Eurovision 2007 - Part I

Ok, so as promised here is the complete run-down of my opinions of the Eurovision 2007 tracks.


I'm going to split it into two parts. Part 1 will feature those tracks entered into the semi-finals whilst part 2 will round up those tracks that automatically made it into the final proper. So without further ado, here we go. And I'm not going to bother, at this stage anyway, linking to any of these tracks. If you're that bothered, you know how you can find them.

(incidentally these are in the draw order for the semi-finals)

1 Bulgaria (Elitsa Todorova & Stoyan Yankoulov) Water

This one starts off with the opening of Money For Nothing by Dire Straits before moving into a Stomp-esque drum beat and then the Al-Jazeer folk singing hits in. It's not very good but it does have a kind of addictive beat that is hard to ignore.

2 Israel (Teapacks) Push The Button

A Keith Allen look-a-like, who is just as irritating as the real thing, preaching against war and the politics of war. Terry Wogan is going to have a field day with this one. Although lets be fair about it, the Israeli people probably have more to worry about us than most of us do directly. Musically it attempts to meld punk, indie rock and a bit of UB40 style reggae into it's three minute running time. It doesn't succeed.

3 Cyprus (Evridiki) Comme Ci, Comme Ça

Well you wouldn't guess that this lady is pushing 40. She's represented Cyprus in Eurovision twice before, finishing 11th on both occasions. I doubt this is going to do much better in all honesty. It's got that Euro-disco beat that was so popular in about 1994 in the UK charts. This would have sounded out of date even back then mind you.

4 Belarus (Koldun) Work Your Magic

I did wonder when we were going to get to the first camp looking contender of the evening. I'm told Koldun won the Belarus version of Fame Academy, which should tell you all you need to know about him. As an aside, there was even a great debate in Belarus apparently about whether he was a suitable enough contender to put forward. Sonically this is an attempt at a Bond theme (its the strings) and I for one am hoping for a distinctly David Copperfield style performance on the night. To put it into perspective though, he's still a hell of lot less annoying than Mika.

5 Iceland (Eiríkur Hauksson) Valentine Lost

I'm no expert on these matters but listening to this I feel we've found Iceland's answer to Jon Bon Jovi in Eiríkur Hauksson. He promises us, or should that be warns us, that his hands "are completely free when it comes to the stage show" and that he doesn't do choreography. It's like a piss poor cover version of Bon Jovi's "Always".

6 Georgia (Sopho) Visionary Dream

This is the first ever Georgian entry. It isn't very good, but is the kind of thing that a Rachel Stevens or Sophie Ellis-Bextor could carry off reasonably well. Sopho is quite fit as well, which people who know me will realise is half the battle with these things!

7 Montenegro (Stevan Faddy) Ajde Kroči

A kind of Lordi-lite track. Made all the more funny by the fact that I obviously haven't got a clue what he's going on about. Apparently this got twice the number of votes that the runner up got in the Montenegro qualifiers. All I can say is how bad must the second place one been?

8 Switzerland (DJ Bobo) Vampires Are Alive

How can you not love a song that starts with the lyrics, "Vampires are alive, the legends have to survive, we'll never come undone, and we will be forever young"? You just know that the performance of this one is going to be worth the price of admission alone. The real story here is the fact that, and I quote, " a small percentage of fundamentalist Christians in Switzerland" have protested about this song because we all know that pretty awful euro-dance pop is the perfect way of surreptitiously encouraging occult practises...

9 Moldova (Natalia Barbu) Fight

The Gee's going to like this red-head, that much is a given. She's paying her own way to Helsinki as well. If Amy Lee came from one of the new Russian states, this is probably what she would sound like. Against my better judgement I quite like this one.

10 The Netherlands (Edsilia Rombley) On Top Of The World

Someone's been listening to Unbreak My Heart by Toni Braxton then. At least until we get to the bizarrely upbeat chorus. It's got the kind of positive message that could go down quite well at Eurovision and if I'm being honest, I've heard worse songs in the UK top 40 than this one. I can imagine the old Hilary Duff doing this one quite well.

11 Albania (Doci) Hear My Plea

The kind of earnest, moody piece that will only be enjoyable for Terry Wogan's commentary.

12 Denmark (DQ) Drama Queen

This is more like it, on some levels anyway. I mean it must be a while since we last had a tranny winning the competition mustn't it? Ok so it isn't very good at all, but it is fun. To a certain extent.

