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Laika Party by EMMY
A moment of disclosure here: when EMMY was in the Norwegian Melodi Grand Prix in 2021, she found herself in a dual against my buddy Big Daddy Karsten and unceremoniously dumped him out, so I came to this a teeny bit biased. Of course, having her met her at the recent London Eurovision Party she is pure delight, so I can’t hold a grudge for this long.
Form Norway to Ireland this year for EMMY with this tale of Laika, the famous Soviet space dog blasted into orbit to test the technology. EMMY wistfully ponders whether Laika might still be alive, orbiting around the earth to this day and enjoying her own Laika party in the sky. It’s a romantic idea, but I’m not sure EMMY’s thought this through. At this point Laika would be approximately 300 in dog years. She’s also documented as having died of stress and panic merely hours into the flight, despite initial claims by Soviet authorities that she survived about 4 days. Oh, those Russians! And all this is even assuming loading of sufficient long-life dogfood and Laika having been trained to open a tin of Pedigree Chum by herself. Does anybody want to break it to EMMY…?
But what is Eurovision if not a moment of escape? I’ll let EMMY have her fantasy; it seems to please her after all. She’s happier about it than I am of her song. I mean, it’s alright, but as a tune it’s easily as flimsy as its premise, and I can’t really see how this offers much in the way of competitiveness, pleasant – in the moment – as it may be.
My gripes about Ireland’s selection are nothing new, so I won’t rehearse them again here, suffice to say that even with a line-up of moderately interesting, albeit less than fully exciting, songs going for the most obvious, ‘safe’, mid-range pop feels disappointing after taking a genuine – and successful – risk with Bambie Thug.
My marks: 5 points
Photo: Andes Poveda/EBU