#they sung 'because of you' non-stop during eurovision

[darkcreamz95]

Hear me out, what if Gustaph came to Joker Out's Amsterdam concert 👀👀👀

[sole-cuore-amore-e-droga]

Tel Aviv 2019: Straight outta Slovenia to Eurovision with a dreamy couple

Oh boi, now here comes another NF I wasn’t interested in. I don’t hate EMA as a thing, it’s just that it’s infamous for not listening to what people want most of the time, often axing their faves (BQL, Raiven, Nika Zorjan, even going as far back as Saša Lendero and Nina Pušlar...). This year it seemed like Raiven finally had what it takes with her post-dubstep-era dubstep tune, “Kaos”. BUT did she go? Oh nope

Instead we got possibly the best thing that ever happened to Slovenia. That thing is this one entry sung by a cute crossover of Lorde and that trombone fetus thing from Courage the Cowardly Dog (well, at least she looks better than him, hence why ‘cute’), Zala Kralj, and she has her 2-year-long partner Gašper Šantl by her side too, to make up the musical part for the couple’s Eurovision 2019 entry for Slovenia, “Sebi”.

Let’s start reviewing this by complimenting its atmosphere. It’s cosmic. It’s pure. It’s pleasant. I feel like I’m floating among the stars... in the same way as if someone is projecting a star backdrop on a wall and I’m just against the projection, dancing silly. I feel like I’m covered in stardust. This is achieved by the composition of the song, which is very melodic, although a bit background-music-like. It incorporates a lot of those softened hi-hats, soaring synth waves and harmonious additional backing vocals (I think I heard those? whatever that was that adds more depth and gorgeousness to the song...). The lyrics are also cute, the poetry here is pretty fascinating, and I love the hints of intimacy and nature. The chorus reminds me that you have to stay true to what you are and who you stand for, and you don’t need to apologize for being different. Something along the lines of this. And Zala sounds like a person that could do a vocal ASMR therapy - and I imagine that as something that gives tingles to my neck everytime I hear it. You just need to strip the melody away and let me listen to more of those silent, soft-spoken, eerie whispers, and usually I feel creeped out and want it to stop, but at the same time it’s seducing and oddly enough I want some more.

This song has its faults though - it’s supposedly the song being repetitive (look at that chorus’ lyrics, just repeating 3 lines during it doesn’t really suffice, especially with the song being composed like THAT), Zala’s vocals being so hauntingly chill they even sound too calming or too monotonous, and this song is a simple electronic track with it just flowing all so well? Like, it’s something you’d find more on an unknown project’s Bandcamp page and that project usually has 1500 views or so on their videos. It’s a soothing ocean, it’s a galaxy, but sometimes the silence overwhelms you too much you just want to fucking scream... or fall asleep and miss the beauty of it all.

So as a whole it’s a stellar ride through galaxies and supernovas: the song. Great production, slight lo-fi vibe (idk how to explain it but everything here feels so... hmm... soft tune and quiet vocals make it to be something of the more indie-er side of a lower-cost production I suppose?) and sparks of pure bliss raining down on me whenever I remember or hear it. Truly, truly some indie goodness.

The most interesting part? The guys seem too overwhelmed about their Eurovision experience! Sure, Eurovision doesn’t require a too-laidback approach from the participants, but there always are Eurovision non-enthusiasts (seriously, don’t yell at Eurovision participants on Youtube comments when they fail to recognize a language of a song’s from a previous year! Just because they didn’t hear it and/or forgot the language, doesn’t mean they need to be put at stake), or those who just didn’t expect to win their NFs and then are like “shit um now I need to do something about that Eurovision thing I guess”. Salvador never really watched it before, AWS didn’t really hope to participate in Eurovision at the early stages of their NF, now we don’t really hear much Eurovision news and shit from these two Slovenians... well except of them releasing a shortened version of their song so it could comply to Eurovision’s lenght rules (giving it an apt sub title - “Dare to Dream Version”), declaring that one line of the song’s will be sung in English so that everyone not speaking in Slovenian could understand it better (just like Lea sang the end of “Hvala, ne!” in Portuguese because... well we all understand either of them, do we? lol) and that their staging will be similar to the one they had in EMA, and that their stage clothes won’t be the same but of a similar light color. They do have Eurovision in mind, but not quite as much as some other participants, and that’s perfectly fine. As long as they do their job right, that matters.

