Sunday, April 24, 2011

TURKEY 2011 - Live It Up

Turkey's become kind of a country to watch in recent years, just because it's so tricky to figure out what they'll end up sending. :-D This year though they seem to have stuck to what worked last year - rock music, a bit on the heavy side by ESC standards. They did extremely well with that last year - they came second, and deservedly so, that was a very good song. This one, alas, doesn't quite reach those heights.

The fate of this entry will depend to a large extent on the presentation, IMO. There's nothing wrong with the song, as such - it's pretty catchy and a pretty good performance. But it's so extremely ... standard. This is what Iceland did in 2007. They had a fantastic song - much better than this one - but we all remember ;-) how that went.They didn't even make it to the final. IMO that was 100% due to the presentation. The song was so great, but the performance was so incredibly boring. Everyone watching had seen it a hundred times before. And that's the problem with this song too. I mean, with this entry. The song's pretty good, but it's presented with absolutely no originality. Unless that is changed, it may well be the downfall of this entry ... and yes, I know it doesn't look all that different from the presentation of their song last year, but that was a significantly better song, and the band was much more ... I'm sorry, but young and energetic.

One may think that it isn't right that in a competition like this, which is for composers and songwriters, the presentation is so important. That's as may be. But like it or not, the reality is that the presentation is very significant, and contestants just have to accept that as given. This isn't radio.

Watch this and judge for yourself - this is Yüksek Sadakat performing Live It Up by Kutlu Özmakinaci and Ergün Arsal. They will be competing for Turkey on Tuesday, May 10th.


Widescreen here.

Lyrics here.

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