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| It's not over until the bearded lady sings. |
The Sunday after the Eurovision Song Contest always seems like having a hangover. So much time and energy goes into the preparation, the study, the writing, the thinking, and not to mention, the predictions, then poof! It's over. Of course, those of us who are just reporting on it from afar must have nothing compared to the contestants.
What can we say about the Eurovision Song Contest Grand Final for 2014? Conchita's win was not wholly unexpected. In fact, we predicted it in our original review of the semifinals. We love the song and are glad it won. In fact, we accurately predicted the top five, but from there our predictions fell apart pretty much, other than that the French song was abysmal and would do badly. That turned out to be true.
In the past, we at Radio Free Järbo have always wondered why Europe thinks it can run this contest without politics playing a role. The slogan "Join Us" for this year's contest was a little more realistic than "We Are One" from last year. This year, I found it interesting that the progressive politics of inclusion played out in Conchita Wurst's win, even though, yes, the song was dynamite and deserved to win as much as the other songs in the top five. Conchita was the darling of the night, gushing emotion, appearing overwhelmed, and loving every minute of the attention.
On the other side, old fashioned politics showed its uglier side with the booing of the Russian contestants. If this is a song contest, even if politics is going to play a part in the overall voting, it should not play a part in the way the contestants are treated. Gunnar disagrees. He says what the Russians are doing in the Ukraine is unconscionable and that all Russians, even entrants in sports and cultural events, should know it. We can agree to disagree.
It was still a surprise coming from the usually more tolerant Scandinavian audience. Even the commentators on SVT, Swedish TV, commented on the irony of the lyrics in the refrain, "telling all the world to show some love," in a particularly bitchy way, uncharacteristic of the typical Swede.
In that same spirit of fairness, I applaud the EBU for not allowing Russian and other broadcasters block Conchita's live performance. As a result thousands of rainbow flags got seen all over Russia. I can only hope that the use of the first person plural "we" in Conchita's victory lap was in fact heard all over Russia and all over the world, for everyone who feels excluded, misunderstood, and different. That victory needed to be seen, even if the progressive politics of the West played a part.
In the end, the extra nice treatment for Conchita and the booing of the Russians made for very good television, even if the show, itself, was a drag (in the bad sense of that word). Watching the acts themselves is fun and interesting. However, the Eurovision producers, like those of the Academy Awards, have never figured out a way to make the rest of the show compelling. The number Emily (jävla) De Forest did was pretty strange and uninteresting. Even topless Danes splashing in the water couldn't save that disaster. A friend in the UK said recently of the ESC, "It's three hours of your life you'll never get back again." Somewhere there has to be an answer to that.
What did DJ Dävid think of the results? Here is a country-by-country run down.
The Ukraine came in much higher than predicted, and frankly, higher than I think the song deserved. I found myself paying more attention to the acrobatics of the guy in the hamster wheel than the song itself. Probably not a good sign.
I wanted to hate the song from Belarus, but its catchy beat which drove the footwork in the choreography made me like it in the end. We predicted it would be between 15 and 20 and it did.
It was a surprise that Azerbaijan's entry finished so low, when we thought it would be in the top 10. The country has quite a good ESC track record. But we found that the more we heard the song, the less we liked it. Her delivery lacked something the song needed, and didn't light any fires across Europe. It was in the last verses that I understood the refrain, after hearing it several times in the past.
Iceland finished higher than we predicted. Pollapönk looks like Pee Wee Herman had a baby with each of the Village People and those children formed a band in Iceland. The energy of the song was infectious and it fit in nicely with a drag queen winning the day.
Carl Espen from Norway finished higher than our prediction. He was one of the artists whose live delivery just got better and better. He needs to enunciate the words better to make the song really work. Clearly, he felt the song deeply, as it was written for him.
Romania had one of the best "flag pictures" in their introduction. We did not like the song. A miracle was needed but was not forthcoming.
Armenia was predicted to make the top five and did. We had a love/hate relationship with this song. There was not a lot to it, but it worked. He is a good live performer which helped with such a song.
We were very disappointed in the showing by Montenegro. We felt the song and the artist are much, much better than the 19th place Europe chose to give the entry. This travesty is only matched by Albania not making the finals. This is one of those cases where we feel the EBU needs to throw out the current judging system, and just let Radio Free Järbo do it.
What can you say about Poland? I think the Polish group had the most fun of all of the artists in the competition. I do think that the extravagant amount of cleavage helped bump up their scores. "More butter, more tits." Still, Slavic girls rock. Slavic girls really rock.
Greece faltered. The trampoline was a fun touch, but the "boy band" touch didn't work as well as we had thought, and in the end they couldn't rise above mediocre material.
Everything we need to say has been said about Austria already. Great song. Great delivery.
The German entry was entirely all wrong. I wish she would write herself a better song next year.
Sanna Nielsen from Sweden was fantastic. She was another artist that just seemed to get better with each delivery. She nailed it for the semifinals and then was perfect it the final. She left nothing undone. In the US, a third place finish after rumors had it she might win would be seen as a loss. In Sweden, whose motto is "Lagom" (enough), it's seen as almost an idea position; not embarrassing, not calling attention to yourself. Let's hope this gives her career the boost it deserves.
France came in dead last, with two points--one each from two countries. In our view, it was two points more than that awful song warranted. The live delivery was atrocious, even though it is hard to imagine it could be worse than the video. It was.
I felt bad for the girls from Russia. Politics aside, I applaud how they kept their composure onstage and on camera in the green room, even when they were being booed. It could not have been easy, even though they were probably prepared for the reception they got. I hope they were prepared.
What was the staging for Italy's entry all about? The song was pretty bad and scored near the bottom as we predicted.
Poor Slovenia. The song came in next to last, and should have dome somewhat better, we thought. It did really cohere into a whole, and just kept going round and round without a goal.
Finland came in 11th. It was the only rock entry in this year's competition of any merit. Good for you, lads. We look forward to something even better from them in the future. I hope they had the time of their lives these past two weeks.
The entry from Spain, from Ruth Lorenzo, did better than we thought and we are not unhappy about it. She was much better live than on the video. Her voice has a very please quality, maybe she should sing "Start a Fire."
I think Sebalter from Switzerland had the most fun on stage and in his video. He oozes a charm and mischievousness that I suspect opens many doors for him.
We liked the song from Hungary and thought it would make the top five, but were also a little unsure if Europe would embrace it. The song about child abuse was the most serious in a competition of "cheesecake," "cliches," and "mustaches." It is nice to know that a well written song can still be appreciated. Maybe it was part of this year's unofficial progressive theme.
I don't know why the entry from Malta finished so low. Was it the t-shirt and ripped jeans look?
At first blush, the song from Denmark was so cliche that we, and others, felt that Denmark wanted to be sure they wouldn't have to host the ESC again next year. But it finished higher than we expected it to. It had energy. Maybe having the audacity to admit it was cliche made it seem less so.
Not a fan of country music, we were nonetheless glad at the good showing by The Netherlands. The song stood out from the rest of the field and was extremely well performed.
Finally San Remo got into the finals. It was deserved for last's year song which was much, much stronger than this one. She is good performer and maybe we will see more of her, just with better material.
Molly, Molly, Molly. You've got a great voice but that was a crap song with staging that had us saying, "WTF!" With the United Kingdom being the source of so much great music over the years, it is hard to see why they can't write a good song for the very talented artists they send to the contest.
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