Time for me to review this year's Australian entry
Dami Im - Sound Of Silence
Status: very average :?
Song: As expected, Australia came back this year after their so-called "one-off" participation last year
; the only difference is that they now have to compete in the semis, which I'm not sure whether it is a good thing or not since we'll see one less European country in the final from now on. Anyway, I guess most people know my opinion about the EBU's invitation, so I won't develop that there as I don't want this post to turn into a polemical tract. To me, their debut entry "Tonight Again" was just an ok song to me, it was kind of repetitive and it sounded very American to me, a factor that put me off from the start. 2015 was a relatively strong year overall and I ranked them around the 20th position in the final, I guess I expected more from a country that's supposed to be fond of the contest - so maybe that's why I found their song average - but of course I expected a top 10 or top 5 placing, which was guaranteed given how much ORF promoted their participation. Anyway, it's no surprise to me that they were able to return this year. Aussies decided to send Dami Im with a song called "Sound Of Silence", from the title I was hoping for something more original than their first effort, but it turned out that it wasn't so. The entry is a radio-friendly power ballad that deals with loneliness people face through technological devices and social media these days, I guess Dami is desperately trying to feel once again the emotions of a love relationship that ended by checking social media and calling her past lover, however she ends up feeling pain and realizes she can't move on even though she has the psychological means to do it. I find the lyrics ok: not bad, but not remarkable either, the metaphors used are commonplaces. I'm kind of annoyed by the "face time" mention that is supposed to be banned in Eurovision though (remember San Marino's "Facebook" in 2012): who in the world thinks including the name of an Apple app in lyrics is sexy anyway? :? Like seriously?
The other lyrical weakness is the chorus itself that only has two lines - for six melodic phrasings - which leads to unavoidable repetition. I think it's really a lazy move from the authors tbh, four more lines would have solved that... Musically, it starts gently with a deep beat and atmospheric synthesizers, Dami starts singing the first verse and - I don't know why - the first line ("Grown tired and weary brown eyes") reminds me of Loreen. The atmosphere set is rather nice, the relative peacefulness of the instrumentation illustrates loneliness and isolation I guess. The electronic sound in the background is intriguing because one knows something is going to happen musically. Suddenly, the short pre-chorus - composed of one line and the word "calling" repeated three times - comes, it is a noticeable change because the mood of the song changes: Dami's voice becomes powerful and the drum sounds set the tone of what the chorus will sound like. A beat with reverb, light drum sounds, a synthesizer performing like a bass line to add more depth and strength to the melody and stylized vocal samples (as in some early Lana Del Rey songs) are introduced during the chorus, which is made of three lines (two of which are the same sentence) repeated twice. Both lyrically and musically, I think this was a major mistake from the composers-lyricists because the excessive simplicity of that part contrasts too much with the decently composed verses imo. It does remind me of Sia (not the good ol' Sia of course, but the Sia 2.0 with few musical demandings who went mainstream to sell like crazy). I feel like this part is too lazy and the lack of variation makes it annoying very quickly tbh (especially the "and it beats to the sound of silence" line). The second verse and chorus are pretty much the same as the first ones; the bridge does introduce a slight change with a new melodic part on the instrumentation used for the pre-chorus. For the last chorus, one can hear a high note and some sparse discreet ad-libs. Unfortunately, those vocal additions don't make up for the overly repetitive chorus to me. Overall, I think this is an average song: the verses are decent but the chorus definitely doesn't work imo, it's kind of a shame because it could have been way better with vocal/melodic variations for each chorus and 3/4 more sentences instead of repeating the same line ad nauseam. As I said previously, I'm not against repetition in all cases, but it must be done tastefully with slight changes nonetheless to remain bearable imo. The melody and arrangements are nothing special either - like the Israeli entry - it's the kind of song that one has heard gazillion times before and thus is predictable af even at first listen. It's very "x-factor winner debut song" imo.
