Eurovision: walking to Baku 2012! (V)

As usual for a long time between mid-February and early March, most countries at the Eurovision that year, selects its representations. And Youtube's already buzzing with TOPs: TOP 3 TOP 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 15, 20, 35 and so on. And also TOP2 only with the songs of Switzerland and Albania (and why not a TOP1? ... This would bring too much work!).

Without further delay, I'll comment more two selections.

NORWAY AND TOOJI

Beginning with the country of extremes in the Eurovision. On the one hand, the country that was ranked last more often and more often got the unloved zero points. On the other hand, the victory he obtained in 2009 with the song "Fairytale" interpreted by Alexander Ryback assigned to this country the record of the winning song with the most points (387),highest number of 12 points earned in the final (assigned by 16 countries) and a greater margin of points over the 2nd place.

The participation of Norway since 2004 (year of introduction of semifinals) shows this inconsistency: once in last place, once in the first, 6 times in the final and two away, including last year (only thanks to international juries who put the music "Haba, Haba" by Stella Mwangi in 17th place, while the televoting got the 9th place - indeed, if there were year in which the televoting diverged greatly from the juries votes was 2011).

After the failure of last year’s performance, which led many people including (which is more shocking) Norwegian people to comment the youtube videos showing the performance of Stella, with comments saying it was not Norwegian due to skin color, and why should not represent Norway, and had to go to Africa to eat bananas, among other things worse.

All attitudes of cynicism and pettiness. When she was selected to represent Norway, she received the 1st place in both the jury and the public. And if she had stayed in the TOP 5 in the final I doubt that the Norwegians who took her there, had the same opinion about the difference between the Stella skin and the pure population of Norwegian ancestry. And we should remember that Norway is the most developed country in the world.

After the failure of last year, Norway this year bet on something very different. The representative is the young singer Tooji, with the song "Stay." Well I  would not compare toEric Saade (Sweden competing in last year's edition), but I can not get otherwise. Both have roots in the Middle East (in the case of Eric's father is Lebanese, and in the case o fTooji, he was born in Iran).
Both songs are completely turned to the young audience, and are interpreted by singers that cause many sighs among the female public and probably among the male homosexual as well.

Focusing more on Tooji and his music, is easy to see that it was obvious that this was the winning song, even without analyzing in great detail the competition. All performance was thought and worked to detail: from the rhythm, the dancers and choreography. And Norway has the advantage of Tooji have a voice more polished and refined than Eric (perhaps because he was older), and the very key that allows the singer's voice keeps a register comfortable. And besides, the lyrics is not as simplistic as the artist of Sweden, which certainly will not displease both the juries.

Sure Tooji won a landslide victory in the televoting. As to the jury only awarded him the 2nd place. The winning song for the jury was "Somewhere Beautiful", a ballad well sung by Nora Foss al-Jabri, a singer born in Iraq (there are too many coincidences!) Wwith only16 years old (only done 29 January) . Nora's victory with little difference, and the overwhelming victory of Tooji in the televoting, did not give her any chance of winning.

Not doubting the vocal talents of Nora, the song "Stay" provides an easier place in the final, and a good rating. From the televoting, although the countries that have more votes allocated to Norway, this year participate and vote almost all, in the other semi-final (with the sole exception of Sweden and Estonia), the country will not have difficult in achieve the TOP3. A failure in the passage to the final was possible only if the jury attribute almost zero points to Norway. But from what I saw about the nationals performances of the countries represented in the same semifinal where will compete Norway, I think that Sweden is the only country that could take the 1^st place from Norway in the televoting.
Despite all the criticisms that can be made, is a big bet this Scandinavian country.

GERMANY AND ROMAN LOB 

Now the country that hosted the Eurovision last year. After the successes of 2010 (1st place) and 2011(10th) both achieved by singer Lena Meyer-Landrut, the choice this year, the song "Standing Still" interpreted by the 21 years old singer Roman Lob, may seem a bit skimpy or at least more "off".

But listening better, we note that the choice was not so bad, as it was the best choice given the existing competition. The second ranked, Ornella de Santis with the song "Quietly" besides also be a ballad, and be very well sung, unfortunately do not have the power to get as much memory as the winning song (but it would be a great choice for a Disney movie).

The winning song is the kind of music one might hear in a summer festival. Despite the ballad style, unlike other teams have done this year, this song not only stays more in the ear, as he has a certain connotation with the pop-rock style. Both the melody like the lyrics show that we are facing one music with some ingredients to have success in festival.

And we are in the presence of another example of an artist that will certainly please the female and gay public.

Germany is a country that has the "privilege" of going directly to the final since they paid for it (and if they did not that, the poor results they obtained between 2005 and 2009 make me be sure that Germany very probably would have failed several times to qualify for the final).

As the 26 th place no one takes, a good classification will depend on the existing competition.