Approval factor: I may let you in on a little secret here - this is, in fact, my absolute favourite Slovenian entry this decade, if not overall. I have a hard time approving Slovenian entries because they end up lacking something at the end. This one... kinda fits in well with me, so Zala and Gašper did enough of THAT to warrant a big fat thumbs up for me.

Follow-up factor: Wasn't a big fan of Lea's song, BUT I can confirm that she started something good for Slovenia in Eurovision, especially after qualifying. And the couple certainly continued it, so it moves on well! ^^

Qualification factor: Now that's an interesting question... I might be wrong but a part of me fears for them to become the fan favourite duo/couple with a really pretty song that doesn’t qualify, like it already happened to Norma John and ZiBBZ before. They even have been drawn to semifinal 1, ffs. But maybe there’s still a spark of hope somewhere for the two, and I’d be inclined to believe that there is. I don’t wanna see sLOVEnia flop on the year I like their song, ffs. So I’m seeing a borderline result for thee, you the nation of usually fairly-underrated songs. Maybe this cosmic sea beauty will be in them finals.

NATIONAL FINAL BONUS

So, EMA 2019, eh? I guess that was a thing that happened. I at least admire the fact that they used dancing robots for their “not-so-postcards-but-postcards” that played before each performance (I mean, you’d get camera shots of the stage being set up for the act to perform next with their info graphic in the NF’s LED background and next to it there was a re-creation of The Creation of Adam with the other hand being one of a robot’s <3, then cut to EMA’s visual design of the year and the dancing robot person, another shot to the performing act, and then lights out). They had a good time there. And there was a duet singing Salvador Sobral’s ESC winning song, one of them performed by a person who had to be Salvador for a TV show. Ah, fun. I wasn’t all in up for the she-bang (instead I watched A Dal Semi 2 and Supernoval final on that night), but I got some other goodies that I noticed that people noticed before me, for y’all to reminisce. Here are some moments and some songs that lost to this lovely pair:

• So what’s the deal with Raiven, anyway? She’s on the show for her third time, and has already firmly grasped onto the iconic NF partaker’s status, together with.. well... other NF 3-timers (that are mostly from Sweden). This time she went all her way out to prove y’all that “dubstep’s not dead in 2019!!!1″ with her song, “Cows” “Kaos”, and a rather interesting effect show taking place on her face. I don’t know why but Raiven’s and Aly Ryan’s from Germany stagings remind me of each other, maybe because of them being so interesting? Anyway, like as usually, this multicolored songstress failed to grasp the victory of her country’s national final, and honestly, good for that to happen because in my irrelevant opinion, the dubstep in “Kaos” is ridiculously unnecessary and it doesn’t make the song flow very well. Just rework the chorus to make it more suited to the song and maybe it could have worked, as the last 30 seconds and the verses actually rock! I love me some songs that make me feel like I’m listening to sunset transcribed to actual melodies and sounds.

• The 2015 entrant couple, Raay and Marjetka, are incredibly restless for some reason, and it’s that because they have co-written quite a few songs over the past few years even since their eventual victory as themselves in 2015. Maybe they’re the Slovenian Stig Rästa, probably as in “we loved the Eurovision green room experience so we always want some more!” kind of way. This year they did 2 songs: an electro-swing inspired number about Fridays and “spending some quality time with one’s girls” for the Slovene JESC debutee Ula Ložar and a radio-pop-esque track for a lady named Kim (not Verson). The one that I gravitated towards more will have its video down below and it is probably obvious a bit now. And if it was my will, I’d’ve replaced Raiven with the below lady in the superfinal because... frankly, yet again, I’ll restate that imo it wasn’t Raiven’s year even without the eventual winners having participated...

• For a country of whose NF’s I didn’t seem to care about, they indeed had quite a few nice numbers. I already shed my thoughts on 2 of them, now here’s another one. Somehow, most countries out there shied away from having rock songs (well except Hungary because I don’t really see any other NF with more than 3 of those clearly audible rock/metal tracks, maybe has to do with the fact they already sent one last year), and as a result, none of the actually submitted ones won because things didn’t really go well with even the slightest rock-sounding songs last year (except one of them almost got into top 10). So one of the rock gems we happened to lose came from Slovenia. INMATE brought the 00s American alt-rock sound that was popular with uncomfortable teens that acted outrageous with their song “Atma” (which somehow means “soul”??). And man they were banging.