Voice: Dami's got a strong voice, that's a fact. However, I don't think it has any bit of character, her tone is definitely on the bland side to me and I don't feel anything when she's singing. That is how I distinguish between singers (who are able to hit notes) and artists (who can convey emotions through their voices): Dami is a singer to me. Her live vocals were almost perfect and of course the live version of the song is miles better than the studio version since she introduced lots of vocal variations that were lacking on the cd. However, due to the lack of interest in the music department, it was very tempting to sell the song by oversinging it, which is imo what Dami just did (especially in the final performance). In this regard, it reminded me of Spain 2014 "Dancing In The Rain": the song was just an excuse for vocal gymnastics, there was nothing melodically or arrangement-wise to praise really. So, both Dami's performances were great as expected (and better than the studio version), but the last chorus was just oversung to me. That was too much.
Staging: Australia opted for a simpler stage this time: no visible backing vocalists or fancy street lights on stage.
Dami was seated on a big cube at the center of the stage, two blue spotlights were pointed at her while the backdrops were displaying windows of indistinct skyscrapers at night. Some red/white moving lines appeared here and there, maybe to illustrate traffic in big cities. During the chorus, a moving column of blue lines was shown on the central backdrop while moving blue perpendicular lines on black decorated the lateral screens. Blue lines (looking like cables) also appeared intermittently on the floor and the cube turned into a piece of starry sky. During the second verse, Dami had a some particular gestures, as if she was truly playing with the holograms meant to remind us of smartphone apps and stuff (circle of faceless social media profiles), then faces of men and blue circles and windows started appearing here and there as Dami was pretending to move them with her hand. During the second chorus, the same exact visual elements of the first one came back in red colour. During the bridge, Dami magically stood in front of the cube she was still seated on a few seconds ago, which let viewers see her dress. For the last chorus, in addition to the red elements, there was a line of white spotlights that moved as a wave, I liked that. Dami wore a shiny long white dress with a long train, huge slit at the front that let show her legs and a voluminous shiny silvery embellishment on her right-hand shoulder. I've never been fond of Disney princesses' dresses (I prefer evening dresses), the train is too puffy for my taste and the embellishment was a bit too big for her, otherwise I think it was ok. Overall, the presentation was rather simple, it suited the song: the holograms weren't too present and were in line with the lyrics, the colours used were cold as expected, I don't know what else they could have done to enhance the performance tbh.
Outcome: Australia qualified and placed 2nd out of 26 countries in the grand final, since juries ranked them first (
!) and televoters ranked them 4th. What can I say? Even bad fortune-tellers could have guessed juries would have ranked them first, which was very suspicious to me considering the runner-up had like 100 points less... Was there something I didn't hear or see? The Australian act didn't scream landslide winner to me (it didn't even scream winner imo). I guess juries expected a result like last year: 1st with juries + 3rd or higher with people = winner. Surprising thing is that Australia placed 4th only with viewers, so they prevented that specific case from happening again. Honestly, I was convinced that Australia was top 3 because it's the kind of smooth production meant to appeal to the masses, but I was delighted to see that songs with soul got more votes in the end (Ukraine and Poland). Frankly, I won't cry for Aussies failing to win by 20 points or something, yes I do not like the song, but even objectively, I fail to see what made it a contender for victory apart from the fact that it's precisely coming from Australia, which still benefits from the novelty factor imho. Had Poland or the UK sent this, they would have probably reached 20th place at best in the final. It is excessively commercial and average at all levels. And I'm even more disappointed that it comes from a country with big means that has alledgedly followed the contest for about 30 years, personally I expected edgier music from them (like "Rhythm Inside" for instance). In my personal ranking, "Sound Of Silence" placed 27th out of 42 but I realize I have overrated it myself of about 10 places, it is officially the most overrated entry of 2016 to me (closely followed by Russia). The icing on the cake was that the Marcel Bezençon Composer Award - originally meant to reward (I quote) "
the best and most original composition as voted on by the participating composers" - went to the composers of "Sound Of Silence"...
Is that a joke or a consolation prize? This song (with "You're Not Alone" and "Made Of Stars") was the degree zero of originality! Out of all the original songs and all the mainstream songs with more musical merit, that song won. :? Guys, no offense but if you could stop sending commercial songs and try to present more refined entries and artists, I guess I could appreciate your participation actually.
Congrats for your 2nd place, you saw that you aren't part of the "underrated countries" category, so please give us something really worth top places next time. I beg you: think outside of the box! See you next year
