The Irish national final ended, not really surprisingly, in the victory of John and Edward. What is more surprising is that RTÉ bothered to have a national final at all.
Jedward was the first Irish act to get a positive buzz at Eurovision since... ehm... since Marc Roberts or so. Since then, the twins have turned into a record-selling phenomenon on the continent and will attract attention aplenty in Baku.
It is not necessarily unproblematic to go to Eurovision twice in a row. Ask Lena. Ask Family Four. Ask Hot Eyes. What works once does not necessarily work twice.
Last year, Jedward had so much surprise factor and their song was obnoxious and packed with punk attitude. This year, nothing new has been added to the mix but the song is harder to sing and require more straight singing which, in all fairness, is not Jedward's forte.
On the other hand, the twins have built themselves a strong fanbase that would vote for them if they read the phonebook out loud.
It will be most interesting to see how far this will carry in 2012, but I wouldn't book The Point Theatre just yet.
Jedward - Waterline (Ireland 2012)
Yeh the robotic dance routines don't work as well with this song, evern though it's a much better melodic pop tune than "Lipstick".
ReplyDeleteIt was my pick, although I would have been intrigued to see how "Language of Love" might have done in the ESC... That's a good old-school Eurovision song about uniting the world through love and all that (similar style to Katrina & the Waves' "Love Shine a Light" I thought)... maybe one of those eastern European countries with a crappy song could pick it up as their entry? :-P
This seems to be a new trend, when you do well, you copy act next year, take Lena from Germany as an good example. That was the thing they did in the 1950 and early 1960:s, same artist would represent their country for several years.
ReplyDeleteTo me this is dull an unimaginative thing to do, even though I liked Lenas both entries, I think it was dull to see her two years in a row.
Sweden had a good placing after many years with Saade. I wonder if they try to redo the success with Saucedo.