13 Croatia (Dragonfly feat. Dado Topic) Vjerujem U Ljubav

Pitiful. And just when you think it can't get any worse some low-rent version of Shakira turns up and sends it down another notch.

14 Poland (The Jet Set) Time To Party

At this point in the evening, if you were watching this on television, I'll bet you'd be thinking that "what the Eurovision song contest needs right now is an Eastern-European version of the Black Eyed Peas..." Voila! Terry Wogan won't mention this of course because he thinks Black Eyed Peas are something you'd have on bonfire night. Sod it, though, I actually like the song.

15 Serbia (Marija Šerifovic) Molitva

Serbia's answer to Tracy Thron, Marija, treats us to an epic power ballad. A power ballad that all of a sudden goes all Enya on us. You'll probably need a piss-break by this point anyway.

16 Czech Republic (Kabat) Malá Dáma

Apart from the fact that it's obviously not sung in English, this is the kind of song I could quite imagine Snow Patrol doing a decent fist of, if they weren't so boring of course. Of course in reality this is little more than the Czech's seeing last year's winners and thinking "we should do something like that."

17 Portugal (Sabrina) Dança Comigo

Remember when you went on holiday's with your parents when you were young to Spain or France and you'd be in some dodgy market (with flies all over the pies) and there would be a music stall and they would be playing some summery pop tune which you'd think was quite good. So you bought the CD, got it home and promptly never listened to it again? This is the 2007 equivalent. Still, I'd do her!

18 FYR Macedonia (Karolina) Mojot Svet

I'm certainly going to have to make sure I catch this portion of the show. Karolina is a bit fit. And the song is as good as a ballad sung in a language I don't understand is going to get.

19 Norway (Guri Schanke) Ven A Bailar Conmigo

If I was being cruel I'd say this is another one for Gee. Being as Guri Schanke looks as if she's in her 60's. Apparently this is a big hit in the gay bars of Oslo. It's the kind of song that Emma Bunton would probably think was cutting edge pop. To me it just sounded like the kind of song that should either be the theme music for a game show or the National Lottery Draw.

20 Malta (Olivia Lewis) Vertigo

Shit song in all honesty, but Oliva does have a blog that makes me smile. So I hope she does at least do better than Malta did last year (which lets face it won't be all that difficult).

21 Andorra (Anonymous) Salvem El Món

No that's not to say that the people behind this wish to remain anonymous, that's the name of the band. Who appear to be Andorra's answer to Busted. Or Son Of Dork more likely. This kind of thing never does well at Eurovision, I can't see this bucking the trend.

22 Hungary (Magdi Ruzsa) Unsubstantial Blues

As the title of the song may suggest, this is a bluesy, Norah Jones or Katie Melua style song and is actually relatively good. She's not exactly unpleasant to look at either. I've heard a lot worse in the name of female singer-songwriting.

23 Estonia (Gerli Padar) Partners In Crime

Pink is alive and well and masquerading as Estonia's entry to the Eurovision contest. A decent song but she scares the life out of me. I would not want to meet this woman in a dark alleyway late at night.

24 Belgium (The KMG's) LovePower

That's the Krazy Mess Groover's to you and me. Starts off like Take That's Everything Changes and then all of a sudden becomes a disco stomper. Imagine trying to create a euro-continental version of the Scissor Sisters and you've pretty much got the idea about this one.

25 Slovenia (Alenka Gotar) Cvet Z Juga

One of those moments where every year you think "what the hell is this?" Having attractive backing singers can only take you so far I'm afraid.

26 Turkey (Kenan Dogulu) Shake It Up Shekerim

Is it just me or does this have a slight "Timbaland meets Reel 2 Real" vibe? And indeed, as a slightly "rap" tinged song, it's a hell of a lot better than Daz Simpson.

27 Austria (Eric Papilaya) Get A Life - Get Alive

This is the Paulo Nutini/James Morrison part of the evening. With a bit of Bon Jovi thrown in again. Not very good.

28 Latvia (Bonaparti.Lv) Questa Notte
Who would have thought that Il Divo and G4 could sink so low? Anyway, as crap as the song is, there was something strangely entertaining and humorous about their performance of this to get through, so it's worth a laugh if nothing else.