The Netherlands manages to completely throw off my Eurovision Predictor sense, once again.
The Netherlands has been fishing around for a decent strategy for picking a Eurovision representative the last few years. They've done the standard national-final-televote thing, they tried letting the guy from The Smurfs write the song ((fun fact: I hate the clowns in this video so much, and this song is four years old)), and last year, they even picked a more established singer, Anouk, to represent them with the song "Birds" (which placed higher than I expected for a song about birds falling unceasingly out of the sky). This finally broke their multi-year streak ((The Netherlands' tradition of not making the final predates my viewing of the Eurovision Song Contest)) (and ended with them in the top 10 when results came in), so it makes sense that they'd try it again this year:
For the second year in a row, The Netherlands has broken my ability to predict if they'll make the final or not. I like the mellow nature of the song, and the duo's vocals compliment each other well. Usually when Eurovision does country, it fails badly, but there's enough of a folk/Americana influence here ((it is weird to talk about Americana and Eurovision in the same sentence you guys. Weird.)) that I find myself really liking it. Whether it'll be a tough sell to the rest of Europe is something I'm struggling to do, though - it feels like a nice song, but doesn't scream EUROVISION to me in the way many of this year's other entries (including the folky ones) do.
I'd love to see The Common Linnets play with their performance setup if they're going to make the final, though. Admittedly, the video that's been released is a talk show performance, but this staid setup feels more fitting for an SNL appearance than the Eurovision Song Contest's grand stage. It's too small-scale and intimate for (what is ultimately) an arena show. I'm interested to see what Europe makes of this come May, but I don't have much hope.