It's very hard not to be considered a favourite virtually every year in Eurovision if you are a nation whose music industry dominates or at the very least spills over into a dozen other countries in the contest and the expats in those countries are large in number and generally very nationalistic. It is a unique position that Russia holds and has led many to assume that it is just a matter of time before they win. Indeed, under the televoting system and with their tendency to enter broadly popular songs in English it is not inconceivable that Russia will never finish outside of the top ten again, if not top five or even top three. This year though they will be hoping to do one better than their two first princess finishes to date, and the ingredients are there for them to do so: the return of Dima Bilan, one of the country's biggest stars, in a year where there is a fairly open field, with a textbook anthem crafted under one of the world's most successful producers. On paper they can't really go wrong.As ever though the biggest obstacle Russia has to overcome is itself. We have seen in the past some of the odd decisions they have made leading to their undoing (2004's Believe Me being the prime example*) and if the latest developments are anything to go by this year's pudding may already have been overegged to the point of no return. Not content with what was a very solid foundation, the team behind Believe have built a gingerbread house on top of it, smothered it in sugar syrup, turned the duck pond into a skating rink and stuck a fiddler on the roof. Now as anyone who knows me will tell you, I am all for strings; introduce them to an acoustic arrangement with some piano and I will generally go weak at the knees. But in what seems to me to be a typically Russian lack of restraint, the makeover the song has been given has pushed the violin to the fore at the expense of the rest of the composition, and it is so much the weaker - and more overblown - for it.
Not that anyone who hears it for the first time on the night will know any different, of course. To them it may still come across as a perfectly decent anthem with a prominent violin. I'm just not convinced that the presentation will make it anything other than laughable. Everything - from the remix itself to the eye-rollingly holier-than-thou video accompanying the original version - points to an OTT performance that is as likely to turn people away as it is draw them in. The artist still known as Dima Bilan may have a hard time selling the song as heartfelt if he doesn't rein himself in; the troubled-star-overwhelmed-by-the-faith-and-trust-placed-in-him hystrionics of the Russian national final will have no place at the contest itself, and if there's even the slightest hint of them he can kiss his chances of victory goodbye.
Which is to say he will probably end up in the top five anyway. Mathematically (as boring as it is) there are just about enough countries in the first semi-final to guarantee Russia a place in the final, however off-puttingly grandiloquent the display we are treated to in Belgrade, and once it gets there I can't see anything to stop it attracting a dozen douzes like a giant magnet. And that's only on the assumption that the performance will be overweening: if it is actually tasteful and artistic rather than repellent and appeals to a wider audience it will be a contender for victory. If Lordi had been defrocked in Athens it is highly likely Dima would already have won once, so his appetite for it will be strong, and barring Charlotte Perrelli he won't have any competition this time round whose bodies are almost entirely prosthetic.
Moreover, to be fair to the lad, he and his team did err on just the right side of pretentious in 2006, so there's nothing to say they won't do so again this year. Plus Russia seems to be itching for the chance to host the contest in order to show Europe what it is capable of more than any other country (apart from Malta), so victory with Believe would be fitting in a number of ways. A modest wager on Moscow 2009 might not bring much of a return, but it has to be one of the safest bets of the year.
*Omen, anyone?
4 comments:
Overwrought and faintly ridiculous.
He looks like a 16-year-old loan shark or dime store hood posing in front of his bedroom mirror. This guy's a big star in Russia? He doesn't have the slightest bit of animal magnetism.
Granted, I watched it on Youtube, but the vocals are also way too prominent in the mix.
About the violin being too loud - you may be listening to the wrong version. The initial cut of the music video had an unfinished demo with it too high in the mix, and this is the version they have mistakenly uploaded as an MP3 on the official press page too. It's far less prominent in the final video version and it actually adds to the song rather than overegging it IMO.
Another entry that's surely final bound. Despite a semi divide that separates Russia from many of its staunchest supporters, Dima's surely going to be given a leg up by the Azeris and Estonian Russians? His attention-grabbing stage show and the advantage of his penultimate placing should do the rest. The song is solid enough anthemic AOR but I'd rather not believe in it as an overall winner. Much is being made of Dima's top drawer transatlantic connections but listening to the hollow plodding production, I can't help wondering if the mighty Timbaland didn't leave the Russian dude's track to the work experience bloke and toddle off for an extended lunch break.
I get what you mean about the off-putting nature of Dima's performance; I don't buy it for a second either. But his stage antics put me in mind of the over-egged performances that seem to be a staple ingredient of Pop Idol talent shows the world over. In other words, I think there are hordes of viewers out there for whom things can't get melodramatic enough. While his megalomaniac tendencies may be something of an Achilles' heel, he is completely in his element on stage - almost scarily so - and I reckon that level of self-belief is something people connect with on a very basic level. However narcissistic, I'd much rather see Dima milking it for all he's worth than a less assured performer whose ambition extends no further than not messing it up on the night. Unfettered grandstanding from a prima donna of almost pathological proportions is far more entertaining to watch any day. Especially when there's ice-skating involved...?!
For my part every person should read it.
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