Eurovision Season 2018: January Update
Happy New Year to all and with 2018 speeding into our lives, the new Eurovision season gets properly into full swing and us die-hard fans get our teeth stuck into the various entries from around Europe. There have been some highlights and low points of early days of the race to be the Eurovision winner (listening to all 60 of the Romanian entries was tedious to say the least). Nonetheless, it is good to be back in the world where we have songs coming out from all around Europe every day! Let's take a look at the national races in play for January and Early February.
France
Barring Cyprus announcing their song before France's national final on January 27th, the next song to be officially confirmed for Eurovision will be French! As a Brit and therefore a citizen of a big five nation, it is downright refreshing to see a country like France begin to strategise a path towards winning Eurovision and having much success in the process. It says a lot that last year's entry which was criticised both for the staging and the English chorus still managed to finish 10th in the Televote and 12th overall.
This year, Destination Eurovision will select the French Eurovision entry and the signs are very, very good. A song from French pop-star Maitre Gims, songs from many different genres, an international jury including Christer Bjorkman, a Melodifestivalen-style voting system. It has all the ingredients to be an absolute cracker of a show and on top of all of that, the January timing means that we will be able to enjoy the Semis and the Final without in getting in the way of any other National Finals (no offense February). My personal favourite is Louka's 'Mamma Mia' but it will be a very tight race and there is by no means a guarenteed winner.
Spain
Spain will always hold a special place in my Eurovision heart because I flew to Stockholm in support of their 2016 entry 'Say Yay' during the 2016 contest. It must be said though that they haven't had much luck at all at Eurovision in recent years. Their 2015 entry was one of the biggest under-performers of the Vienna contest, their 2016 entry fell prey to bad luck on the running order and nobody will be able to forget their 2017 entry for all the wrong reasons.
Spain have reverted back to their once-popular TV show Operacion Triunfo to select their entry for the contest. I am not going to even try to explain how the show works nor will I pretend I have watched it. What I will say guiltily is that Spain's 2002 entry (Rosa Lopez with 'Europe's Living a Celebration') is to date one of my favourite Eurovision songs of all time so more of that please! The show will select the Eurovision act on January 29th and the format of how it will work is very unclear. We know that the songs will be sung 100% in Spanish (the native language obsession of 2018 continues), that they will be written by a prestigious songwriter and that the act will be 100% chosen by the televote (Spain desperately trying to distance themselves from the complete farce of last year). I for one was all for sending Mirela's 'Contigo' to Kyiv last year and was very disappointed to see the complete mess that the Spanish broadcaster made of that situation. Here's hoping for five very good acts in the January 29th final and a strong placing in the first contest on the Iberian peninsula since the controversial Madrid 1969 contest. Barcelona 2019 could certainly make for a tasty prospect!
Czech Republic
One can't say that the Czech broadcaster aren't trying, however having had the chance to listen to all the songs, I can say with a fair bit of confidence that you will find me watching the Spanish Final on January 29th as opposed to this one. I am not the only Eurovision fan who thinks that Mikolas Josef's 'Lie to Me' is a very clear winner of this national final (desperately trying not to raise the ghosts of Poland's 2016 national final). I never like to write countries off, but even assuming 'Lie to Me' wins, we aren't going to Prague next year! I fully back the Czechs and I loved their entry last year, but I can say with a fair bit of confidence that everything expected of the winner of this national final will be achieved if their entry manages to get through to the Saturday's Grand Final (and given the standard of the songs that is a very big if). But hey, I will put the video of 'Lie to Me' below, see what you make of it and let me know in the comments.
Malta
I don't know where things began to go wrong for Malta. When I first started watching Eurovision in 2012, 2013, the Maltese entries were my favourites. 2015 saw them miss out on the Grand Final when Amber's 'Warrior' didn't manage to do enough, 2016 saw Ira Losco win a national final and then perform a completely different song at the contest and 2017 saw some of the worst Eurovision staging I have seen in my time watching the contest (with a song that I actually really enjoyed).
