Sunday, February 24, 2008

I realized that all my heartaches were a blessing in disguise

While Sweden was having its third semifinal last night, a lot of countries were having their finals. Some great songs were knocked out (Poland [though once I get a chance to properly listen I may end up thinking Isis Gee's entry is fine--not something I'll love, but fine], Romania, Ireland--though I still haven't caught up on the live performances there), but luckily we did get some real gems out of the night.

Iceland chose Eurobandið's "This Is My Life" as their entry to Eurovision--yay! I'm so happy for them, and really hope they do well on the night; the song is great (even if you think the original arrangement was better, I'd argue this version is still easily one of the better songs chosen so far), the singers can sing, and Iceland is well overdue for some good results, considering the great songs they've generally given us recently. Not only that, but the styling was finally approaching something reasonable--thank goodness they had three tries to get it right. Fridrik's outfit kind of reminds me of someone, though I can't place who...



Ukraine chose a stomping pop song that had a great performance. Ani Lorak is apparently a major popstar over there, which I love to see, and she was preselected as the singer for Ukraine--last night was dedicated to choosing which song she would sing. "Shady Lady" won--ignore the sketchy title, it's a great hard-hitting pop song with a performance that makes up for anything that might be pedestrian about the song.



I've still not made up my mind about Bulgaria yet. Deep Zone and Balthazar's ravey (in parts) "DJ, Take Me Away" won there. It's definitely a different sort of sound for Eurovision.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I really can't understand the 'fan reaction' to this year's contest. I think Eurovision 2008 is looking to be the best for years - there are some fantastic songs, not least those from Iceland and Ukraine. A return trip to Kiev in 2009 would not surprise me in the slightest, though Iceland cannot be discounted with this song, which is surely their best for years. Not a fan of Bulgaria's entry, but it will get it share of votes just as 'Water' did last year.

Poster Girl said...

I'm not really a fan of Bulgaria's either, I've decided, but it is kind of nice to have something like this in the contest as opposed to something very...blah. There are a lot of songs I really love as well! To the extent that there are many songs I'd be happy to see win this year.