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Belgium BELGIUM 2017 - Blanche - City Lights

How do you rate the entry?

  • 12

    148 47.7%
  • 10

    36 11.6%
  • 8

    33 10.6%
  • 7

    27 8.7%
  • 6

    10 3.2%
  • 5

    11 3.5%
  • 4

    12 3.9%
  • 3

    3 1.0%
  • 2

    5 1.6%
  • 1

    4 1.3%
  • 0

    21 6.8%

  • Total voters
    310

Ellen

Member
Joined
May 15, 2014
Posts
53
Location
Italy
Well done, Blanche! Tons of people were bringing you down after the first rehearsals and they kept saying you couldn't even qualify, but at the end you managed to achieve the 4th place! Definitely one of my favourite songs this year (also, it's climbing the Italian iTunes chart too xup)
 

Chorizo

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May 9, 2014
Posts
4,251
Belgium is my personal winner this year. Blanche should have received more support, especially from the juries. The juries underrated this song dramatically. At the same time, the juries overrated Australia.
 

RainyWoods

Croak-kay
Joined
February 9, 2012
Posts
25,202
Location
London
Still though juries completely ignores the whole "song" aspect and it's scary when pure crap songs are hailed because they got a wailer for three minutes where's actually good songs get sacked because the singer was not on top, again should we treat it as singing talent show or a song contest? Last I checked the latter was the actual purpose.

Also speaking of awkward performance, hello Portugal "I am such an artist so I will look stoned and nonchalant for three minutes because that's genuine"...

I think feeling music with your body is more genuine than pretentiously twisting words around the mouth for three minutes, muttering and slurring in a very forced and fake (hipster indie pop) "i'm so delicate and special" way, but I guess that's just me. Her way of singing is completely soulless. I live for unique and different voices, but not contrived ones.

Blanche was horrific during the semis. I cringed so hard, and my cringe levels had lessened a humongous amount in the final... because she had improved. Do you think she should have got sympathy votes just because the song is good and contemporary? I don't. We save that kind of vote for the public. The jury are extremely questionable at times, and i'm annoyed with them this year especially, but you can't blame them for not supporting what was a car crash in the semis. In the press room vote, the song received 0 votes from hundreds of people. This is a song that was a huge fan favourite, and very well loved. What does that tell you? For me the vocalist is just as important as the song, often more so. Both matter. It's much easier though for an artist to ruin a song. Should juries go wild for "City Lights" just because it's a good, contemporary song and we had say Slavko performing it? Blache gave (in my opinion) one of the worst Eurovision performances ever during the semis, and she's extremely lucky that people actually did excuse her, and voted just because they appreciate the song (which is understandable. It's a cool composition). You shouldn't be able to turn up at Eurovision and perform like it's your first time on stage and get away with it.


Sorry, I actually wasn't going to come back here and be harsh about this song again, but the Salvador comment ignited my feelings once more. Congratulations on the top 5 placing Belgium.
 

Musicosity

Active member
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February 22, 2011
Posts
3,109
I love it how the Belgians always challenge both the audience and themselves. Good luck for next year, make it good one again, please. xup
 

Chorizo

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May 9, 2014
Posts
4,251
I think feeling music with your body is more genuine than pretentiously twisting words around the mouth for three minutes, muttering and slurring in a very forced and fake (hipster indie pop) "i'm so delicate and special" way, but I guess that's just me. Her way of singing is completely soulless. I live for unique and different voices, but not contrived ones.

Blanche was horrific during the semis. I cringed so hard, and my cringe levels had lessened a humongous amount in the final... because she had improved. Do you think she should have got sympathy votes just because the song is good and contemporary? I don't. We save that kind of vote for the public. The jury are extremely questionable at times, and i'm annoyed with them this year especially, but you can't blame them for not supporting what was a car crash in the semis. In the press room vote, the song received 0 votes from hundreds of people. This is a song that was a huge fan favourite, and very well loved. What does that tell you? For me the vocalist is just as important as the song, often more so. Both matter. It's much easier though for an artist to ruin a song. Should juries go wild for "City Lights" just because it's a good, contemporary song and we had say Slavko performing it? Blache gave (in my opinion) one of the worst Eurovision performances ever during the semis, and she's extremely lucky that people actually did excuse her, and voted just because they appreciate the song (which is understandable. It's a cool composition). You shouldn't be able to turn up at Eurovision and perform like it's your first time on stage and get away with it.


