#odis

I've been dying to write about this one...

The song is almost objectively awful. Lyrically, the English is poor and although not ambiguous, there's enough there to make you wonder exactly what's going on. The character that Arnis Mednis is portraying is not a nice man. Someone has described him as a 'drunk uncle at a wedding', and yes, although he's drunk, and he may be an uncle, it's the events around his own wedding he's describing. There's the strong possibility that he cheated on his wife the night before the wedding. He drags his new wife to a bar when she'd prefer a cup of tea. At least she dumps him in the end.

This version is a glow-up from the version that scraped the win in Eirodziesma 2001 by two points. That was slower-tempo affair with much more restrained vocals and a jolly accordion and a rapped section with Arnis begging to be taken back. Allegedly it's an anti-drugs song, and although he sounds coked up to the eyeballs, it's far too happy a song to be anti-anything. Apart from Arnis and his lyrics, there isn't a dark thing about Too Much at all

Arnis is great at portraying a truly obnoxious man, a terrible human being with barely a sliver of self-awareness. Troublingly I'm not sure how much of this is genuine and how much is an act - however confrontational.

He was in a band called Odis from the end of the 1980s and the early 1990s. Their first album was called Sātana Radītā (Created by Satan) and contains tracks called Black Girls and Portrait No. 2. Woman In Bathing-costume. That this album consists of lounge jazz or possibly lethargic library music might be part of an elaborate joke that I'm not getting, or it might be that there's a huge degree of delusion and misogyny going on.

And yet, here it is at number 19 in my top 26 for 2001. Why on earth would I do this to you?

Well, I like that happy little tune. I admire the backing singer in the final who truly throws herself into her new vocal line with abandon and whe there's nowhere to hide doing that live in front of 38,000 people. There's the guitar that kicks in on the choruses, the call and response, it's rough, it's dirty and it absolutely suits the song. And they got rid of the rap. Without the context of the lyrics, the song itself is an absolute blast.

Arnis the singer clearly does have some self-awareness that Arnis the character in the song is an awful person. There is parody here, even if I can't tell what level that parody is operating at. His usual output is jazz, and as this is about as far from jazz as you could possibly get. As he wrote this, it could be pastiche. I don't think it's trolling Eurovision, but I can't be 100%. That's an enticing, teasing ambiguity.

Mostly though this song is the utter antithesis of the love song. Eurovision is awash with love songs, positively bathing in attachment, passions, desire and happy hormones. It does need contrast. And here is that friction; the sand in the lubricant. It is an excellent representation of someone who is so self-obsessed and far too gone on whatever substances he's taking that his memory is destroyed and his lies fail to last even two days into a marriage. Someone you'd never want to go near once you'd get to know him.

“This is Odis. He’s a special needs dog. He has a condition called megaesophagus, which means his esophagus muscles in his throat don’t work. So, it can’t pull food down so we feed him in a high chair [made by scotty’s dad.]”

Marvel Comics has announced a Thor one-shot in time for the character’s 60th anniversary. Thor: Lightning and Lament #1 hails from writer Ralph Macchio and artist Todd Nauck.

“The Mighty Thor has abandoned Asgard in her greatest hour of need, leaving the Realm Eternal in the hands of his half brother Loki, in the absence of its rightful ruler, Odin. With Asgard under assault by legions of trolls, and the Lady Sif hovering near death due to a possibly fatal wound suffered in battle, can anyone save the Golden City from annihilation?”

Thor: Lightning and Lament #1, featuring a cover by Ron Lim, goes on sale on June 29, 2022.