(Note – I forgot to post Denmark – I’ll do that first thing tomorrow pop pickers)
Estonia – Vanilla Ninja – Too epic to be true.
When you have a title like this, you need to live up to expectations. You need to be “balls out” brave with the song, and the way that it’s presented at Eurovision… and you need to have the talent to pull it off.
For Estonia, Vanilla Ninja are not using their talents, and it shows. Their Eesti Laul performance featured a ton of dodgy notes, and it just looked… phoned in – to use a phrase I try not to deploy often. Even the cringe-worthy ‘kiss cam’ segment in the song seemed needless. To top it off, there were fireworks at the end – as though to prove the staging was … epic.
Reader, it wasn’t.
Musically the song is limp schlager-lite. Even someone competent in sound mixing isn’t going to change that. I genuinely don’t know who this is for. Certainly not televoters – who will watch and go “thank you, next”. It’s not the juries, because it doesn’t meet any tickbox criteria. Even fans of Vanilla Ninja – of which there will be plenty voting in its semi final – will be left underwhelmed.
This is going to qualify, I think, but only just. It has no redeeming qualities. There’s no silk purse waiting to be made from this sow’s ear.
Phil’s score – 2 Points.