• There’s not much I want to say about the rest of the NF’s gems that you missed. Well, there was one song about horses that is considerably well-received by the fandom, perhaps because of the slow and relaxing ballad sound that surrounds it (but they don’t know the lyrics enough to start hating it). And a song co-written by last year’s Svenskfloppen winner that, as he was destined to, flopped in Melodifestivalen as well. And a decent club track that was actually one of my other favourites, together with “Atma”. And some 00s teen sitcom theme song performed by a completely-careless-about-their-image-band (they call themselves Lumberjack but they dress nothing like ‘em, I assure you) with chill-surfer-attitude-bearing, long-haired lead singer. They brought in a nice vibe at least with their color-splashing LED images and slightly energetic performance. And like I said about how the lead singer looked... well just look at him and try to not see him as a troublemaker teen archetype from a high school rom com or at least irl that can’t score a date:

Damn, Manel Navarro really let himself go.

• Lea Sirk, besides performing the ESC winning song from two years ago in a duet with someone, and obviously re-appearing to be a honourable guest after having won EMA last year after like 4-5 tries, also served her part as a jury member. Y’know, one of those people that maybe visibly or not visibly tried to push Raiven to her eventual EMA win after her 3 tries so that she wouldn’t become an annoying NF hogger for years on end. Well that didn’t happen because the televoters went for the Zalšper couple! You gotta love it when the teleaudience picks that song for Eurovision that is performed by those that didn’t specifically submit it because they wanted Eurovision, right? Well apparently, Lea took the loss of Raiven as a small stab to her heart and was heard complaining about the unexpected outcome (simply not being able to believe Raiven lost), out loud, to the viewing audiences at home and in front of computer screens. Yep, THAT happened... And I couldn’t be bothered to find a clip of it anymore, so instead I’ll post some pictures of a visibly shook Lea with her new hairdye on fleek (I guess that was to reflect Raiven’s love for hair dye?):

noooo why do I have to give a trophy to those whom I did not support to win... well fine I will

With all that out of the way, I just really hope for this lovey-dovey duo all the best possible with having to carry the responsibility of representing a country in a very big European music competition on their shoulders. They aren’t seemingly stressed out themselves from the looks of it (if they were in a Brantsteele’s Hunger Games simulation, they’d be those people who’d pick flowers all the time), but you know what happens when you’re given such a big honour but you let what the honour stands for down, upsetting the others who look up to the honour somehow. Terrible, terrible things. Hope the haters don’t grind these two down if anything happens. Srečno!

[borisbubbles]

12. DENMARK

Rasmussen - “Higher ground” 9th place

Ok, so somehow, in a contest with a nautical theme, the one song which *literally* started with the line “Ships in the making, bound for a distant shore” never got to open any of the live shows??? ¿¿Que??

So, Denmark. Quite possible the opposite of my previous entry, yet its greatness is just as challenging to put into words? As much as “Taboo” was a inaccessible conglomeration of every possible fucking staging trick, so simple was “Higher Ground” It is a great song, but I find it hard to explain why. It is just so much fun? 

It’s like a chapter of the Edda Saga come to life, with its Old Norse chanting, banner-swaying and feigned-drunken slrrrrring uv wrrrrds creating a truly immersive atmosphere. (I love all things Norse, so I was never NOT going to stan this) I love how one of the backings looks like precisely like Conchita Wurst’s long-lost sister. I dunno, Higher Ground just shines on its own, without the need of convoluted gimmicks (tho still bless Malta’s souls for burying “Taboo” under them for no other reason than it (barely) fitting within their ad-funded budget <3). 

So it’s of no surprise that this ended up the Michał of the year, yes?

As you are well aware of, Eurovision is in a continuous process of ‘reinventing itself’, which is code for ‘rejecting its Euroschlager roots in favour of increasedly pallid Ultratop50 knock-offs’, like guuuuurls you can do better than that. Think of an entry in this year that was actually *original*. I come up with... “O Jardim”, “Mercy” and maybe “Hvala, ne!”? Congratz 3/43.  This shocking display of self-loathing creates a power vacuum for the few -for some godforsaken reason- critically panned Euroschlager anthems which *do* make it into Eurovision proper. As the only entry in this year (out of 43) which can be described as “classic eurovision schlager”, “Higher Ground was always going to attract a lot of attention. Add in a few clear-as-crystal references to Game of Thrones (Rasmussen is literally Tormund + guyliner and a weave), a ubiquitous Viking tone and just general dramatic badassery, you’ve found yourself an audience’s fave and the bane for any jury chairperson’s existence. 

