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Norway NORWAY 2017 - Jowst - Grab the Moment

How do you rate the entry?

  • 12

    29 17.7%
  • 10

    20 12.2%
  • 8

    17 10.4%
  • 7

    17 10.4%
  • 6

    15 9.1%
  • 5

    13 7.9%
  • 4

    8 4.9%
  • 3

    10 6.1%
  • 2

    8 4.9%
  • 1

    5 3.0%
  • 0

    22 13.4%

  • Total voters
    164

carl1

Member
Joined
March 1, 2015
Posts
746
Last year I correctly predicted a top 10 for Poland (in March). This year the surprise top 10 could be Norway.
Cool, modern, ORIGINAL, I enjoy this very much. I can see the juries liking this a lot :D

I'm good at predicting random top tenners :D even the jury part
Congrats Norway, great result :D
 

bstream

Well-known member
Joined
November 28, 2012
Posts
847
What a sneaky top 10 for this cool entry. Great work, Norway after that injustice to Freddy Kalas. Europe definitely felt it this time around.
 

Edward

Active member
Joined
February 7, 2014
Posts
2,496
Location
Portugal
I still get a d-bag vibe out of these guys. And my head is still a bit fuzzy from all those purple effects. But I have to say that this is a catchy song. I still would have preferred other songs from their semi in the final instead of them but I can now understand why they made it. They filled up the stage well and I suppose they were part of the needed diversity during the final. This is effective nordic songwriting and staging at work, like it or not.

In a way they were the Georgia 2016 of this year, I guess. Only that Georgia's song got you right away from the the first beats and that the guys seemed honestly nice and humble. Maybe the comparison is too nice but I'll let that be.
 

John1

Well-known member
Joined
November 1, 2015
Posts
7,052
Location
Brittany
To me, 'Grab the Moment' will still remain one of the worst entries from Norway, though they struggled to achieve a top 10 placement. I assume that I'll never be able to forgive the Norwish audience for what they dare do back in March. => THEY WILDLY MADE ULRIKKE FAIL TO WIN THE WHOLE THING. NONO

I can't figure this fact out, as this was the only act, along with Elly and the Woods' one, which fitted with the entrant's voice, the staging and any other stuff. Her failure was so unexpected that I almost had a heart attack when I saw that she received the two first :12: at the beginning of the show, while she didn't do quite well afterwards.... HOW DISAPPOINTING!
 

Realest

Well-known member
Joined
May 23, 2017
Posts
7,483
Location
Germany
Didnt deserve our Juries 12 Points meanwhile Italy, Belgium, Romania and Ukraine got 0.
 

CPV4931

Well-known member
Joined
February 25, 2011
Posts
6,881
Location
Germany
Didnt deserve our Juries 12 Points meanwhile Italy, Belgium, Romania and Ukraine got 0.

Anyway "Grab the moment" is one of those songs, you´d expect our jury to give 12 points to. I was watching the Grand Final with some of my friends this year and before the German points were announced, I told them just for fun: "Everyone is giving their 12 jury points to Portugal or Bulgaria and we will give them to sth. like e.g. Norway". Didn´t expect it to come true ;-) Every year our 12 jury points seem to be a bid random.
 

Edward

Active member
Joined
February 7, 2014
Posts
2,496
Location
Portugal
Not really from JOWST, rather from Aleksander Walmann. He came across as rather pretentious and hipster-like. Though seeing him giving a go at Anja's song earned him a few extra brownie points on my consideration. Steen seemed much more genuine and all around-friendly in interviews though.
 

GianlucaTomoe

Banned
Joined
September 11, 2015
Posts
2,708
Location
Birmingham, UK
Walmann can only dream to be as musically relevant as Anja Nissen. He's already forgotten by everyone, while Anja will keep doing music.
 

lavieenrose

Albania Superstar
Joined
August 21, 2014
Posts
11,634
Location
Phoenix, AZ / Oovoo Javer
Walmann can only dream to be as musically relevant as Anja Nissen. He's already forgotten by everyone, while Anja will keep doing music.

Wow, I didn't know "keep doing music" was all one had to do to be remembered by everyone. By that definition, [MENTION=14505]Lupus[/MENTION]' vacuum is musically relevant.

11301939


Slay queen xheat
 

Lupus

Piece of Wonk
Joined
March 12, 2015
Posts
9,820
Location
Scotland
Wow, I didn't know "keep doing music" was all one had to do to be remembered by everyone. By that definition, [MENTION=14505]Lupus[/MENTION]' vacuum is musically relevant.

11301939


Slay queen xheat

That's not my vacuum
 

ScarlettGirl

Member
Joined
March 17, 2015
Posts
634
Location
Candyland
Not really from JOWST, rather from Aleksander Walmann. He came across as rather pretentious and hipster-like. Though seeing him giving a go at Anja's song earned him a few extra brownie points on my consideration. Steen seemed much more genuine and all around-friendly in interviews though.

Maybe. But I don´t know Alex, so I can´t really comment on that nor do I want to speculate that he is.
 