Things aren't looking better for the island nation this year. The clear favourite is Brooke Borg who has been sniffing around the top of the Malta Eurovision Song Contest leaderboard for the last two years. The song is called 'Heart of Gold' and it's an upbeat dancy, sunny number that will definitely get the Lisbon crowd jumping (video below). This is definitely looking like it will be her year, but some of the lyrics in this song are downright pathetic. Highlights include "That shirt won't get you laid tonight" and "You're a pack of wolves with a heart of gold" which unfortunately are part of the pre-chorus and chorus respectively. The song is still one of my favourites from what I have listened to and if they get the staging right (and again, a very big if) then they might have a shot at making the Grand Final. It's not a song that I see going particularly well with the stage but as I have said on this blog before, I would love to see Malta win Eurovision and at least a return to the Grand Final would be a good return for what is honestly not a very good year.
Switzerland
And finally, how do you solve a problem like the Swiss? The country that hosted and won the first ever Eurovision Song Contest in Lugano has placed in the top 10 once since 1993 and in the 14 contests that have included Semi-Finals, they have qualified for the Grand Final four times. You could pick out a whole bunch of reasons why this is the case but to be brutal to the Swiss, I just genuinely don't think they have a fantastic music culture. Need I remind Eurovision fans reading this that their only victory since winning the first ever contest was courtesy of a Canadian named Celine Dion? Well, you can only make do with what you're given and in defence of the Swiss, I think it's not the songs that have let the Swiss down but just very poor staging at the contest.
This chink in their armour will particularly show this year not because of the five mediocre entries in their national final but because of the one song that is simply sublime. Chiara Dubey has entered into the Swiss final multiple times already, but this is the first time she is singing in English and it is nothing short of beautiful. Starting completely acapella and building in the string instruments gently, 'Secrets And Lies' is a masterpiece. It's the type of song where you can envision the staging even before you see it performed. I talk about the Swiss issue with staging and the problem is, with a song as slow as this one, the staging needs to be perfect to send it through to the Grand Final. Get the staging, the dress and the camera angles right and I believe we could see the first Swiss top 10 since Vanilla Ninja's 2005 entry 'Cool Vibes' (I promise I'm not making that up). Listen to it and see what you make of it (it's better than the other dross in this National Final). I will say that with an all-English final both this year and last year, that the Swiss are missing a trick by not making use of German, French or Italian, because in my opinion, that is their clear route to becoming regular finalists again.
Anyhow, that's your lot! We should hopefully be getting some information about finals from the United Kingdom, Denmark and Italy's 'Sanremo' very shortly and there will be an update in the next edition of this blog. You can follow along through Eurovision season with my playlist of songs ranked in their order of my preference here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWyN8ISpszhD3KgZl1Lku8FjE0OvHRAFa
Happy listening fellow fans! Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!
France
Barring Cyprus announcing their song before France's national final on January 27th, the next song to be officially confirmed for Eurovision will be French! As a Brit and therefore a citizen of a big five nation, it is downright refreshing to see a country like France begin to strategise a path towards winning Eurovision and having much success in the process. It says a lot that last year's entry which was criticised both for the staging and the English chorus still managed to finish 10th in the Televote and 12th overall.
This year, Destination Eurovision will select the French Eurovision entry and the signs are very, very good. A song from French pop-star Maitre Gims, songs from many different genres, an international jury including Christer Bjorkman, a Melodifestivalen-style voting system. It has all the ingredients to be an absolute cracker of a show and on top of all of that, the January timing means that we will be able to enjoy the Semis and the Final without in getting in the way of any other National Finals (no offense February). My personal favourite is Louka's 'Mamma Mia' but it will be a very tight race and there is by no means a guarenteed winner.
Spain
Spain will always hold a special place in my Eurovision heart because I flew to Stockholm in support of their 2016 entry 'Say Yay' during the 2016 contest. It must be said though that they haven't had much luck at all at Eurovision in recent years. Their 2015 entry was one of the biggest under-performers of the Vienna contest, their 2016 entry fell prey to bad luck on the running order and nobody will be able to forget their 2017 entry for all the wrong reasons.
Spain have reverted back to their once-popular TV show Operacion Triunfo to select their entry for the contest. I am not going to even try to explain how the show works nor will I pretend I have watched it. What I will say guiltily is that Spain's 2002 entry (Rosa Lopez with 'Europe's Living a Celebration') is to date one of my favourite Eurovision songs of all time so more of that please! The show will select the Eurovision act on January 29th and the format of how it will work is very unclear. We know that the songs will be sung 100% in Spanish (the native language obsession of 2018 continues), that they will be written by a prestigious songwriter and that the act will be 100% chosen by the televote (Spain desperately trying to distance themselves from the complete farce of last year). I for one was all for sending Mirela's 'Contigo' to Kyiv last year and was very disappointed to see the complete mess that the Spanish broadcaster made of that situation. Here's hoping for five very good acts in the January 29th final and a strong placing in the first contest on the Iberian peninsula since the controversial Madrid 1969 contest. Barcelona 2019 could certainly make for a tasty prospect!
