Those of you who are as old as Methuselah will remember when David Coleman left Match of the Day and the Moustahche God that is Des Lynam took over and it was a seamless transition – well this, THIS is the Eurovision version with Me playing the silver fox and hoping to be just as good as the OG.
As the Eurovision creative team didnt release this to the world until well past beer o clock here in Sweden, this may be somewhat more direct than you are used to….well… some of you anyway!
Cyprus
The first thing I have to say here is that farting methane on the background is not a good look for anyone, least of all a girl that is trying to look alluring with her backing singers but the last time that happened, they came 2nd. Cilla Black is doing her best to distract you from what is, in effect, a dance break set to music but I understand people like that sorta thing.
Serbia
Its not a great opening to the contest when you get to follow something which is high-octane and it ends up being “a bit shit”. Teya looks bored in this 30 second preview clip which is going to make this song a hard sell fir Mrs Olafsdottor in Rekjavik to spend her 26 puffin eggs on. There are, seemingly, lots of sweeoing shots which could indicate some further business.
Lithuania
The famed saw-tooth of Christer Bjorkmans running order comes out again here and the uptempo song is that of Lithuania. On paper, this is going to be a decent uptempo song to wake you up after Teya has bored the life out of you. However, as I have said in my review, Silvester looks like that slappable posh lad that came to your school half way through the term. That wont matter but he bops around the stage but that red PVC jump suit is a poor choice.
Ireland
You pays your money and you takes your choice with this. This has been steadily been building up a head of steam on the old social media. Bambi looks great and there is even s subtle not to their thoughts on the thing thats happening quite a distance from the kitchen table I am writing this on. It looks fabulouosly staged and is creative. My worry is that there are going to be too many old duffers who wont vote for this. It had better get through.
Ukraine
Imagine Jamala singing in a force 10 gale in her pomp whilst she has Sherpa Tenzing assisting her and you wont go far wrong with the aesthetic with this. The background is full of rockets in the sky conveniently hidden as shooting stars and comets and the gold outfits are a nice touch. Alyona doesnt seem to want to go up the mountain, so doesn’t and I think that we should be grateful for small mercies. It’s a great song performed well and may well just get back in with a chance at the whole damn thing.
Poland
Fuck me this is shoddily staged. I know they are taking the chess theme to the nth degree here from the preview video but there are some choices that should be questioned. My esteemed colleague to my left has just said that the same person that was responsible for Embers was responsible for this…. shenanigans. Says everything really. You stop listening to the singing of a damn good song and just watch the car crash unfold in front of you!
Croatia
This is more like it. Baby Lasagne could do with toning the guy-liner down a touch though but it is very high energy and exactly what you would expect from a song that is on top of its game. Straight through, no question.
Iceland
Why is Hera Bjork standing in front of the set from the Pyramid Game whilst wearing Connor’s gold larme suit from Ireland last year? I suspect that RUV are not giving this anywhere near the love they would have given Bashar and it shows. Its almost like they have left Hera to fend for herself, which, granted, is not a difficult ask in the best of times but no one has seemingly bothered to point out the obvious. She’s dressed shockingly and performs woodenly and it might be better if they all just skulked off back from whence they came.
Slovenia
Slovenia is a #hotmess alright. Does a song about a witch being ducked in Ljubliana really need all the dancers as Raiven is trying to sing a song with a great message? Probably not, but they clearly have many kitchen sinks going cheap at the local Texas Homecare in Maribor for the delegation to throw at this. Even the 30 second clip makes me disengage.
Finland
I want to punch his stupid smug face into the middle of next week and this 30 seconds doesn’t change this. It’s not so much a song as a bad piece of performance art and his butt hanging out doesn’t offend me, the whole 3 minutes offends me. Just ..fuck..off..
Moldova
They have seemingly ditched the five clones of Natalia and replaced them with a set of angel wings, of all things, which helps things a bit but not that much to be honest. In it’s defence the shade of blue the background is on is very helpful and just when you think its one thing, she borrows Jamalas tree from her background in 1944 but that clunking change of backgrop doesn’t help to sell the story of the song to me. It’s disjointed and disconnected and whist we all know Natalia can sing, this 30 seconds leaves me with more questions.
Azerbaijan
There were some dodgy notes going down in the first 10 seconds of this clip and this made me turn off. Then we get to the visuals where FAHREE is singing in front of something that Pink Floyd or Art of Noise would have used as an album cover in their pomp. A person whom I am sitting with looked over at my laptop and said ” No points, that” – I’m still finding reasons to disagree with that and I haven’t got to any. Who is voting for it?
Australia
This is seven shades of shit wrapped up in a velvet box. It looks cheap, under thought out and with the addition of a First Nation digeridoo player it looks like tokenism. It isn’t supposed to be this, but that is what its going to look like. Voyager had 1,4 million AUD to spend, this year no government is bankrolling this and the six washers have clearly been spent on Electric Fields. They are not connecting at all with each other or with the camera and they know better. This is going down the drain and nothing short of a miracle will stop it from being flushed out of this bit.
Portugal
Coming after that mess, Iolanta looks vaguely classy. Vaguely being the descriptor here. Its a very “white” staging complete with fencing masks on the dancers. turn the contrast down and turn the talent up.
Luxembourg
Tali might be facing some sort of backlash here because of where she is from and whom has bankrolled this. I thought for a moment she was on her own but at the last minute she had her dancers come on and threaten to do something, just before Rylan came on and thanked me for staying up past my bedtime to see the clips of these!
Just what I think of course, that could all change!