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!