Moopyvision 2010-2019 Round 14: Croatia, Romania & Switzerland

2nd: Feminnem - Lako Je Sve (157pts)

t1larg.jpg


Following the bouncy delights of 2005's Call Me, the Bosnian-Croat Spice Girls hopped across the border in 2010 for their inevitable grown up ballad moment.

It's really quite a nice song and for the most part well sung, but they were unfortunate enough to have virtually all of their neighbours in the other semi-final that night. Some truly abysmal Norwegian camerawork can't have helped either - how many long shots does one performance need?!

Decent enough, but let's face it, it's more Forever than Spice World at the end of the day.

4 x 12 (auretz, Alla, David_5000, Kevin7)
3 x 1 (Pingu, Suomi, Superstylin')

1st: Nina Kraljić - Lighthouse (172pts)

p03trhsw.jpg


The Croatian Robyn triumphs!

This is probably fair enough, as it's clearly the best actual song to be found in this sorry shower. A sort of Balkan take on an early Cranberries hit was an interesting angle we hadn't quite heard before, and it stood out enough to return them to the finals for the first time since - yikes! - 2009.

Could it have done even better? Perhaps if her vocal hadn't fallen apart quite so dramatically, or if she hadn't dressed up like an explosion at the macrame workshop she could have clawed back a few extra points, but to be honest this is one of those songs where getting over the line at all represents the victory. Besides, opening for Sergey Lazarev in the 2016 final was probably going to be a death sentence for any entry.

If you liked this, I highly recommend Nina's other big Croatian hit Zaljuljali Smo Svijet, which is really quite beguilingly lovely in a similar vein.

4 x 12 (Kalabaliken, Raining on Me, wurst, Superstylin')
3 x 2 (Alla, Ag, Win The Game)
 
VoR said:
3rd: Daria - Celebrate (154pts)

Eurovision+Song+Contest+Dusseldorf+2011+1st+KN51sBvLIAmx.jpg


Now this is more like it! :disco: You've got to love a song that starts off promising a relatively contemporary SULTRY BANGER, only to awkwardly lurch into the most basic bitch eurovision chorus imaginable.

Much to admire here. Daria's gamine flailing, the succession if increasingly hideous dresses, that catwalk STRUT that resembles nothing more than a pissed up hen party casualty staggering down the main street after being chucked out of Flares for lewd behaviour, the truly craptacular middle-eight ("Just keep moving and dancing and dancing and dancing" - INSPIRED!) and, of course:

tenor.gif


A literal hate crime that this didn't qualify over some of the dreck in that semi final. Suffused with the very spirit of Eurovision.

4 x 12 (VoR, Pingu, Penelope, Tischlampe)
1 x 0 (dmlaw is evidently not in the mood to salibrate :()
Click to expand...

If only Croatia had stuck with the original version 'Break A Leg'.
 
Ugh. Lako je sve is beautiful and cruelly robbed once again.
 
I can't actually believe Moopy shunned Fat Jacques and then gave the thumbs up to the rest of that pageant of mediocrity.

Lighthouse is okay in studio form (at a push), but Nina looked like she'd just stepped off the set of her new feature SuRie and the Explosion in Dunelm, and every part of the performance felt like someone had misread the stage manager's notes. The rest of them, I'm not ashamed to say, I have no fucking idea how they went.
 
I heard Lighthouse the studio version the other day and couldn't place it. It really is SO good. But that live performance was tragic and God awful. I based my score on that and sure I only gave it a 2 or something.:square:

Edit: oh I gave it 6!
 
Romania

9th: Hotel FM - Change (29pts)

Eurovision+Song+Contest+Dusseldorf+2011+General+p8iDU9VAcWax.jpg


Ugh. First of all, imagine reaching a degree of success in the music industry and calling your band HOTEL FM. Imagine your highest aspiration as a musician being to invoke the feeling of the dreary easy listening piped into the lobby of a Premier Travel Inn. At least you can't accuse them of lacking self-awareness I suppose.

Anyway this was a stealth British entry, lead singer David Bryan was a jobbing session singer from Durham who decamped to Romania and managed to build up enough of a following to win the Romanian national selection with this sub Take That piece.

The sad thing is, had it been an actual British entry it probably would have been one of our better efforts, but from a country as reliably offbeat as Romania it's a HARD PASS. Offensively heterosexual filler, and the deserved lowest scorer of this entire round by some margin.

