My review:
FRANCE 2020 - Tom Leeb - The Best in Me: "oh Lord..."
Well, I didn't remember I was the last member to post in this thread, but that does make sense. If someone is still wondering if I personally think the existence of this entry was needed and legitimate... please find my answer from 2'24 to 3'12 in the video below. I can't be any clearer.
Seriously though, I guess I have scattered enough clues about my opinion since "Mon Alliée" came out. To keep it short, it's so wrong on every level that there's nothing salvageable in that effort. I was among the ones who applauded the end of Destination Eurovision to finally take a risk through internal selection after two mid entries, but I meant taking risks to present something memorable - a love or hate song - not a universally-disliked one.
I always am more critical towards my own country, I may nitpick at times that's true, but this time our team just dug our own grave with a pile of shovels and pickaxes. Musically, it's an absolute sugary rubbish no one would ever dare to dream of in 2020, there is nothing composition-wise that is noteworthy in a positive way: it's contrived, ininspired, formulaic. Regarding the arrangements, it's the kind of Swedish faux folk-ish aseptic ballad that is straight up cringe: even the guitar and cello scream saccharine, the drums are basic af, the hook in English can't get any tired, and the icing on the cake is that atrocious climax with the "high note" and the choir. Atrocious is the word, I can't stand this. Easily one of the worst songs of this edition.
Vocally and performance-wise, Leeb is indeed a perfect match with the song since he's got those old-fashioned boyband-like gestures and that tone that makes me roll my eyes to the back of my head. If our new head of delegation did something right, it's definitely finding the right singer for the song. Corniness to the max. Yuk! I won't repeat all the events that occurred, but it's clear we stirred the Lord's ire with that choice. And on top of that, we had to keep some English lines on that import... I mean not only do we persist in ruining our lyrics with English (because you know, people definitely shouldn't miss the deepness of "youareyouareyouare") but we didn't even write this turd. If we are to send something bad, I say let's do it ourselves, that'll be cheaper.
Good thing the Swiss ridiculed us with their entry that became a hot favourite and proved our team was wrong.
Prediction-wise, my only question mark is about whether we would have got zero points from the public (that would have been fun) or the Swedes would have sent us a couple of points to make people believe G:son actually did something worth our time here. Apart from that, the last place was ours, that goes without saying. Tom Leeb should be thankful for the cancellation because we can all forget about this disaster waiting to happen and his career won't be marred by a spectacular failure in front of millions of Europeans.
I will be honest and say that, while it's a pity some 2020 contestants won't be there in 2021 just because they deserve to have their time, in our case it might not be that sad. That choice was clearly unpopular and our HoD probably didn't want the outbreak of negativity to last one more year. We'll see what that one-night selection will be all about next year, if they could pick songs that aren't ashamedly bad, that would be nice. No imports and no English would be a good restart too imo. Wait and see.