France – Monroe – Regarde!
Finland is an object lesson in how to write and stage a song with a purpose – to do nothing else than to win the contest. France, on the other hand, is an object lesson in learning precisely nothing from previous contests.
It almost feels as though the brief from France Televisions for the longest time has been “put something French sounding in and we’re bound to do well” – well this song proves that school of thought is dead. Talking of school, lets start this with how Monroe is dressed, it’s not the video for Hit me Baby one more time here, so why on earth is she dressed in school uniform? Even the lyrics don’t give it away but that is but a mere aside in this melange.
This song doesn’t know what it wants to be. It thinks it wants to be this massive overblown operatic aria which is showing off Monroe’s vocal gymnastics and yet at the same time it also thinks it’s trying to be populist and will pick up the votes from the University Challenge viewing constituency across Europe because it’s got this cocky arrogance about it.
It’s not going to. I’m sure some of the juries are going to love how well the song is written but do not be surprised if this is a mid-table finisher because no amount of jury gushing is going to hide the fact that it just doesn’t do anything for a normal televoter. Play it once and then remember how it goes, I dare you.
Phil’s Score – 3 points.
