One of the biggest pre-contest favourites always seemed to be a safe bet for a top placing. Even if it didn't trigger the slightest little emotion in me.
Amaury Vassili - Sognu (France 2011)
It contains many things that should be applauded, though. A polished and stylish attempt of bringing in a quality piece of more sophisticated music compared to what is normally heard at Eurovision.
And a song in a minority language from France? Well done.
But it is hard to bring in sophistication and being hard to get in a competitioned judged by the televoting audience. A song like this needs a flawless performance to go down well.
Poor Amaury's performance was quite some way from being flawless.
Something never worked out during the rehearsals, and he is doing the song in a very weird key throughout the live performance. To add insult to injury, he was badly styled and didn't look particularly relaxed on stage.
I hope French tv will realise that the reason for the low placing were mainly technical and that they will keep sending interesting entries by established performers.
The French entries are just so much better when France wants to win. End of story.
My grade: 2 / 5
