Michael Ben David – I.M
If you are reading these in order, you will have just read me slating the Irish for an identikit-by-numbers song on a theme that has been done to death and, like London buses – here comes another.
On first listening, I got to precisely 11 seconds before I decided what this song was about, who it was aimed at … and why I would hate it.
It is, essentially, the anthesis of the Australian entry. Whereas that was a three-minute whinge about being different, this is the celebration of that difference wrapped up in the kind of song that would stand out if it had been dropped into Presilla Queen of the Desert. It’s empowerment, Jim, just not as most people know it.
Being a gay man myself, I get ALL of what Michael is trying to be and show. Hell, I can mince up and down the office better than most, but the target audience for this song is only a fraction (or a faction depending on your point of view) of the viewing audience on a semi-final night.
Sure, it will get most of the gays fawning, saying he “slays” and “smashes it” (and other choice sayings with attitude), but the Eurovision Song Contest is not exclusively the purview of the gays. 90 percent of the audience will be made up of families, and will this song appeal to them?
Probably not.
Like it or like it not, the audience is going to see a young man looking gay, acting camp and being himself – all perfectly acceptable traits – however, that will immediately turn off some of that audience in favour of something more “wholesome” (their words not mine). Is it a good song? – well no, again it’s not. It’s a typical gay floor filler at <insert club of choice> and that’s fine if that was the audience. It isn’t.
Vocally Michael is decent – I just wonder, though, if the whole package is aimed at the wrong demographic?
Phil’s Score. 2 Points
And the song isn’t great to be honest…
It’s going to be a long rant.
Those who venture this site for a while, know I have a soft spot for the Israeli entries in Eurovision. I was born and raised in Israel and spent a little more than half of my life there, until I moved to The Netherlands. On most time I can defend an Israeli entry. Unfortunately this year’s entry is very hard to defend because frankly, it’s just a bad song.
We start with the title – Why call a song I.M.(which is impossible to pronounce with out the letter A before the M)when you actually sing I am? Or is this suppose to be reference to your name as in I Michael. We’ll never know.
Than they created a beat based song and forgot to have a melody in the song, added mish-mash of words which suppose to give you a sense of empowerment but sound hollow and not really convincing and Voila a song which isn’t really song as a song but more of sketch for a song.The build-up of the song and the orchestration have no logic at all. It seems they were throwing in idea’s randomly and added some sound, just to cover how weak and bad this song is.
At the end they made 2 crimes against Eurovision – creating a song that you can’t remember at the end of it and it’s also a song you have no wish to hear it again.
The original song was bad, the revamp made it even worse as it sound like a song ready for the dance floor and not a song for a song contest. The sad thing about the whole thing is Michael himself. He has a voice, he can sing(some of his performance during X Factor, are a proof for that) and he has a chrisma any performance would kill for. He is better than the song he has.This should stay at the semi and should be a warning signal for KAN so they rethink their strategy