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Iceland ICELAND 2015 - María Ólafsdóttir - Unbroken

How do you like the entry?

  • 12

    38 18.1%
  • 10

    21 10.0%
  • 8

    24 11.4%
  • 7

    27 12.9%
  • 6

    17 8.1%
  • 5

    26 12.4%
  • 4

    10 4.8%
  • 3

    14 6.7%
  • 2

    11 5.2%
  • 1

    3 1.4%
  • 0

    19 9.0%

  • Total voters
    210

musicfan

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May 18, 2012
Posts
1,483
Justice? It's just a song contest, with random placing according to hype mainly. Iceland just don't get the hype, similar to other places on the edge of Europe without that many neighbours. It doesn't matter whether they send some singer with a guitar or not.
 

GRE

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December 6, 2010
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Greece
Justice? It's just a song contest, with random placing according to hype mainly. Iceland just don't get the hype, similar to other places on the edge of Europe without that many neighbours. It doesn't matter whether they send some singer with a guitar or not.

You can't say this for a country that is qualifying for 7 years in a row.
This was not even a song. Maybe suitable for Eurovision Junior ? I don't know.
Well deserved result.
Iceland can do so much better than this.
They have proven it.
 

musicfan

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May 18, 2012
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You can't say this for a country that is qualifying for 7 years in a row.
This was not even a song. Maybe suitable for Eurovision Junior ? I don't know.
Well deserved result.
Iceland can do so much better than this.
They have proven it.

I mean more than just qualifying but being up near the top as well. Anyway I think this was better than other recent Icelandic ones. Though the best remains the 2003 entry.
 

Odalis

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February 18, 2012
Posts
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YOburg
Justice? It's just a song contest, with random placing according to hype mainly. Iceland just don't get the hype, similar to other places on the edge of Europe without that many neighbours. It doesn't matter whether they send some singer with a guitar or not.

Oh please, there was a hype around "Never forget" as far as i remember. Maria screwed up, it's history now, there's nobody else to blame.
I love this song but after seeing this live performance i'd never vote for it, i would even send a text with "don't let this go to the final" if it was possible.
 

Sammy

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February 1, 2014
Posts
14,231
This was too much a visible effort to make a slightly adapted Emmily de Forest-copycat. Two years after her this was just outdated and moreover it was a bad copy.
 

musicfan

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May 18, 2012
Posts
1,483
Maria screwed up, it's history now, there's nobody else to blame.
I love this song but after seeing this live performance i'd never vote for it, i would even send a text with "don't let this go to the final" if it was possible.

She got nervous, like some singers (including at this contest) always do. But they shouldn't have changed it from Icelandic, how can you possibly not blame those involved with the Icelandic entry who decided that? You just hate the singer and want to load it all on her? And yet you like the song?

And this is better than the Emmelie de Forest song which was actually as repetitive but had a much less involving and really rather flat chorus.
 

SRBIJA

Banned
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March 3, 2013
Posts
4,459
Iceland is one of my favourite countries in Eurovision but they deserved to fail this year. Song was really mediocre to begin with, but that live performance was painful to listen to, I was just waiting for three minutes to run out. A shame, considering that they had an amazing quality NF this year. xdoh
 

Odalis

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February 18, 2012
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YOburg
She got nervous, like some singers (including at this contest) always do. But they shouldn't have changed it from Icelandic, how can you possibly not blame those involved with the Icelandic entry who decided that? You just hate the singer and want to load it all on her? And yet you like the song?

And this is better than the Emmelie de Forest song which was actually as repetitive but had a much less involving and really rather flat chorus.

Everybody gets nervous. Polina was nervous. Mans was nervous. Loic was nervous. That's not an excuse.
Hate on a singer? What? If i start hating on people for being nervous, just lock me up in a nut house :lol:
I'm just stating the fact - it was a bad performance and it ruined the song, that's all.
And no, "Only teardrops" was better.
 

musicfan

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May 18, 2012
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1,483
Everybody gets nervous. Polina was nervous. Mans was nervous. Loic was nervous. That's not an excuse.
Hate on a singer? What? If i start hating on people for being nervous, just lock me up in a nut house :lol:
I'm just stating the fact - it was a bad performance and it ruined the song, that's all.
And no, "Only teardrops" was better.

