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Taking part this year were Portugal, Cyprus, The Netherlands, Romania, The Ukraine, Spain, Serbia, Malta, FYR Macedonia, Sweden, Greece, Belarus, Belgium, Croatia, and Russia. That is in contest order.
The contest was not broadcast on British television. The BBC don't appear to want to be involved, and ITV (who broadcast the previous competition) obviously were not interested as there was no British entry.
It has been suggested that this may be the final junior contest, which would be a shame as the precocious little darlings/brats (delete as applicable!) have shown that anything the adults can do, they can do just as well... Of course, take this "prediction" with a pinch of salt, as every year people call an end to the contest, no doubt the same sort of people that tell us we can't celebrate "Christmas" in case it offends somebody... bah-humbug, etc.
I am indebted to a good friend of mine who recorded the competition to DVD-R from the Spanish broadcaster "tve" (Televisión Española). That's why the images are of a good quality, instead of the usual output from my eccentric old digitiser.
The broadcast has a voice-over providing a running commentary in Spanish, but thankfully it isn't so intrusive.
Junior Eurovision Reloaded
You will see indented sections, such as this one. The main, original, content of this document was written as the contest progressed, as is usual for my Eurovision reviews, when it is all fresh and new. Even though I received the contest on a DVD-R, I simply put it into my player, set it going, and watched it end-to-end as if live...
These indented sections, on the other hand, are from a more critical analysis a few days later, when I can afford myself the luxury of repeated listenings, pause, and to back up if need be. These sections will go into more detail over what is right, or not so right, about the song. I feel this is important because I know that there will be a number of Eurovision nerds out there who had no access to the programme and may desire something more descriptive than "fun and bouncy"!
If this is your first reading of the document, don't worry, the indented comments intentionally make no reference to who won.
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This is then followed by a pseudo-animation to show to us why Romania is a really great part of Europe (Ioana's words), the presentation itself looking like it owed a lot to the Beatles' Yellow Submarine cartoon, or perhaps The Wizard Of Speed And Time.
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This year there are viewers in Australia and America who received a special "hello"... but nobody from Britain (unless they access non-UK channels on satellite).
A big (and one might say somewhat corrupt) change is that, for the first time ever, you can vote from the beginning of the contest, once the first song starts to play. If I heard correctly over the Spanish, I think Andreea said that you could vote up to twenty times from the same telephone number. But, of course, not for your own country.
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This song begins a lot like Richard Marx's "Right here waiting for you" (~1988), and in comes the Pedro, who had the whole rock-star pointing dramatically into the audience thing sussed. After a drum break, the pace picks up.
He certainly had style and charisma, perhaps his let-down was having to perform in Portuguese? The backing dancers were interesting. They would sometimes do these neat little things like a "mexican wave", and other times they'd just sort of bop side by side while clapping to the song, as if nobody thought of anything better to do in those moments.
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With an atmospheric start, we go straight into a song with a heavy bass line and "dancey" feel. This could have be described as a cross between LazyTown and Fragma. As said before, the biggest let-down was that Christina had a much softer voice, so it should have been boosted a little... Either way, I like this song. It is very colourful, energetic, and fun. Sort of what the Junior Eurovision should be about when the older kids aren't busy singing puke-making love songs. ☺
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There is not really much to add to my previous comments. Apart from the dancing seeming out of pace to the song, it is a very good effort from Kimberley and could rival the sort of performances I have heard on things like The X-Factor. I'll leave it to Simon Cowell to find fault with Kimberley's actual performance, because I can't.
At this point, Ioana took a moment for a quick chat with one of the performers and a gag over dog-lover/cat-lover. Then she talked to Swedish Molly (cat-lover, yay).
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This is an '80s eurobeat sort of song - I can see a kid's Buck's Fizz tribute group having fun with this one. After all, while it makes reference to Harry Potter, it is only two and a half decades out of date, oh happy nostalgia trip.
It's a blissfully daft song!
By the way, the "So-called superheroes" caption is not intended as an insult to the performers here. I was just never 'into' that whole comic-book superhero thing. When I was young, my superhero was Carl Sagan. Yeah, I am such a geek!
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Imagine Elvis as a kid, given an '80s gelled up hairdo, backed up with "sophisticated city chicks" from the '60s and some breakdancing suits. It is a complete mesh of styles. The music itself is of none of those, it seems more a '70s drum and rhythm line to which something else would have been laid down on top, only it never quite developed that far...
