A Swede who lives in Finland and who is lost in Euroland - the wonderful world of Eurovision
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Sunday, March 9, 2014

Melodifestivalen 2014: the day after

Often being a eurovision fan is pretty easy in the sense that you mainly need one emotion at the time. If your favourite wins, you are happy. If your favourite doesn't win, you are angry. Or disappointed.

It is the day after Melodifestivalen 2014 and I find myself with very conflicting emotions concerning the outcome.

First of all, I am so happy for Sanna Nielsen who finally got her long-awaited and well-deserved victory. Now she might have landed herself a pop hit that could add more layers to her already very successful career.

Without a doubt she will shine also in Copenhagen, even if the abundance of female vocalists armed with various degrees of mid tempo already chosen could make it a bit more difficult for Sanna to stand out just as much as many seem to anticipate.

I could come to change my mind at some point, but "Undo" doesn't feel like a eurovision winner at this point. It is impressive in many ways but perhaps slightly too professional and controlled to win.

And then there is the disappointment that Sweden came so close to taking a chance with Ace Wilder. Sending in something wild and crazy and running an actual risk of displeasing people. It would have been so refreshing to see Sweden - the country of cool at the ESC - do something as unexpected as that.

All Ace would have needed to win was two points. Which makes me wonder how carefully put together those international juries are. They all agreed Ace was top three material with the notable exceptions of Germany and Malta. Isn't that odd?

At the same time it was a good thing that the winner of the televote also won the whole thing in the end. Had Sanna lost a second time because of the juries, there would have been quite some outcry from the public. As you see - conflicting emotions also here.

I also note that the heyday of the cute boy singer seems to be over. One Yohio, one Oscar and one Anton was more than the audience could digest but I was a bit surprised to see Anton being the one to truly crash and burn at the bottom of the results. I really thought his song was better than that.

The show stayed true to style - some entertaining moments but overall pretty lacklustre. If you want to put on the biggest show of the year, a good line-up is not enough and SVT will have to rethink their conception quite a lot for next year.

So, I'm pleased and a tiny bit disappointed at the same time. Just as I was in 1998 when the Swedish juries rejected the modern and avant-garde "Avundsjuk" by Nanne Grönvall in favour of the beautiful-but-ordinary "Kärleken är" by Jill Johnson.



Nanne - Avundsjuk (Sweden NF 1998)

1 comment:

  1. Dear Tobias, I totally share your feelings. Ace Wilder would had been the ultimate choice for Sweden. At first I did not get it, but when I looked at the reactions of my teenagers, I gradually started to like her music. She would had got the respect of a new Euro song.
    I also think Sanna deserved her victory . She has a nice power ballad which is not formidable and definately will not win ESC 2014.

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