Your honour, I present to you the latest example of an artist that’s bigger than their song. I wrote about the phenomenon a couple-or-three years ago, whereby someone wins the national final on the back of their place in local culture, even though the song they’ve entered is a bit of a dog.
Monika Liu is a Big Name in Lithuania. She’s a judge on the local franchises of big international hit TV shows like The Masked Singer and The Voice. And I’m sure she’s very good at it. She’s certainly popular with the TV audience, and it’s this that has no doubt helped garner attention for her song. Her song is as sentimental as its title. It has echoes of French chanson, and Monika sells it very well, if you like this kind of thing. I don’t.
Music can be reviewed with some objectivity: the competence of the composition, lyrics, production, and the musicians playing on the track, for example. But mostly music is felt and responded to according to how it affects you, and this just doesn’t affect me. I’m happy to admit it’s just not my style; there’s certainly no point in taking Monika herself to task for it. Sentimental as she may be trying to be it’s just not tugging at my heartstrings and is, I’m afraid, my least favourite song of the year.
My marks: nul points