I have many thoughts on the UK entry, and could talk a lot about it but I’m going to boil it down to this. The BBC’s Guy Freeman realised what ‘Contest’ means. Only the result on the night matters. Not chart success, not YouTube views, not fan opinion or if it works down the Euroclub. It’s a Contest, and finding a way to score is the only mark that counts.
Freeman (who heads the BBC’s delegation) could have played it safe, found a nice middle of the road song, dug up a manic pixie dream girl singer from BBC Introducing, went through the motions, and probably managed 10-15th place.
Instead Freeman has got ballsy. It’s a contra-strategy song, It literally is all or nothing. “Still In Love WIth You” will either fly high and smash into the Top Ten with a cinematic presentation mixing emotional distance, parallax moves, cross fades, and Charlestons… or it becomes a hot mess of poor camera angles, no visual story telling, and static performers in front of generic audience sweeping shots.
Everyone expected Freeman to zig (as did I). Instead he’s zagged, trusting his team to put on the show of a lifetime, trusting that something different and mould-breaking has more chance in a flanking manoeuvre than a direct assault against the likes of Sweden, Italy, and Estonia, and building up the momentum of publicity and recognition. He’s treated it not as a ‘how to get a number one song’ but ‘how to win a competition’, Freeman’s BBC has little musical resources for Eurovision, the industry won’t supply him any heavy guns, so he goes guerrilla in his musical war against the other 39 countries.
Loving the strategy. Loving the risk taking. Loving the courage.
this entry is not bold its just rubbish, Irelands entry is an example of a bold entry not this. Alex even in the video sounds like he can’t sing ( just imagine him live) and the two have never sung together…what the —– where the BBC thinking after such a massive step forward last year they have made up for it with an entry thats worse then “That sounds good to me”. the UK will be fighting with Finland for the title of worst Eurovision entry of 2015. sorry to be so negative but even being Irish it frustrates me that a country like the UK sends this Rubbish and then you see all the countries behind the Iron curtain sending decent entries year in year out.
I agree with Esceire. I know Ewan would like this, but it is a terrible entry and it WILL fail miserably at the contest. It’s bold, it’s not ballsy, it’s just crap.
If this is the best the UK can send, then they should just withdraw.
You’ve put it really well. Here’s a few of my thoughts. I am worried about how good they are as live singers. As Esceire says Alex’s voice doesn’t sound particularly strong in the music video so how he will sound live is concerning just now. Staging is going to be so important – the song needs the visual impact like in the video but I’m not sure how they’ll recreate that on an arena stage with the six people rule. They definitely need to appear at as many of the touring concerts that Eurovision does in lead up to the show.
I really wish people would stop saying that this is as bad as Scooch and Gemini. It’s a different style of music, whereas they were just pop trash.
I actually like the entry. For sure much more than Molly’s entry last year…and I mean the recorded entry as live she was really weak…
Though I do not have a good feeling on people being receptive to it at Eurovision. It’s more like for cabaret / theater shows.
I assume the “smart” thing really was that it was a cheap choice for BBC…
I’m sorry but this reeks of someone who wants to be the HoD’s pet. Freeman has not taken a risk, he’s given up! UK Eurovision fans, and licence fee payers in general, deserve much better than this.
Carola,
How much more of the licence fee payers money would you spend without the backing of the music industry? WIthout the big name artists? ALso worth noting that ESC Insight does not come under the UK HoD, so if we *we’re* trying to be teacher’s pet, we’d be focussing elsewhere. And long-term Insight readers will know we rarely hold back our critical punches when they are deserved.
I don’t get why some people considered last year’s song such a “massive step forward”. To me it was a fake, cardboard-cut.out, cut-and-paste entry – a formula for trying to win rather than a good song in its own right. And it was let down by a nervous, charisma-free performance on the night.
This year’s entry may not be everybody’s cup of tea and it does have car-crash potential, but you don’t do well at Eurovision by playing it too safe (unless you’re Azerbaijan). To me, it’s fresh and frothy fun – arch, catchy and sassy. It doesn’t pretend to be anything it’s not. It will stand out, and I wish it well.