"The charm that I possess will put you to the test..."Making something out of nothing is a skill peculiar to certain countries at Eurovision. Many come up with entries that have you thinking "yeah, that's got potential" only to frustrate you by doing little or nothing to improve them. Others, like Malta, tend to start with the basics and work their way up from there, sometimes surprising you for their ability to knock something into shape come contest time. Then there's Ukraine, whom we have already seen take a song with very little to recommend it, give it a complete overhaul, stage it in a way that's so clever and effective it puts everyone else to shame and land themselves in the top ten in the process. 2009 sees them doing an I Am Your Queen/Show Me Your Love all over again: from the ashes of the uninspiring Be My Valentine has risen a phoenix claiming to be every last viewer's Anti-Crisis Girl.
Well alright, it's still called Be My Valentine, but you can't ignore the makeover the song's been given: the kind of plastic surgery Charlotte Perrelli could only dream of. Ukraine has shown itself to have a love of bombastic show numbers at Eurovision, and with their entry for Moscow they are clearly aiming to repeat their success in this area. Like the Serbian entry, Svetlana Loboda's three minutes of performance leaves itself open to accusations of taking the piss, but it isn't a novelty act per se: it's just a Eurovision entry with its tongue in its cheek, whilst completely serious in its intent to entertain the audience and win their support. The fact that it does so through grand spectacle isn't the point. Even if the promised hell machine fails to descend from the rigging, Be My Valentine! is almost certain to drive the Albanian entry from viewers' minds and leave enough of a lingering impression (given there are only two songs left in the semi after it) to stroll into Saturday night's final.
If the final itself were still an all-televoting affair, I would happily predict yet another top two finish for Ukraine, since Be My Valentine! has all of the elements a song needs to do well in the SMS frenzy otherwise known as the contemporary Eurovision democracy. But even with juries accounting for half of the result I wouldn't rule out a top three/five/at least ten placing for the song, since in musical terms it's both competent and catchy. It all depends on the extent to which the juries are there to counter plebeian voting habits as opposed to still voting on the best songs and performances overall. Not that Be My Valentine! qualifies as one of the more remarkable compositions of the year, but it's got a lot going for it however you look at it.
Back-to-back runners-up, Ukraine have earned themselves a reputation as being to modern Eurovision what the UK was to the contest in days of old. They'll undoubtedly win the whole thing again at some point; perhaps not in 2009, but it wouldn't surprise me if they came close. As long as they remain capable of turning something like Be My Valentine into Anti-Crisis Girl and retain their name as one of the savviest countries in the contest when it comes to putting on a performance, they will always be up there among the contenders. And deservedly so.
3 comments:
Flaming hell. After reading the words to this song plus my exposure to the woman's English accent, I had been dodging this song everyway that I possibly could. Until I read your head into the goal review, that is. I was indeed biased, it seems, because you are right in every way one can be right about this entry.
She really nails it down, doesn't she? Tina Karol had an infamous ogre as a song too, UNTIL they completely changed it. I guess I've seen the light now, thanks to your objectivity and your unconditional willingness to endure those three minutes: anybody watching the actual contest will neither remember nor know of the first version of this track, hence voting the Ukraine right into the left hand side of the final scoreboard.
After watching her winner performance at the Ukrainian finals, I loathed the song and Svetlana herself, though I never joined the tribe that dubbed her slutlana, a very insulting comment IMHO. Well, after a few weeks I softened my approach to the song. I started humming it and calling myself tacky girl. Last Saturday in AMS, when she entered the stage on the shoulders of one of her dancers, I could only sigh *hell, she´ll overdo it*. She did not. I thought she was much more restrained in her movements (that does not apply to a certain acrobatics move that requires some leg stretching, which she repeated in AMS), and her singing did not sound bad either. Alright, as you already mentioned, she is "the Fenix". I´m ready to support her in the final (mentally only, cause my votes will be saved for Switzerland!!)and I do like Be my Valentine! and it´s got very clever verses, unlike your fav Azerbaijan (arghh, just to mention it clogs my bile ducts and it can´t be a good thing, I know)and the Greek Mutton´s entry. Long live Svetlana and the Ukrainian glory.
Azerbaijan is not my favourite ;-) I just mentioned I thought the lyrics weren't bad.
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