Sorry, I actually wasn't going to come back here and be harsh about this song again, but the Salvador comment ignited my feelings once more. Congratulations on the top 5 placing Belgium.

It's fine that you prefer Salvador's style but that doesn't make it objectively better than Blanche's style.
 

popavapeur

Well-known member
Joined
February 19, 2015
Posts
1,829
Location
Paris (France)
I think feeling music with your body is more genuine than pretentiously twisting words around the mouth for three minutes, muttering and slurring in a very forced and fake (hipster indie pop) "i'm so delicate and special" way, but I guess that's just me. Her way of singing is completely soulless. I live for unique and different voices, but not contrived ones.
.

Just reacting on that : I guess that's not that chosen because she barely speaks english so she sings as teachers told us how to pronounce english. Actually I remember learning english in classes and the teachers kept telling us : imagine you have a hot potato in your mouth then pronounce the words (like really I'm not joking) and when I hear Blanche, she's just applying that and she was afraid to mispronounce things so I'm sure she exagerrated this hot potato thing. That doesn't take off how you dislike her way of singing but I genuinely don't think that was "fake" or a "current" way of singing just the way she learned it.
 

RainyWoods

Croak-kay
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February 9, 2012
Posts
25,202
Location
London
It's fine that you prefer Salvador's style but that doesn't make it objectively better than Blanche's style.

And I didn't say it was objectively better a single time in my post. I made it very clear it was what I thought "I think", "for me" and "in my opinion".
 

Alaska49

Well-known member
Joined
April 18, 2013
Posts
2,895
I think feeling music with your body is more genuine than pretentiously twisting words around the mouth for three minutes, muttering and slurring in a very forced and fake (hipster indie pop) "i'm so delicate and special" way, but I guess that's just me. Her way of singing is completely soulless. I live for unique and different voices, but not contrived ones.
i mean, this is exactly how i feel about salvador, while i feel blanche is legit when it comes to emotions. not trying to start a fight with this, just using this to make this point:

Do you think she should have got sympathy votes just because the song is good and contemporary? I don't. We save that kind of vote for the public. The jury are extremely questionable at times, and i'm annoyed with them this year especially, but you can't blame them for not supporting what was a car crash in the semis. In the press room vote, the song received 0 votes from hundreds of people. This is a song that was a huge fan favourite, and very well loved. What does that tell you?
this tells me that, while an opinion shared by a majority of the people in this board, it is still a subjective one that the juries could have very well disagreed with. if juries are to be considered objective for bombing blanche, then is it objective that demy performed better than norma john?

i get the point that you're making but if performance quality is subjective, then a-lister is not wrong (or right) in claiming song quality should be accounted for as much as performance quality is. it's all subjective anyway. also, sympathy votes just because the song is good and contemporary is a total thing the juries do, too. grab the moment just happened.
 

Quent91

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Joined
January 18, 2011
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5,416
Location
Bruxelles, Belgique
I'm so happy with the 4th place we got again, but IMO, Loïc Nottet was better that Blanche ;) Anyway, RTBF has been doing a great job this past few years.
 

GRE

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December 6, 2010
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8,007
Location
Greece
Its a crime that this entry was ranked by juries equally with Moldova.
 

A-lister

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December 28, 2009
Posts
32,843
I think feeling music with your body is more genuine than pretentiously twisting words around the mouth for three minutes, muttering and slurring in a very forced and fake (hipster indie pop) "i'm so delicate and special" way, but I guess that's just me. Her way of singing is completely soulless. I live for unique and different voices, but not contrived ones.

You know you sorta described Salvador's performance there right? :lol:

I'm not sure however, if we talk about Georgian entry and some others, that over-wail a song that is completely shallow from the get-go is having "soul" but each to their own...
 

