SWEDEN 2008: Charlotte Perrelli - Hero

Sweden, Sweden, Sweden ... what am I to say about Sweden?

Theoretically I approve of this song, just because as long as they don't send Carola, I'm for it. (It soo rocked when she didn't make it through the national semi this year. I loved it. :-) But I have to wonder if this isn't almost as bad.

OK, first of all, I do have very ambivalent feelings about Carola. She is a good performer, she does have a good voice and some of her songs are absolutely fantastic. I mean, serious classics. But she's the antichrist, she really is. And aside from her so-called personality and her evil religiosity, she's getting to be almost unendurable as a performer too. She is SO professional. She's like a robot ... with a somewhat lifelike plastic casing. When you look at the 1980s Carola, and compare her to what she's like now, it's like she's barely even human anymore. And - here comes the point - it's the same thing with Charlotte Perrelli (formerly Nilsson, yes). (Although admittedly she has always looked like plastic.) She's just way way too professional.

Which is why I have high hopes that this song won't get anywhere - hopefully it will be thrown out in the second semi. Entries like these tend to not do well although they are normally very hyped up and are very high on betting agency lists. (Yeah, this is another supposed favorite.) But when it comes to voting the results aren't anywhere near what has supposedly been expected for them. IMO this is because they are too professional, too slick, too overproduced and the ESC audience doesn't want that. (Prime examples of what I'm thinking of here would be Belgium in 2006 and Iceland in 2005.) Either that or it's because they are just 'too good' - everyone thinks that everyone else will vote for them, so they don't have to do so themselves, and in the end no one votes for them. Regardless though, the result is the same, and I hope that's what will happen to Sweden this year - NADA.

Because I honestly have to say that I think this is my least favorite to win the contest out of every single song this year. Yes, seriously. There is just nothing about this song that would make it a deserving winner. To just start with the lyrics, I mean, come on. What does it mean? It means nothing, absolutely nothing. Seriously, these lyrics are completely & utterly devoid of any form of meaning. Out of the light, like a star, like a hero, love will survive. What?!? The whole song is just a bunch of clichéd words strung together with the sole purpose of being singable. It means NOTHING. Now, call me old-fashioned, but I think that a song is - or should be - a little work of art, a little poem, through which the writer wishes to communicate something. I challenge anyone & everyone to find ANYTHING whatsoever being communicated by the words of this song.

What's scary about this song, for result purposes, is of course the singer. She has won before and when she did it was kind of a pivotal moment, in that 1999 was the first year after the language restrictions had been lifted and Charlotte did win with a song that had been performed in Swedish in the national final but had as many dreaded been translated into English for the international final. So many? some? may remember her. I'm sure some will. But I can only hope not enough to matter. Because previous winners always do have some pull in the contest, unfortunately.

The one thing that may be seriously in this entry's favor is the gimmicky performance (provided of course they do it in the same way in Belgrade, which they probably will). Everything is in color, except for Charlotte herself, who is shown in black and white through the first verse. Then when the first chorus begins she bursts into color, with her tiny golden dress and long tanned legs. Like, wow. But it's a striking effect and definitely something people will remember. So it may get some votes on that.

But I really hope those votes will be very very few. This song really can't be allowed to get anywhere. It just is a ... despicable entry. The weird part is that I kind of liked it the first time I heard it, but I like it less and less and less every time I hear it. Which is exactly the opposite of what normally happens with ESC songs. It's like the more I hear it, I see the song more and more clearly for what it really is. And that is why I would prefer basically any song other than this to win. (Some more than others, obviously.) This song is like the corpse of a beautiful woman. It may look pretty good on the surface, but once you start going anywhere beyond that it's just a nasty rotten mess. It has no heart, it has no soul. It has nothing. And it's an awful earworm too, which makes it even worse. I just can't stop trying to figure out what it means - even though I know that it means nothing ...

Europe, DON'T make this android the next Johnny Logan!!

Sweden, boo hiss!! You can do better, but you SO haven't this year. Fortunately Russia will crush this entry like a bug. (Provided it even gets to the final. Let's all hope it won't.)


http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZSLnnnYtA5g