Norway – Queen of Kings – Alessandra
This is much more like it. Norway tends, as Wogan used to say, to either win or score nothing and despite people thinking the contrary (yes Mo, imma looking at you), I happen to think that this is one of the best packages in the contest – and that is not a euphemism.
It’s right in my wheelhouse. I like this:
But most of you have never heard of this song or that I can wax lyrical about it for hours at a time, but I shall shave you from that. Norway, in my life, has form for this kind of thing, then, and from the moment Alessandra bounded onto the stage, I had a damn good feeling about this. You’ve got to be confident to put on your female empowerment song (yes, another one…) and set it to a driving beat with lots of dancers and light sticks and stuff.
Her tuning on some of the high notes can be a bit questionable, but when you perform with this much confidence, you can get away with not being that well-tuned a couple of times but certainly no more than that. Thankfully it is only a couple, so we’re all good. It certainly isn’t as well thought of as Sweden (the Default Option) or Finland (the fangirl option), and that’s because it’s a song that hasn’t been written specifically for the televote (Finland) or playing on the name of a mumbling old witch who won the contest eleven years ago ( weden, and yes I will tell her that to her face). It’s ploughing a lonely furrow, and I fear a Top 10 only for it. That’s a shame cos it’s a cracking passage. Fnarr!
For the video, you get the Italian version because I fucking can 😉
Phil’s Score – 10 Points