1 x 6 (Alla)
9 x 0 (VoR, auretz, Buttertart, Kalabaliken, Win The Game, Raining on Me, Superstylin, Dark Carnival, Penelope)
 
Last edited:
VoR said:
Romania

10th: Hotel FM - Change

Eurovision+Song+Contest+Dusseldorf+2011+General+p8iDU9VAcWax.jpg


Ugh. First of all, imagine reaching a degree of success in the music industry and calling your band HOTEL FM. Imagine your highest aspiration as a musician being to invoke the feeling of the dreary easy listening piped into the lobby of a Premier Travel Inn. At least you can't accuse them of lacking self-awareness I suppose.

Anyway this was a stealth British entry, lead singer David Bryan was a jobbing session singer from Durham who decamped to Romania and managed to build up enough of a following to win the Romanian national selection with this sub Take That piece.

The sad thing is, had it been an actual British entry it probably would have been one of our better efforts, but from a country as reliably offbeat as Romania it's a HARD PASS. Offensively heterosexual filler, and the deserved lowest scorer of this entire round by some margin.

1 x 6 (Alla)
9 x 0 (VoR, auretz, Buttertart, Kalabaliken, Win The Game, Raining on Me, Superstylin, Dark Carnival, Penelope)
Click to expand...
What WAS the score?
 
VoR said:
Oh, sorry, 29pts.

BTW despite my palpable lack of enthusiasm for this at the moment, I do have exciting plans for the final stages, so hang in there. Just one more regular round to go, and it's a decent one.
Click to expand...
You've teased Hungary out until the last possible second. Are Austria and Poland the others?
 
8th: Ester Peony - On a Sunday (63pts)

gallery-19:10.jpeg


a.k.a. the one that was infamously chosen by two members of Wiwibloggs and a sizeable backstage cash transfer (ALLEGEDLY!)

In their defence, the Romanian public got behind a horrendously twee opera number from a notorious homophobe, so while there were better candidates for dodgy over-promotion, I'll take this ropey Lana Del Rey knock-off any day of the week.

They did their best to dress it up on the night, but the fact that only 356 people were moved to pick up the phone for it in the Romanian NF was a pretty clear indication of the way this was going to go. It just isn't much of a song really, is it? There's about half of a decent song in there somewhere, but unfortunately they stopped short of teasing it out into anything worth the obvious investment somebody (likely a close relative) put into it.

1 x 12 Dark Carnival
4 x 0 (Jacques, Pingu, Suomi, Ill advised)
 
Last edited:
VoR said:
Yep. So yes, Hungary is going to be... testing, aside from the obvious. But Austria and Poland have a few treats.
Click to expand...
I've been looking forward to Viszlat Nyar as well, but I'm surprised you consider it to be an obvious winner.
 
On a Sunday was just horrible. Since I'm on a kick of defending homophobes, I quite liked that Laura Breton song. The obvious wide-on she has for her Dad in the lyrics makes me think she should probably step down the moral outrage over the gays.
 
7th: The Humans - Goodbye (76pts)

Humans-Live.jpg


Another that sort of won the (apparently deeply dysfunctional!) Romanian national selection by accident, this slice of Billie Myers-esque 90s MOR became the country's first ever non-qualifier in 2018.

In fairness this is very well sung, but it suffers from a structure that takes far too long to arrive at anything resembling a hook, coupled with one of the more inscrutable stage concepts I've seen in recent years. Scary mannequins + strong lesbian subtext + random cellist doing the robot = success? Not in this game fellas.

I can't help but imagine the sad and lengthy process of packing all that shit up at the end of the night before they boarded the shuttle bus back to Bucharest.

1 x 12 (auretz)
3 x 0 (Soldi, Kevin7, David_5000)
 
6th: Voltaj - De la capat (87pts)

Voltaj-Selectia-Nationala-2015-final.jpg


Now, I know this one is very much not for here, but at the risk of doing a Buttertart I must admit I have a certain sneaking regard for it. Yes, it's a touch po-faced, but it's also NICE and SINCERE, with a hook that's surprisingly durable once you get past the fact that it's not - as all the best Romanian entries obviously are - fronted by a possible former sex worker writhing to a tinny Balkan dance beat.

Never in line to win, of course, but they put their message across without being too po-faced about it, and evidently raised a fair bit of money for their charity. It's an acceptable passing grade for me, and the fact that the Romanians went from THIS to YODEL IT is frankly Meryl Streep levels of range.

1 x 12 (Suomi)
3 x 0 (Ag, wurst, Kevin)
 
This generally got a positive reaction from everyone around and in fact I think it's NICE. I never choose to go back to it however.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 1 (members: 0, guests: 1)
Back
Top Bottom