ESC Covers, like in previous years, google translated ESC Norge discussion on the Eurovision song contest positions, from Norwegian to English.
This is a blog post and only represents the writer Morten Thomassen’s own views.
Our Swedish friends have “always” sent high quality pop songs and since their only semi-final appearance back in 2010 they have only had a double-digit result twice, so we are talking about a superpower in our beloved competition and I also doubt that if I wanted to bet on Sweden getting their 8th win before Ireland, hardly anyone would bet against me.
Now the bookmakers actually believed that that victory would come this year, they had a full 50% chance of winning, the same chance of winning as Loreen actually, but this year those who set the odds were actually out of the running when it came to certain countries, I would say.
That almost 40% of the points they received came from the jury is actually a bit surprising, but on the other hand Sweden is considered a quality country when it comes to music and even with a nonsense song they managed to have some qualities with the song that caught the jury’s attention, that they didn’t get over 200 points in the televoting is also a bit surprising, had the “Bara Bada Bastu” hype died down by the time we got to a warm May evening?
Kevin, Axel and Jacob in the trio KAJ have been doing music mixed with comedy since 2009, so in a sense they are experienced guys, so it was probably a bit of a transition from being pretty big in Finland to becoming giga-heavy in Sweden and quite well-liked in Europe too.
Our friends in KAJ managed to come up with a song so catchy that it almost borders on annoying, and if you then throw in tons of charm, someone who can sing, and a dance that is relatively easy to learn, you don’t need any more ingredients to get as high on the list as fourth place, and they would probably have gotten even higher if it weren’t for the fact that they were competing with another nonsense song that sang about something even more universal than saunas, namely coffee.
Our Swedish friends will also have great semi-finals next year, a grand final and send a song that will fight for a place far up on the charts and nothing would surprise me if their victory number 8 comes already then, this country is on the verge of that very record, there is little doubt about that.
Featured image – Corinne Cumming – EBU