DJNightingale

Member
Joined
November 8, 2015
Posts
337
Location
Ternopil, Ukraine
This song is my favourite in Eurovision 2017 and one of my three all-time favourites! There aren't many songs where powerful awesome music combines with senseful lyrics. I'm happy that it is in top ten. :)
 

tuorem

Well-known member
Joined
January 17, 2012
Posts
9,592
Location
GN-z11
My review of "Grab The Moment":

-Norway is a hit-or-miss country in Eurovision, I mean everyone has their weak years but I feel like Norwegians are particularly prone to sending this and that to the contest, which is a good thing somehow because one never knows what to expect from them. I barely followed their NF, but from what I've heard and seen, nothing caught my attention, it seemed kind of weak to me. Out of their lineup, "Grab The Moment" was probably the "least worse" entry they could have had imo, it's a typical DJ-ish electro-pop track that uses every element that's considered trendy in today's mainstream music scene. Each one of us has its own expectations and standards when it comes to Eurovision, personally I'm here for originality and emotion first and foremost, not really for songs I could hear on the radio everyday; I can enjoy mainstream pop entries if they are done properly, with a spark of je-ne-sais-quoi that doesn't make them blend in the mass of beigeness that floods us everywhere. Unfortunately, "Grab The Moment" doesn't fall into this category to me. It started with a simple guitar note on loop and undefined sound effects, Aleksander started singing 10 seconds later... Well, "singing" may be a stretch, as it sounded more like "singing speaking", which the very linear melodic lines emphasized. The pre-chorus arrived with a beat, shorter melodic lines, alarms and heavy background synths: that part kind of contrasted with the first verse which was uneventful imo. Then the chorus began with a clearer beat, (finally) a hummable melody and still the heavy synths. After that, the controversial break made up of vocal samples followed, the fact the EBU once again had to infringe their rules was bad to me, they already did that with Switzerland 2014 and I think they should simply force people to tweak their compositions (like Bulgaria 2016 did). Personally, this trend of duck-pitched vocal distortions will remain a mystery to me, in most songs I find them dated and laughable, and here it's not even that catchy. Past this first minute, the second is the exact same... Not really eventful again. I had to wait for the bridge to find something new: actually it's a modified version of the verses with a slightly different melody, but the interesting element here is the chord progression of the synth: it was kinda ominous and almost unmelodious with the vocal lines, which was a cool effect I must say. Then the last 30 seconds are filled by the same old chorus. Lots of people are considering the word "ballad" as a synonym of "boredom", yet "Grab The Moment" to me is the perfect example that an uptempo-ish song can be just as boring. I assume JOWST didn't exert himself creating the melody because it's awfully monotonous and repetitive, barely catchy and borderline annoying. Same thing for the uninspired arrangements (except the synths of the bridge). The copy and paste approach doesn't always work tbh. It's just another piece of trendy pop music that's got nothing to stand out in a song contest. Pros: the synths. Cons: Very weak melodic content, overly repetitive, cheap gimmicks, meh arrangements.

My highlight would definitely be the bridge and its wave of weird synths that gave a little bit of identity to that song.

-Vocally, Aleksander was a steady performer. His vocal tone was indeed quite relaxing, but the issue I have is that because the song is so monotonous and half-sung only, the live performances didn't bring anything more than the studio cut. It lacked variations in the vocal department too.

-Visually, they knew how to give a bit of entertainment to the viewers without getting too carried away. First, they included purple noise on screen and combined it with fast camera shots to give an edgy feel to the performance. JOWST wore a switched on mask and pretended to play the guitar behind his console, I guess it needed visual gimmick to stand out, personally, I didn't like it. The stage was bathed in shades of white, black and purple, and the background screen displayed moving geometrical shapes. When the break started, polygonal versions of Aleskander's face appeared on screen. The singer himself had a mic stand with a neon light, which was highly noticeable in the dark during the bridge. Then JOWST bang a drum, and that's pretty much all. While I think they did a good job at giving the song some visual value, the hipster vibe I got from it irked me because the song was nothing special. To me, it came across as: all style, no substance.

-Results-wise, I kind of expected Norway to qualify, even though they were highly expendable this year. However, the support they received from the juries in the final was insane, I do take note that these people are repulsed by rap in any way, shape or form, yet they weren't off-put by the "singing speaking" going on: interesting. 35pts from the televoters seemed more realistic to me given the quality of the composition, still overall JOWST snatched a top ten placing - which I feel was still too high - but at least they prevented the Netherlands from getting there: it was a blessing in disguise, so to speak. In my personal ranking, "Grab The Moment" is around the 30th places, the song bore me to death and I definitely didn't to grab my phone to vote for it. Of course, had I been able to decide, they would have stayed in the semi, some non-qualified modern songs were much more my cup of tea: congrats for the result nonetheless. See you next year in Lisbon guys, I hope you'll have a stronger selection because it wasn't exactly groundbreaking for Kiev. Fingers crossed! :)
 

IdaVelvet

New member
Joined
October 21, 2018
Posts
14
One of my favorites. :)
I generally enjoy "futuristic pop" - modern vibes that aren't over the top with the tempo.. the minimal vibe with a touch of passion. Just like the City Lights by Blanche that year. Grab the Moment stood out to me, I do think it has the distinctive factor... at least I hear it. I will definitely pay attention to this artist and I have hopes that he'll continue rocking this vibe/genre.
 

Mainshow

Veteran
Joined
December 23, 2018
Posts
13,900
5 pts
Crazy to think it was the favourite of the German jury.

Even though I know that it's a great production and catchy as hell, it was not my cup of tea. Quite average.
 
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