Czech Republic
One can't say that the Czech broadcaster aren't trying, however having had the chance to listen to all the songs, I can say with a fair bit of confidence that you will find me watching the Spanish Final on January 29th as opposed to this one. I am not the only Eurovision fan who thinks that Mikolas Josef's 'Lie to Me' is a very clear winner of this national final (desperately trying not to raise the ghosts of Poland's 2016 national final). I never like to write countries off, but even assuming 'Lie to Me' wins, we aren't going to Prague next year! I fully back the Czechs and I loved their entry last year, but I can say with a fair bit of confidence that everything expected of the winner of this national final will be achieved if their entry manages to get through to the Saturday's Grand Final (and given the standard of the songs that is a very big if). But hey, I will put the video of 'Lie to Me' below, see what you make of it and let me know in the comments.
Malta
I don't know where things began to go wrong for Malta. When I first started watching Eurovision in 2012, 2013, the Maltese entries were my favourites. 2015 saw them miss out on the Grand Final when Amber's 'Warrior' didn't manage to do enough, 2016 saw Ira Losco win a national final and then perform a completely different song at the contest and 2017 saw some of the worst Eurovision staging I have seen in my time watching the contest (with a song that I actually really enjoyed).
Things aren't looking better for the island nation this year. The clear favourite is Brooke Borg who has been sniffing around the top of the Malta Eurovision Song Contest leaderboard for the last two years. The song is called 'Heart of Gold' and it's an upbeat dancy, sunny number that will definitely get the Lisbon crowd jumping (video below). This is definitely looking like it will be her year, but some of the lyrics in this song are downright pathetic. Highlights include "That shirt won't get you laid tonight" and "You're a pack of wolves with a heart of gold" which unfortunately are part of the pre-chorus and chorus respectively. The song is still one of my favourites from what I have listened to and if they get the staging right (and again, a very big if) then they might have a shot at making the Grand Final. It's not a song that I see going particularly well with the stage but as I have said on this blog before, I would love to see Malta win Eurovision and at least a return to the Grand Final would be a good return for what is honestly not a very good year.
Switzerland
And finally, how do you solve a problem like the Swiss? The country that hosted and won the first ever Eurovision Song Contest in Lugano has placed in the top 10 once since 1993 and in the 14 contests that have included Semi-Finals, they have qualified for the Grand Final four times. You could pick out a whole bunch of reasons why this is the case but to be brutal to the Swiss, I just genuinely don't think they have a fantastic music culture. Need I remind Eurovision fans reading this that their only victory since winning the first ever contest was courtesy of a Canadian named Celine Dion? Well, you can only make do with what you're given and in defence of the Swiss, I think it's not the songs that have let the Swiss down but just very poor staging at the contest.
This chink in their armour will particularly show this year not because of the five mediocre entries in their national final but because of the one song that is simply sublime. Chiara Dubey has entered into the Swiss final multiple times already, but this is the first time she is singing in English and it is nothing short of beautiful. Starting completely acapella and building in the string instruments gently, 'Secrets And Lies' is a masterpiece. It's the type of song where you can envision the staging even before you see it performed. I talk about the Swiss issue with staging and the problem is, with a song as slow as this one, the staging needs to be perfect to send it through to the Grand Final. Get the staging, the dress and the camera angles right and I believe we could see the first Swiss top 10 since Vanilla Ninja's 2005 entry 'Cool Vibes' (I promise I'm not making that up). Listen to it and see what you make of it (it's better than the other dross in this National Final). I will say that with an all-English final both this year and last year, that the Swiss are missing a trick by not making use of German, French or Italian, because in my opinion, that is their clear route to becoming regular finalists again.
Anyhow, that's your lot! We should hopefully be getting some information about finals from the United Kingdom, Denmark and Italy's 'Sanremo' very shortly and there will be an update in the next edition of this blog. You can follow along through Eurovision season with my playlist of songs ranked in their order of my preference here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWyN8ISpszhD3KgZl1Lku8FjE0OvHRAFa
Happy listening fellow fans! Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!
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