Jay25

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Joined
February 28, 2015
Posts
254
City lights is on 38 of the german single charts, as the highedt placed esc song this year xheart
 

ESCKerli

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Joined
April 13, 2017
Posts
174
Location
Seoul, South Korea
I hate how people are so quick to dismiss young artists like Blanche. They're supposed to have it all together, having found themselves as artists and have stage presence at that age. Give her a few years and I bet you she'll be bigger than Loïc. She just needs to find her own persona and I'm sure she knows her insecurities, so she's probably already working to overcome them. I praise her for keeping herself up with the way people were trashing her before the semi-finals. Heck, even our own commentator (the hero of our time) was straight up bullying her for her shyness. It's even more disgusting that these are adults trashing on her.
 

12Points

Active member
Joined
July 21, 2013
Posts
1,206
I hate how people are so quick to dismiss young artists like Blanche. They're supposed to have it all together, having found themselves as artists and have stage presence at that age. Give her a few years and I bet you she'll be bigger than Loïc. She just needs to find her own persona and I'm sure she knows her insecurities, so she's probably already working to overcome them. I praise her for keeping herself up with the way people were trashing her before the semi-finals. Heck, even our own commentator (the hero of our time) was straight up bullying her for her shyness. It's even more disgusting that these are adults trashing on her.

What did Mans said?
 

Ezio

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January 29, 2017
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7,585
Location
Loin d'ici
From #39 to #38 in the Austrian charts this week
 

Realest

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May 23, 2017
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7,483
Location
Germany

Simon87

Well-known member
Joined
November 15, 2009
Posts
11,410
Location
Simon city
Well I wasnt expecting this esc song here in the city beach :eek:

 

tuorem

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Joined
January 17, 2012
Posts
9,592
Location
GN-z11
My review of "City Lights":

For a few years now, Belgium has become a country to watch out for in Eurovision. Part of their musical upgrade (and successes) imo comes from the fact two broadcasters are responsible for the contest, so there is like an internal competition, which I think is wholesome when selecting acts internally. Even better, each party unofficially represents a region (Flemish vs Walloon), which certainly fosters their competitive spirit. Personally, I think RTBF has won over VRT every single time this decade because they've tried to push the envelope several times with either catchy entries or experimental-ish efforts (Copycat, With Love Baby, Rhythm Inside). On the contrary, despite their success with "Me And My Guitar" (which wasn't my cup of tea at all), VRT has mostly sent bummers (Would You?, Mother...); "What's The Pressure" was musically and visually an improvement from their past efforts, still it wasn't really that special to me, I think they can do better. Just so you know, my favourite Belgian entry of the 2010's is "With Love Baby", which would have deserved much more than it got. Anyway, after Loïc avant-garde slayage in 2015, I thought it would have been difficult for RTBF to find a worthy successor, but they found it with Blanche's "City Lights". It is an atmospheric electro-pop ballad that indeed could have been sung by Dido (it would have fit her last album "Girl Who Got Away" perfectly) or maybe Birdy (even though I'm not familiar with her work). There is no introduction as it starts right away with Blanche's deep voice, a minimalistic piano accompaniment and some electronic snap sounds. Opening with the chorus is risky, but here I guess it was a clever choice as the melody is easily hummable and memorable. After that, the first verse kicks off with a more elaborate electro set of light beats and an undescribable background sonic loop that actually creates tension and adds dynamism to the orchestration. As the song keeps the same pace from beginning to end and the composers were probably mindful of it sounding linear, introducing that tiny element made the verses sound like they were faster than the chorus, even though there was no actual pace change, which was kinda cool imo. The atmosphere is mostly dark and nocturnal thanks to background synths, the melody is quite nice: nothing too intricate, but the lines flow nicely. The chorus has got a more cosmic/dreamy feel to it, Blanche is accompanied by subtle backing voices, low piano notes and synths. The second verse is pretty similar to the first one, the short break between this part and the next chorus is noteworthy though, I think it sounded effective during live performances. Apart from the usual arrangements, some synth notes were added to the second chorus. Then comes a very welcome bridge, breaking the monotony of the melody a little while building on the chorus momentum. Then we kind of go back to a higher-pitched version of the very first chorus used as an intro, singing it in a higher pitch was the way to go to avoid easily avoidable linearity, if that makes sense :D Eventually, the song ended with a full-blown chorus. Overall, I think this was a solid effort musically speaking. As far as mainstream pop music is concerned, RTBF understood that defending some material with mass-appeal doesn't mean it shouldn't sound high-end or relatively "adventurous" arrangement-wise. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying "City Lights" is a super original piece of music, however it mixes a catchy and memorable melody with a gloss that took it to another level compared with most mainstream pop songs in Eurovision. What I'm trying to say is that mainstream pop is not the devil when it's made tastefully, with the will to introduce elements/effects that elevate it and make it escape the beigeness/formulaicness syndrome we know only too well. Pros: nice atmosphere, rather cute arrangements, solid melody, nice deep voice. Cons: it may be too linear and uneventful to some, and I would partly agree with that, but I guess that was intended somehow.