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In the intro Dani says "my voice is my gift to you", and this is also more or less the title of the song. He'd better watch he doesn't get an ego there! It is a good performance, and a good voice but noticably lacking in power when a bit of power is called for. Overall, though, it is a pleasant contemporary song.
Three more songs down, time for another quick chat with Ioana. I only mention this so I can include the picture - check out her expression! Did Nazar (Ukraine) just propose or something?!?
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At this point, obviously still lost in the excitement of the Spanish entry, the tve hosts announced Malta was next...
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How to describe this? If they made Sesame Street songs in Serbia, they'd sound like this! Watch the three girls in the background, their routine is one of the best bits, as are their costumes. There's no other word for it - it's wacky, wacky, wacky!
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The drums in this are way too heavy, almost bordering on the tribal, and - sorry - but I think this one is danger of becoming annoying through repeated viewings!
Sophie oozes charisma, but puts it across as one of those kids that discovers the karaoke, belts off a dozen songs, and ensures that everybody leaves the party with a headache. She could easily handle better material than this noisy cacaphony...
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Time and thought has gone into the routine, and it gives us some good visuals. Unfortunately Zana's voice is the problem here. Was this nerves? She looked a bit freaked.
We then have a brief interlude of raving kids at a party hosted by, and themed upon, Dracula. Probably time for an ad-break somewhere in Europe?
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Molly's song is about "you're beautiful, just the way you are" (her words in the intro). From the first chord, a very subtle start like a Celine Dion power ballad, you know this one is going to be serious.
It is no surprise the audience cheer when the song notches itself up a gear. Molly does considerably more than stand there looking pretty. The music itself is very subtle all the way through - it doesn't really reach a crescendo and there is no electric guitar solo, it only provides the necessary accompaniment. The backing singing is barely even present. This song is entirely led by Molly (rather than being loud to cover her deficiencies). Even during the emotional parts, it is her performance. She could have pulled this off a cappella.
This is what happens when the voice, the person, and the material all come together correctly. My favourite song of the night by a million miles, and ... my favourite junior Eurovision song overall.
Now please excuse me, I'm going to chapter-back and listen to it again... maybe a couple of times.
And if anybody has the words and a translation...?
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A fun and bouncy song with an energetic routine to go with it. Like last year, it is co-ordinated in dance and the clothing. The Greek kid's entries have been fun to watch (so where did it all go wrong with S.A.G.A.P.O.?).
If I was going to make a negative comment, I would tell Chloe that people should do a lot less of the "whoa-oh-oh-oh" in their songs. Sometimes it works (like in the Swedish entry), but when it is just thrown in, and when you have a voice such as Chloe's, it sounds like moaning and wailing, as if in pain. People shouldn't moan so much in songs. And I should stop being so damn picky! Even Hayley Westenra makes a few moaning noises here and there, and as for most rock divas, it is practically obligatory to sound like you're in the act of giving birth...
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It starts off well but quickly goes into "just another song" mode (of the popish early '80s european style), which is a shame as Andrei is not lacking in personality.
Here followed a brief behind-the-scenes segment of some worried-looking kids getting made up, hair done, etc.
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This has a very late-'70s feel to it. And please excuse my earlier horror movie reference, it was the product of an overactive imagination - however if you are "into" the horror movie genre then you might follow my train of thought. If not, I'm sure it'd be gibberish (like most of what I write!). The group do a great job of the "da-da da-da da" bits, I just feel we should have had a bit more animation from the boy singing, as - despite the Superman top and naming the group after a famous Nordic God, his performance was somewhat lacklustre.
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Don't want you to think I missed this song, I just have nothing to add.
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Look at what they're wearing. Look at the hats. Look at their ages. The dresses. Colour-coordinated shoes. The whole guacamole. While these two girls may have the talent to go on stage and perform their song, there's no way you can convince me they aren't aiming for max cute points. If Sophie from Malta thinks she was going to be extra cute, however can we classify the Tolmachevy sisters?
The song is not jazz in the accepted sense of the word. And, to be honest, while the two girls scat, can it be called scat if it is scripted? I thought you kinda had to make it up as you're going along?
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Here is my top 5 pick:
What I am pleased to report that while a number of songs were bizarre, and maybe a tad sucky, there were none that I outright hated. For this reason, there is no list of songs that I hated the most.
- Sweden, absolutely miles ahead of the rest
- Spain
- Serbia (it's just so weird!)
- Greece
- Cyprus
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Following yet another recap of the songs, the next interval act (this interval seems to be going on as long as the contest) is a contest between breakdancers and "coloosh" (phonetic) dancers, which were a lot like Morris dancers.
