Greece marches on as Ukraine changes its mind…again

By Jaz, March 3, 2011

We are nearing the end of another week, and that means some more news on the Düsseldorf front!

Last night, Greece, one of Eurovision’s most reliable competitors, held its national final. The favourite, Nikki Ponte, and her upbeat, catchy dance track I Don’t Wanna Dance (how ironic!) did….not win. Unfortunately. The victor was Loukas Giorkas (with Stereo Mike – who could forget him) with Watch My Dance, a song that sounded promising until I actually heard it. 

It has to be Greece’s worst entry in at least a decade, in my opinion, and I seriously believe that they will struggle even to qualify from the semi with it. The best thing about it is that Mr. Giorkas is not exactly a man whose appearance causes you to recoil in horror, so he’ll make good eye-candy for some of us in those three minutes. I will say that I appreciate its ethnic sound, as I was waiting for something regional after a lot of the songs started coming through sounding like they could have come from anywhere (the British or American charts, for instance). But much like Cyprus, this song comes across as being a mish-mash of several different songs, which are all similar yet somehow manage not to work together in harmony. Cyprus does it better. This is a four-pointer from me – perhaps with one point for each part that I like on its own.

Moving on because I really don’t want to talk about Greece any longer, Eurovision’s most confusing competitor Ukraine has managed to cbefuddle us even further over the last few days by abandoning the idea of another final. Apparently this is because:   

a)      Both Jamala and Zlata, Mika Newton’s would-be rivals in the super final, withdrew on the grounds of unfairness in the voting.

b)      The votes from Saturday’s final were recounted at a press conference, sans most of the dodginess, which revealed Mika still had the highest percentage of votes.

So Mika will be singing Angely for Ukraine at Eurovision after all. Or will she? According to several sources:

a)      She has expressed the desire to sing a different song in Germany. If her country makes it that far. I’m not sure why this is – she entered the selection with Angely, knowing she was in with a chance, and whether she sings it or something else, there’ll still be backlash from the people.

All I can say to that is: WHAT IN DANA INTERNATIONAL’S NAME IS GOING ON, UKRAINE? Why is it that they are the only country that cannot manage to pick an entry and stick with it? Sure, in the end they usually get it right, but the journey to get to a quality song just seems to be so arduous for them. I for one am praying they keep Miss Newton and her uh-mazing song, and let us turn our attention to the last installments of finals and presentations in the week or so ahead.

Which are, of course:  

March 5^th: Armenia, Croatia and Portugal finish up, and Sweden holds its second-chance round 

7^th: France presents their song

8^th: Israel’s Kdam goes to air

11^th: The UK finally lets us hear I Can and San Marino picks a song for Senit (allegedly)

12^th: Sweden possibly save the best for last

At some point between now and the 14^th: Azerbaijan, Hungary, Russia and Slovakia let us know what they’ll be sending – with any luck, some great stuff!

And perhaps Lena’s successor…

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