My musical highlight would be the second verse and its dramatic arrangements, followed by the short break that I find effective.

-Vocally, RTBF chose a singer with an interesting voice, so props to them for that. However, the issue that has been raised at some point by pretty much everyone is that Blanche's personality (her shyness in particular) kind of ruins the potential she has as a performer. Some found her vulnerable and stuff - each to their own - personally, all I saw from her on stage was a corpse-like attitude during the first two minutes of the song, and then a scared doe facing car lights towards the end. I'm not saying this to bash her or anything - actually I agree with what [MENTION=15711]ESCKerli[/MENTION] said above - but the truth is first impressions are what matters in Eurovision and I sincerely felt uneasy watching her perform in the first semi because she didn't seem to be enjoying being here (and I couldn't get into the song due to that). As a very shy person myself, I can relate, still I wish she hadn't been so expressionless, even her face looked frozen. No need to say her semi performance didn't convince me at all at first listen, hence why I was on the fence about the song (and the poor sound quality didn't help). Thankfully, she did better in the final vocally-speaking, despite no changes in terms of body language. She couldn't help it, that's for sure, yet her attitude didn't help me like the song live (which needed a better facial and physical delivery, if that makes sense).

-Visually, it wasn't quite what I expected either. Giving Blanche's rather limited performing abilities, I would have liked a more intimate and striking presentation tbh. They played with white moving spotlights, a dark background and a sphere with dots (which reminded me of Vienna's logo). Strobing lights appeared during the first verse and geometrical shapes filled the screens. I'm not convinced by the frosty blue/dark blue colour scheme, I think it was too cold-looking, a bit too common and not really in line with the music (black, white, grey and yellow like in the music video would have been more suitable imo). There was a cool concentric effect on the floor though, I liked that. What I liked the most is the lights moving during the part right after the bridge, they should have played more on a "spotlight choreography" and could have made the screens less busy imo. Blanche wore a long black dress with frills, tbh I liked it and it was miles better than the white dress they had considered at first. To sum up, while the visuals weren't bad or tasteless by any means, I believe they weren't up to the song and the atmosphere of it wasn't well translated. Like Croatia's "Lighthouse" last year, they could have done the song justice with an emphasis on spotlights.

-Results-wise, I couldn't predict that one because musically, it 100% deserved to get through to me, but performance-wise, it was disputable and as lots of non-qualifiers gave much better performances, it may open a debate about whether good songs with meh performances or meh songs with good performances should be favoured (from a professional point of view). Personally, Eurovision remains a song contest to me - not a mere talent show - so musical merit should keep an advantage over great vocal delivery if a choice has to be made. With that being said, "City Lights" did have its place in the final imo and I disapprove of the jury voting (once again) which wouldn't have made Belgium qualify, I get it might not have been in their top 5, but the semi was musically poor enough for Belgium to reach their top 10 based on the song only imo. Eventually, RTBF did it again by placing 4th for the second time in a row, viewers at home really liked it! Too bad juries put them below the average songs of Norway, Australia and Sweden for instance. In my personal ranking, "City Lights" is my 10th favourite song of the year. Well done neighbours! Thanks to RTBF for sending another song I can care about, even though "With Love Baby" remains my fave effort so far. I wish the best of luck to Laura Groeseneken in Lisbon and I hope VRT will deliver the goods! Fingers crossed xpray
 

Alaska49

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April 18, 2013
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2,895
hello. do you by any chance have time for the word of the lord?

 
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