#queue eturautti

Iveta Mukuchyan - LoveWave (Armenia)

First impression: I’m reminded of the amazing Aminata from last year because of the whole “unusual power ballad” angle. However, I don’t feel like this is as successful - the chorus is a bit too inscrutable. A lot is going to hinge on the stage performance for me. I’m always kind of into Armenia’s songs and this year is not an exception, but LoveWave is just a little too hard to follow for the general public in my opinion. If it has a super cool staging, it could do well.

Nina Kraljić - Lighthouse (Croatia)

Pretty but kind of bland. Nina has a super pretty voice but the song doesn’t particularly go anywhere. It’s just another Eurovision ballad at first listen.

Sandhja - Sing It Away (Finland)

Hooooooo boy. This is gonna be a long one, because I have the most input on this one.

I’m Finnish. And yes, I did watch all of our semis and our national selection. Sandhja was super divisive as a winner: she only got in because our jury vote, which accounted for half of the votes, edged her into first place - Saara Aalto and Mikael Saari both beat her in the public vote.

HOWEVER. I believe the juries were right and we picked the best performance, and I’m going to dissect why.

There were major, major flaws in ALL potential winning performances this year in UMK (and that’s not even going into how Yle, our national broadcaster, always fucks up the mixing in the live - this year they managed decently in the semis AND THEN FUCKED IT UP FOR THE FINAL).

Saara Aalto was the big fan favorite (she’s pretty huge in Finland right now partially due to voicing Elsa in the Finnish dub of Frozen): she’s a great singer, the choreography was kind of fun, but the song is kind of... weird. The chorus is memorable but not necessarily in a good way in everyone’s mind, and the verses are completely forgettable.

Mikael Saari also has a magnificent voice and the song is easily my favorite from this year’s UMK, but the stage performance was lackluster and the song itself doesn’t lend itself to just one listen - you have to listen to it several times to really “get” it. Additionally, the staging and the structure of the song (no real chorus and unusual verse structure) kind of made the whole thing feel like a scene from a musical.

Cristal Snow would have had a very strong song if it wasn’t for one thing - he’s not a very good singer. The cold opening with no backing vocalists to help out his voice (which doesn’t really open until the second verse) really hurts the performance. The staging in the live performance was amazing, the backing singers are beyond amazing, and the song is beautiful. It’s such a damn shame Cristal isn’t a stronger vocalist.

Annica Milán and Kimmo Blom had great staging, magnificent voices and a decent enough song. However, their performance was kind of stilted, they sounded like they yelled through the song in both the semi and the final, and the lighting really did not favor Kimmo, who looked quite a bit older than his actual age of 46.

And as a summary of the other acts: Eini improved a lot from the semi to the final in terms of keeping her vocals clean but the song is still straight from the 80′s in the worst way, Stella Christine seems so sweet but her song would have been the song during which Europe goes to the fridge, Barbe-Q-Barbies toned their act down for ESC leaving them with a song that’s too rock for non-rockers and not rock enough for rockers (also they suffered most in the final from Yle’s awful mixing), and Tuuli Okkonen’s song was a snorefest to me and I literally can’t remember anything about it other than the first two lines of the chorus.

Sandhja’s live performance was all over the place - the outfits and choreography were weird, and Yle’s awful mixing does no justice to her vocals. However, the vocals already seem better than they are in the official preview video, the song is a fun party dance tune, Sandhja has a great stage presence, and overall, I just think Sing It Away is the strongest contender with the most potential to come together into a great live performance, and we made the right choice with her. She just really needs to brush up on that stage choreography and fill the stage with her charisma.

Phew! Let’s get back to actual first impressions.

Argo - Utopian Land (Greece)

This starts so well! And then it turns into Greek rap that very much reminds me of what Finnish rap sounded like in the late 90′s. Rap never does well in this contest and I don’t think it’s going to do well this time around either. The minimalism is kind of cool but ends up with the song never really going anywhere.

Freddie - Pioneer (Hungary)

This is alright in my book. Freddie has a nice voice and the soft electro thing going on here is pleasant, and the lyrics are pretty good for ESC. Plus I’m always a little biased when a song has whistling in it.

Lidia Isac - Falling Stars (Moldova)

Starts off a snooze, then goes into a very tame disco beat. Decent enough but nothing special. Lyrics are forgettable, but nowhere near the worst this year.

Douwe Bob - Slow Down (The Netherlands)

This feels like a lazy rehash of The Common Linnets. Or, if I go further back, a ballad version of Germany in 2006. I’m sorry, I don’t like this. I don’t hate country or folk, but I don’t like this song in particular.

Sergey Lazarev - You Are The Only One (Russia)

My initial reaction: oh no, this is kind of good. It’s obviously very Heroes-inspired, but that’s to be expected of ESC - people copy last year’s winner pretty much every year. Is probably going to have amazing staging, because it’s Russia. Or at least I hope it’ll be better than the preview video, which is kind of corny in parts.

Serhat - I Didn’t Know (San Marino)

Someone other than Valentina Monetta is representing San Marino? BLASPHEMY. All joking aside, Serhat has a pretty great voice in terms of tone - the comparisons to Leonard Cohen are apt - but speak-singing hasn’t done well in the contest. There’s not a lot of melody here and everything hinges on Serhat’s bizarrely purring voice just sort of yammering through the verses and then picking up a bit of melody in the verse.