Baby, you're too good to be true

I've been kind of remiss in talking about some of the Eurovision and national final entries that I--well, not necessarily love, but want to say something about. Here, then, is a quick run down of some of my thoughts.

Russia
Let's start with this: I like Dima Bilan's music. I really do. However, the news we've heard recently out of Team Bilan seems too much like a team that thought they had the national selection sewn up trying to draw attention back to themselves. Sergey Lazarev's participation in the national final means that Dima is no longer one huge name amongst other less popular artists, and suddenly Dima's quest for the title of Russian representative seems a lot less sure...which makes me more than a little skeptical about the news story about Dima losing control of his name that we heard a little while ago (and which now appears to be having no ramifications whatsoever). Team Bilan then followed up that announcement with the news that (with the song they'd originally planned to enter not eligible--apparently it had been released by another artist years earlier) the song they were entering was Timbaland-produced, not an entirely surprising fact given that Dima had released the Timbaland-penned "Number One Fan" as a single earlier on (as well as the fact that as one of Russia's post successful popstars Dima and his management can easily buy a big name writer's song if they want to), but nevertheless a fact that would pretty obviously draw attention and press. Meanwhile, a clip of Sergey rehearsing, complete with a little bit of his song playing in the background, hit the Internet, shortly followed by the whole song. Dima's song was today put up on his website (admittedly in subpar audio quality).

All that background, though, may not be the most important thing--the real question is, which song is better? For me, it's easy: I definitely prefer Sergey's "Flyer (Under Fire)." Dima's song is a ballad with a typical Timbaland-type beat underneath it, a type of song I love when it's done well (Nelly Furtado's "Say It Right," Timbaland and OneRepublic's "Apologize"--though perhaps those aren't entirely accurate comparisons, since there's a little more acoustic guitar work going on here), but this just doesn't seem like a particular outstanding example of that type to me. For Timbaland knockoffs, I still much prefer the Czech Republic entry.

Sergey's entry, on the other hand, I loved from the first listen. Schlagerprick observed a little while back that it looks like we're headed for a Eurorave party at Eurovision, and "Flyer (Under Fire)" would fit right in with that environment; it's very danceable and I guess could be called "Europop." It's a song that sounds very much in the vein of Sergey's past work, though I'd say it's one of the best songs he's ever done. It'll lend itself to some group choreography wonderfully, though I'm not sure if has Eurovision winner written all over it (I'm having trouble explaining why--I think maybe just because it's not really really "big" in some way), but it's a great fun entry that I'd love to see do well on the night. I'm pretty sure it would be one of my favorite entries.

Greece
On the free and legal Eurovision mp3s front: I usually ignore all the mail I get from digital music stores I'm registered with, but amazingly you can get the non-Eurovision version of Kostas Martakis's national final entry"Always And Forever" here; you do have to be signed into their service, though, which means you'll have to register. It's been a while since I did, but there's definitely no monthly fee or anything, and I don't think you have to buy anything to create an account, just give them an e-mail address. Actually, let's just skip all that: if you're interested, here's the non-Eurovision version.

Always And Forever

Anyway, I might as well throw in my two cents on the Kostas song while I'm at it. The non-Eurovision version wasn't what I was expecting from the composer and I didn't really expect it to be something that would stand out at Eurovision, but something told me it could end up a personal national finals favorite with me, and I really think it will. The guitarry version isn't discotastic or schlagerrific or anything, but listening to it in high quality now (you can appreciate the backing vocals properly this way) has really made me realize how much I love it...which is a lot.

Kostas performed a remixed Eurovision version of the song (which, with its revving noises and dance influence, sounds more like I was expecting from Kontopolous) at Greece's national finals and took second (out of three), winning the jury vote but substantially losing the public vote.



Obviously it has no impact on the song's quality, but let's be honest, he looks pretty great here (plus, there's just something about a guy doing some group choreography that always gets me going). Let's talk about that dance break in the middle there, though--what was that? Kostas just stands there? Compare that with what we got at a similar point in, say, Charlotte Perrelli's "Hero"--right where the song should take off to whole new levels it feels like it's just gone all random and has taken a step back.

My music taste is really getting beyond predictable now, isn't it? Does it make it any better if I say No Angels's "Disappear" was my favorite song in Germany? Actually...

Germany

Germany just chose No Angels' "Disappear" to represent them this year and, though I'm skeptical as to how well the song will translate to the Eurovision stage, I adore "Disappear." A gorgeous mid-tempo ballad that's full of sweet production touches, it brings out a reaction in me similar to the one I imagine Girls Aloud's "Call The Shots" was supposed to. I'm so pleased for them, and I really hope I'm proven wrong about how well it ends up coming across at Eurovision.



As a song, I also liked the Cinema Bizarre entry, the electro-rock-pop "Forever Or Never" (it was good enough that I was able to put aside their probable origins and styling), but the lead singer proved last night (not embedded above) that he needs major frontman lessons--all he did was stand there! The fact that their performance managed to seem in any way dynamic is a credit pretty much solely to the camera work, which focused mainly on kind of jolting short shots of the band and close-ups of the singer. The chorus didn't translate well at all to the stage last night either.

Andorra

I love this. Yes, more predictable responses from me, but I think this is great if predictable cheesy catchy uptempo "traditional" Europop.

That's probably more than enough Eurovision writing for now--I'm sure tomorrow I'll be writing about Melodifestivalen, but I'll try to do something non-Eurovision related the day after that. Maybe. Or maybe I'll end up weighing in on a few more entries tomorrow in the lead-up to Melodifestivalen.

Now the silence keeps me up at night

Speaking of shady quality versions of songs hitting the Internet, the full version of "Disappear," No Angel's entry in Germany's national final is out there in its full version, though in poor radio rip quality, and it's good. Not sure about the impression it'll leave on the Eurovision stage, but it's a sweet mid-tempo pop ballad with some nice production going on. I was curious and so I went to Wikipedia to see if its songwriters were listed--and they were (if we can trust Wikipedia)--and some pretty good ones: Remee (Danish songwriter between loads of hits, including Christine Milton's "Superstar"), Thomas Troelsen (currently of the band Private, also a writer of loads of hits, including, recently, "Hot Summer" with Remee), and Hanne Sorvaag (who wrote the incredibly precious ballad "Brief And Beautiful," which Maria Arredondo and Edurne both sang versions of). The song is definitely worth a listen. Since I'm not sure of anywhere where you can stream the full version at the moment, should you really want to hear it, you can do so here for the moment, but be warned of the very low quality of the audio. I just noticed AcerBen has already posted this song--and in good quality, no less!--so go listen to it over at his blog if you want to hear it. Most of the responses I've read so far have been muted or negative, but (from a song, not Eurovision perspective) I genuinely think it's a great girl group ballad, one with enough energy and little production touches to keep my attention but that also manages to be very sweet and sad at the same time. I can almost imagine it having a video like the one for "Call The Shots" (though it's got a bit more energy than that song)--I mean, there are even little shooting star like sounds.

Once again, there's nowhere I can point you to to buy this song, but you can buy their most recent album, Destiny, here (physical) or here (digital).