FRANCE 2010 - Allez olla olé

Ah, France ... another of the Big Four who's sent a quality entry this year. Wonders never cease. :-) This song has also been chosen as France's World Cup song, and I've got to say that it's absolutely perfect in that setting. Literally couldn't be better. I'm not sure about it here, though. It's a good song, it has a great beat and lots of energy. With the right presentation it could be really good on stage. It's just kind of outside the box as far as ESC entries go. Not that I could really say for sure where the box actually is any more, with all the different songs in the contest these days. :-) But I think this song may end up not doing very well - not as well as it deserves - because it's not the kind of song people expect to hear in the ESC.

Although of course if a lot of football fans happen to be watching, it ought to rake in the votes. ;-)

Another thing this song has against it, and I'm sorry to say this, is the fact that the singer is black. Unfortunately there is quite a bit of racism percolating around Europe - not going to point any fingers, but you know what I mean - and this entry will in all likelihood lose potential votes from certain countries because of that. Which is too bad, it's a good song, and I applaud France for sending a black singer, the contest should have as much diversity as possible. But they'll probably to some extent be tripping themselves up with it. :-( Good luck to them, though, they deserve it this year. :-)

This is Jessy Matador performing Allez olla olé by Hugues Ducamin and Jacques Ballue. They will be competing for France on Saturday, May 29th - as one of the four main contributors to the EBU they have an automatic place in the final. Good luck. :-)



Lyrics with translation here.