midnightsun
Veteran
Magic of comparison maybe? It's kind of like Finland 2006. No way everyone in 2006 was a hard-rock/metal fan out of sudden, I guess it was so outstanding that people liked it for the sake of being different. It's similar with Italy this year. I don't say that it isn't a great song (it is, fresh or not) but I'm thinking that it will appeal to many because it doesn't blend in.
Lordi was quite a household name within the Metal bubble at the time and I‘ve read that there were huge fan groups around the world who never watched ESC and didn’t care about but just united to all vote for Lordi. I don’t know if they were enough to make them win without the support of the casual ESC audience but I‘m sure they are responsible for a good amount of votes.
If Hard Rock Halleluja was sung by an unknown band and if we had juries back then, Lordi would not have won I think.
I was a Lordi fan at that time but I didn’t like their ESC entry at first - which by the way I didn’t know before the contest (back then I only listend to some songs in advance, not each one). Even as a fan I would not have televoted for this because their live performance wasn’t my kind of thing. (Not so much their costumes but rather the poor vocal quality). 2006 was one of the very few contests I wasn’t able to watch live, I just turned on the tv when the points were given.
And let‘s not forget that Manga came 2nd with a song that slightly falls into Finland‘s category (in Eurovision terms! I know their music style is different for us who are in the rock scene but not for the casual ESC audience).