This is the long explanation why “Higher ground” is actually a great entry. It is the only entrant, in a year so widely praised as the “first serious contest in years”, that actually feels traditionally Eurovision.  For a brief moment, we are hooked up on pure Classic Eurovision, the term often used to describe the time when “Eurovision Songs Were Still Good”. 

And yes, it is highly ironic (and tragic) that the one entry that reminds many of that very murkily defined time period venerated by the critics, is also one that was critically panned by crappy self-important jurors. Would it that jurors had any self-awareness (I’m pretty shocked the EBU were able to find 43 rooms big enough to house the jurors and their egos), but oh well.

I suppose this is where I address the Melofestivalen shit, yes?

So, the jist of it is this: Two Swedes write “Higher Ground” for Melodifestivalen and get brutally rejected by Christer for reasons I can only guess, as HG was far better than anything in Melfest this year.. (Christer = Melfest’s Jeff Probst). 

Considering that Denmark has a herstory of recycling past Swedish trends- omg reminder that the 1986 Danish entry was a frame-by-frame carbon copy of the 1985 Swedish entry 😂,  please enjoy the pictorial evidence I have provided in support of this statement

 ps: I love that the Danish entry was called “You are full of lies” so unselfaware, so meta, so Denmark <3 

but I digress. Anyway,

Considering that Denmark has a herstory of recycling past Swedish trends, they of course picked up the "Higher ground”, put it in DMGP, substituted the Swedish singer with a Danish one and voila! The melfest reject wins DMGP with his fingers up the nose, cementing his place amongst the canon as an audience darling, and YES scoring significantly better than Ingrosso in the televote 😍The discrepancy shown by televote wasn’t as hilar as “Colour of your life” rising from last to sixth with one sudden stroke (given that Sweden had a higher combined score than Denmark somehow 🙄) but whatever, the ending was perfect because much like the Edda, this Viking Saga also ended with the evil trickster getting swallowed by the World’s Serpent. Sorry, Christer, should’ve taken the LEEP LAKYU WERBWND; FRR HIYRRRR GRWWWWWWND!!!!!

RANKING SO FAR:

12. Denmark (Rasmussen - “Higher ground”)

13. Malta (Christabelle - “Taboo”)

14. Cyprus (Eleni Foureira - “Fuego”)

15. United Kingdom (SuRie - “Storm”)

16. Serbia (Balkanika - “Nova Deca”)

17. Portugal (Cláudia Pascoal - “O jardim”)

18. The Netherlands (Waylon - “Outlaw in ‘em”)

19. Ukraine (MÉLOVIN - “Under the ladder”)

20. Macedonia (Eye Cue - “Lost and Found”)

21. San Marino (Jessika ft. Jenifer Brening - “Who We Are”)

22. Sweden (Benjamin Ingrosso - “Dance You Off”)

23. Austria (Cesár Sampson - “Nobody but you”)

24. Latvia (Laura Rizzotto - “Funny girl”)

25. Azerbaijan (AISEL - “X my heart”)

26. Israel (Netta - “Toy”)

27. Norway (Alexander Rybak  - “That’s how you write a song”)

28. Montenegro (Vanja Radovanovic - “Inje”)

29. Armenia (Sevak Khanagyan - “Qami”)

30. Poland (Gromee ft. Lukas Meijer - “Light me up”)

31. Greece (Yianna Terzi - “Oniro mou”)

32. Georgia (Iriao - “For you”)

33. Belgium (Sennek - “A matter of time”)

34. Italy (Ermal Meta & Fabrizio Moro - “Non mi avete fatto niente)

35. Romania (The Humans - “Goodbye”)

36. Ireland (Ryan O'Shaughnessy - “Together”)

37. Croatia (Franka - “Crazy”)

38. Belarus (ALEKSEEV - “Forever”)

39. Russia (Julia Samoylova - “I Won’t Break”)

40. Spain (Amaia & Alfred - “Tu canción”)

41. Iceland (Ari Ólafsson - “Our choice”)

42. Australia (Jessica Mauboy - “We Got Love”)

43. Czech Republic (Mikolas Josef - “Lie to me”)

FOOTNOTES

1. I couldn’t really fit it into the narrative, but the actual reason why Rasmussen is only 12th and not higher is because I found the act kind of visually underwhelming. (the snow at the end is particularly sad) Like I said, the song is great and I often have it on loop, but the act is a bit too small for a stage that big.