I meant nervous as in affecting performance nervous, as I'm sure you knew only too well. She would have been better in Icelandic I expect.

Only Teardrops was tedious, even Running Scared was better than that.
 

tuorem

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January 17, 2012
Posts
9,592
Location
GN-z11
Time for me to review the Icelandic entry this year :D

María Ólafsdóttir - Unbroken
Status: ok :)

Song: I listened to the song for the first time during the semi and to be frank, I remembered nothing but the underwhelming vocals... Had I been obliged to rank this song, it would have been near the bottom because I could not have hummed it to save my life, like seriously. Like Albania, this is one of the few songs I completely discovered when listening to the studio version afterwards, and I wouldn't say it's a bad song. It does lack character and originality - Icelandic would have been very welcome in this regard - but it's still not totally insignificant to my ears. I like the beat, the melody is cute. It gets repetitive after a while though, a bridge with a change of pace would have been great. It sounds like a song Emmelie de Forest would sing, which is not bad, but I guess it's still too soon for people to appreciate that kind of music again without thinking of the 2013 winner. Good effort Iceland, it's not a great song by any means to me, yet it's enjoyable and better than some recent Icelandic entries.

Voice: Gosh, Maria's vocals were the only thing that I remembered the first time. And I thought it was a disaster, I couldn't even concentrate on the song. Her voice is very childish, it's not what I prefer in terms of tone, but I guess it works with the song. However, the live performance was really bad, it seemed like she couldn't hit one single note right. Ok, she's Young. Ok, there's lots of pressure. But what can you do, I only judge what I hear. Sometimes, the performance is so-so but the song is so nice that it still works. Not here though.

Staging: Why? After Amber's been inspired by Conchita, why did they want to make Maria look like an Emmelie 2.0? This was the only thing to avoid, and they did it :lol: That's a shame, I'm convinced they could have presented it another way. Nothing wrong with what they came up with, it's just that it rings a bell. I've got the feeling the stage was quite empty, I don't know why.

Outcome: I thought she would have been a borderline qualifier despite her underwhelming performance. But non-qualification was deserved as far as the whole package is concerned. Based on the song only, it should have got through. In my personal ranking, Iceland is ranked between 18th-20th places, not a bad song but all the other aspects of the act were too disappointing to have a real chance of doing well unfortunately. See you next year Iceland, I hope for something stronger and with more character. What about bringing Icelandic back? Consider it please xcheer
 

zoyuxi

Member
Joined
November 12, 2013
Posts
247
At first, I thought the song was boring, but the studio version of the song grew on me, and I now listen to it from time to time. :)

For the semi, I was disappointed that they opted for 5 backing vocalists instead of the 2 dancers. The dancers would have brought in some liveliness. Her live performance was bad, and it certainly did not deserve to go to the finals. Maria sounded like she was singing with a closed throat, like she was trying to force sound out while someone was throttling her. I hope she'll work with a vocal instructor who can help "free" her voice.
 

Krinos

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Joined
July 4, 2015
Posts
19
To be honest, even if her vocals had been good at the semi I still think she would have been the Mei Finegold of 2015. I never thought this was as good as people painted it out to be because it's basically just the chorus over and over again. And really what else is there? Neither the music, message or vocals are outstanding. IMO, they should have made it bilingual. The change of language could make up for the lack of change of melody. :/

I'm not saying this is a bad song, but I do think it's grossly overrated. I guess most people think it has something special, but I'm not feeling it at all.
 

NNR

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March 23, 2017
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Doon sooth

Maria is back, and wants to represent San Marino this year.

Edit: link fixed
 

Mainshow

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December 23, 2018
Posts
13,900
7 points - despite its disappointing performance, the song itself is quite nice. A harmless but catchy bop.. kinda Katy Perry-ish
 

Alaska49

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April 18, 2013
Posts
2,895

always and forever xoxo
 

BorisBubbles

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Tumblr, mostly.
This song has no verses. That's all. -O-
 
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