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Then pictures from an outing...
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And more non-contest singing - a medley of previous Romanian entries. Keep us all in suspense forever!
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Digame is, I believe, a German company. You'll see then credited in the Eurovisions - because they are the ones that coordinate and oversee the televoting around Europe.Ioana then made Svante invite her to the next Junior Eurovision, which will be held in The Netherlands.
Interestingly, "diga me" (say like dee-ga-may) is a Spanish phrase which means "speak to me". Kinda makes sense when you think about telephone voting!
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Talking of The Netherlands, isn't the girl giving their votes the same girl, Tess, who should have won it in 2005?
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From the outset, it looked as if the Olsen twins (sorry, the Russian sisters) would win the contest. As usual, everybody received 12 points before voting began, so a truly awful entry wouldn't go home with the infamous "nul pwah".
Perhaps this is some idea dreamed up by a child phsychologist, so a kid need not get depressed by having no votes as they have 12, not 0. I'd like to think most children have the intelligence not to fall for that, which is perhaps more than we can say for the adults in charge! ☺
About halfway through, the leader board looked like this:
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It looks as if the Greek announcer is the boy from last year's Greek entry.
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Haha! The Greek kids gave 12 points to Cyprus! And, likewise, the Cypriots gave their 12 to the Greeks!
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If you are going to put up the now-obligatory cityscape backdrop, it might be useful to make sure it works!
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Along the way we were treated to another comic gag where Dracula walks on stage with Kseniya, trips over, breaks the carefully-sculpted award... only for Ioana to walk on with a surprise-surprise, she has it, it is okay.
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For the readers who didn't see the contest at all, the "surprise-surprise" is a reference to Ioana popping up every so often saying that she has a surprise-surprise for Andreea.
Well, here it is, the final scoreboard (looks best on a browser that fully supports CSS):
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This is one of the sisters. As Ioana said: don't cry, you won, you're supposed to be happy!
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After yet another change of dress, Ioana herself was upset that it was all over. She had been a good child host. Kooky, for sure. But fun.
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As the sisters started their song again, all kinds of everybody took to the stage.
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I guess it takes an exceptional young performer to keep it together with all that chaos going on, though there were moments when they looked a little less with-it.
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There's always time for a congratulation kiss.
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And some hugs, as the credits roll.
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And, a quick kiss for us in the final message, just before the fade-to-black.
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I absolutely do not get the attraction of the song from Belarus. You don't want to upset the poor kid by asking "what the heck are you doing in the top ten", but... what the heck are you doing in the top ten!?!?
It's a hard call for the Netherlands song. I didn't like it. It was well performed, for sure, but it isn't the sort of thing I'd listen to. And that's why it is a hard call - you see perhaps R'n'B is more an acquired taste - and if everybody else says "it isn't really my cup of tea", then that would explain the mere 44 points. I think with a different song she could have doubled that score, as it was undoubtedly the song that let her down, not her abilities.
My heart goes out to Greece, as the song was not that bad (remember Cyprus gave them 12, so the rest of Europe only offered 11 points). If it is any consolation, Chloe, I liked your song!
I also feel very sad for FYR Macedonia, who only got two points out of the rest of Europe. The song was odd, certainly, but it was nothing like as cheesy and naff as the Croatian entry (which came in with 50 points).
 Click the picture to view a larger version (1240×1240, 285Kb). |
Newsflash: Eurovision in the cradle - we are twin sisters. Not necessarily born under the sign of the twins (Gemini), but raised in order to win. With their strawberry patterned dress and their disco ballet shoes, Nastya (Natascha) and Masha (Mariya), the little Russians only 9 years old, knew how to handle the microphone in front of the jury of the Eurovision Junior. On 2nd November, they exploded the SMS and votes of the contest. A quarter hour of glory which won't last, because the Eurovision is, as we all know, simply a device for manufacturing ephemeral dreams. Better than school are the fans! It is mom who must be happy; her two girls have apparently learned by heart their singing and dancing lessons. |
Well, that's it. See y'all next year!
| Completely written by hand using Metapad 3.51, and initially designed with the help of Microsoft Internet Explorer 6. Images extracted from DVD-R using MPEG2Viewer 1.01, and tidied up with PhotoImpact 5. Then tested with Mozilla Firefox 1.0 and Opera 8.5; though the design is such that it should revert reasonably sanely on older, less capable browsers, such as Fresco... |
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