2. That said, “Higher Ground” is by far the song I’ve listened to the most often this season, which bodes well for any future positive morphs when I rewatch this year in the distant future.

3. Rasmussen bombing with the jury probably has more to do with the lack of gimmicks than the genre of the song. Like I said, the song pretty much carries itself, so if you stop to ponder and list all the things great about it, it all boils down to “the song is catchy and fun”, which is not what juries look at (juries love intricate acts, layered complexity and technical finesse, none of which are particular strengths of this entry)

4. Yes, I think it’s MASSIVELY hypocritical to glom onto songs such as “A Matter of time” under the pretence of “It’s a good song” when yeah it was, but everything else was shit and then subsequently ignore “Higher Ground” for being “only a good song”. wtf.  

5. While I do enjoy trashing the juries on a regular basis, be aware that during the actual Jury Era of this show, none of the juries were professional. In fact, when I rewatched 1978 and 1985, both times the hosts were ADAMANT to remind the audience that the juries were in fact NOT professionals, but 10 randomly selected civilians (Celeb and non-Celeb) with no direct ties to the music industry whatsoever. This is precisely why entries such as Riva, Bucks Fizz and Toto Cotugno managed to win a ’jury vote’ with a comfortable lead lmfao imagine that happening now. Anyway, the bottom line is that today’s “five professionals” jury system fucking sucks and has to be swallowed by Jörmundgandr also. 

6. ’Eurovision used to be good before’ is such a weird statement, yet I hear it all the time in relation to the contest (by people of my age group????) Like... what exact years are you refering to, cuz like... the 2000s were trash and I can’t honestly think of a decade as consistently good as the 2010s lol? We haven’t had a weak year since 2012!! (but of course, most of the people I’ve talked about this in person have, by their own admission, not seen a year since 2010 so how would they know lol)

7. If we assume that 'Eurovision used to be good before’ refers to the time when Eurovision was song-centric, that doesn’t make a lick of sense either? If you’re old enough to remember the late 1960s your taste is probably irreconcilable with mine anyway. And yes, while it took until #London1977 before we finally got a ‘gimmicky’ year, this also made for one of the most watchable, consistently fun contests ever, -even to this day- while “song-centric” years like 74; 75 and 78 are grueling to sit through nowadays unless you have the taste of the average Söngvakeppnin voter. Gimmicks were a part of ESC even during the Chanson Era, as the language barrier was a massive hurdle for any song not sung in French. And true, the “gimmicks” then weren’t more than “performing barefoot” or “having a key change”, but good lord it’s the sixties, flat, boring French Chansons dominated and only because everyone fucking understood French, SO GRASPING AT STRAWS HERE.

 8. The funny thing is that Denmark didn’t copy Kikki Danielsson’s evergreen once, but twice. 😂 “Hallo Hallo” (DK1990) was just a repackaged “Du er fuld af løgn“ (DK1986), which as I said, was itself just a slightly different “Bra Vibrationer” (SW1985). It’s seriously some Bra Vibraception shit.

9. I will never stop shitting on Melfest 2018. It was pure Tropical House Torture and yes, Rasmussen > literally everything in that, including the entries I actually like (which were... Jessica Anderson, Ida Redig and... um... Edvard Blom? Rolandz? Margaret? Samir and Viktor???? *gunshot*) 😂/🙄@ rescinding their roots for 2014′s musical fade. Pray that Christer never discovers reggaeton - though who am I kidding, it will dominate ESC selections in 2020, bank on it.

10. Now that I’ve mentioned them, one of “Higher Grounds” songwriters (Niklas Arn) actually was the bass player for Rolandz (who were my second faves in the finale by fucking default). Robbed twice, both in Melfest and outside of it, smfh.

11. Oh and I think “Higher Ground” in the hands of Sweden, absolutely would’ve been guaranteed top five (watch how most of these “professional” jurors suddenly would *like* it because, you know, Melfest Winner) and that’s all the humiliation I need. That said, I doubt “Higher Ground” ever would have actually won Melfest (it has the Heartbreak Hotel “dominates televote, gets screwed over by juries” label stamped all over it) but oh well, that’s just because Melfest SUCKS and the “International Juries” are a fucking farce. So it worked out for the better that “Higher Ground” was in fact not in Melfest, I think. 

12. Rasmussen is actually the first Danish ESC contestant since Emmelie de Forest that I’ve liked. Gratz?