Monsters by Saara Aalto
After turning around her fortunes so impressively on the UK X Factor the BBC should have snapped up Saara Aalto for ourselves, rather than leaving her to the Finns. She’s an ideal performer for a big showy number and boy can she sing. I love the fact she’s also an LGBT advocate, and she’s assembled some of our communities’ glorious misfits together for the promotional video of Monsters. It follows a tried and tested Eurovision theme, that of battling your personal demons to be the person you are, a topic her legion LGBT and wider geeky fans will instantly connect with.
I adore this, and I think Finland has a potential second Eurovision win on their racquet if only they can avoid playing an unforced error with the styling. The X Factor’s Brian Friedman might seem an obvious choice, having worked extensively with Saara on the show, but the Finnish final proved this wrong. The presentation, not only for this, but for all three of her songs, felt clunky, over complicated, and yet too simplistic at the same time in places.
It’s a relief to hear they’ll be changing it. An adapted routine while guesting in the Lithuanian final gave the performance more space to breathe, and for Saara’s powerful vocal to be the star of the show, rather than some contrived concept of storytelling. If they get this right, they could have it in the bag. But UMK showed just how important a factor this will play as when it misses the mark it fails spectacularly.
My marks: douze points!
Will it qualify? It had better…
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