearance on the BBC quiz show "pointless" during the coming week, all the songs played on the podcast are 'pointless' and scored a big fat 0 !


You can listen to me keep on saying Coventry City Football Club (LOL), trying to speak Lithuanian (LOLZ) and become rather suspicious as to who exactly Celia Lawson is (MEGALOLZ)


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


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