alca said:
FallenAngelII said:
Anna's voice was shaky and off at times if you listen closely (it's hard to tell sometimes due to her unorthodox singing style).
Of course she was! She was extremely nervous!
Why did she put up a bad performance due to nervousness?
Because she's inexperienced. The Swedish people were all "She's great! She's young, fresh and really talented!"... well, that became her downfall! As an inexperienced singer who's never performed at something as big as the Eurovision Song Contest before, she let her nervousness get the best of her, which served to make her performance lackluster.
This is why you don't send wholly inexperienced performers to Eurovision!
pan said:
Well, just because you hate it doesn't mean the song is rubbish either.
Clearly jurors across all of Europe, people with, you know, experience and insight into the music industry, agree with me. She couldn't even get Top 10 out of 17! If the song was as
brilliant as some people claim in this thread, she should've been able to scrounge up enough jury points to get Top 10 even if the televoters shunned her.
pan said:
And the last part about the "scientifically verifiable facts" really puzzles me. You talk about music like it's mathematics, as if "good music" can be explained with some kind of formula that Anna didn't measure up to?
No, you can simply measure how in-tune someone is. If you analyze her singing, she wasn't even Top 5 this year at staying the most in-tune when singing...
which is ridiculous because her song has a very small range. It's not even a
hard song to perform because it stays within, like, two octaves throughout the entire song! The not shifts are minimal in-between notes, the crescendo
barely shifts the song higher. In other words,
it's an easy song to sing, yet she couldn't stay in-tune enough to get Top 5.
pan said:
Yet, so many people love her voice and this song - even saturdays performance.
Yes, and? It doesn't change the fact that
scientifically speaking, her singing was off-tune relatively a lot for someone being praised as a prodigy in this thread. And who are these "so many people", anyway? The majority of the Swedish people who
didn't vote for her? The many televoters and jurors across of Europe who didn't vote for her?
Are you referring to her fans here on the forums? To her scattered fans in Sweden? Who are these "so many people"?
pan said:
And then you go on saying that Cyprus had the 2nd best singer of the evening? Hmmm.. Did we even watch the same show?
I have gone through (superficial) musical education. In fact, I have what in Swedish is called "perfekt gehör", which I'm not sure what it's really called in English but if I hear a note, I can instantly replicate it perfectly and if I hear a song a few times, I will be able to sing it perfectly in-tune.
What's
your background in music, really? What's your claim to musical prowess? What are your credentials for being able to claim that Cyprus' Jon Lilygreen
wasn't 2nd best at
staying in-tune during Saturday's final?
Because scientifically speaking, he
was. Some scientists actually sat down and figured it out:
http://blogs.coventrytelegraph.net/pass ... sions.html
pan said:
I respect your opinion, but don't confuse it with facts.
Maybe you should take your own advice.
Deltage said:
I really hate people who think that their opinion matters the most. Who are you to say that the song "wasn't good musically"?
Have I even
once said that you are
wrong about your assessment of the song? Called you a bad person for liking it? Saying that the song is most definitely rubbish and trumpeting it around as fact?
No. I'm merely stated my
opinion: The song is rubbish (in my opinion). Meanwhile, it's the song's supporters who have raged on these forums, stating, as if factually provable, that the song was one of the best, if not
the best in this year's contest, that it's an outrage and a giant shocker it didn't make it to the final, that Europe, especially Eastern Europe, is full of idiots who wouldn't know what constitutes good music if it so bit them in the behind because they didn't vote for "This Is My Life".
In Sweden, a lot of people have complained about how it is
Europe which is in the wrong because clearly the Swedes know what constitutes good music, "This Is My Life" is a great song and all of Europe are idiots for not voting for it.
This is the
height of audacity: To claim that your favourite song is factually provable to be great and that anyone who dislikes it is an idiot.
I have
never denigrated someone for liking the song. Your "side" does on a regular basis.
BTW, here are some things scientifically verifiable:
* The song's range is quite small. It stays within just two or so octaves and the switch-up between verse and refrain is minimal, thus creating a monotone-ish sound. As in you never move far up or down on the scale.
* The song has a barely noticeable refrain. It just goes from verse to refrain instantly due of a climb in notes, it's quite sudden and suddenly the refrain is over. Songs with barely discernible refrains often do badly at Eurovision (or just badly overall. Songs with bad verses but good refrains have been able to do well on the refrains alone. Why? Because the refrain is often what people remember the most from a song, especially after having heard it only once). This makes the song easily forgettable after only one listen.
Both of these things serve to make "This Is My Life" less than a brilliant song, especially live at Eurovision where you only get to perform your song once unless you make it to the final. So if not a bad song by nature, it's at least unsuitable for Eurovision and one can easily see why it did not make it to the final.
Deltage said:
The God of Music? So many people on this forum act like they're expert vocal coaches or top music producers. I'm a musician myself, and I wouldn't never make such a comment unless I'm making explicitly clear that it's only my opinion, since after all music is only a matter of taste.
When is it not someone stating their opinion when they say the song is rubbish? When have I ever claimed that I can scientifically prove the song is rubbish? Do
you always add "In my opinion" to everything you write, be it you claiming a song is great or a song is rubbish, to make sure people don't assume you're speaking as if you think "The God of Music" is whispering things in your ear?
Deltage said:
And when does one's life start, then? When they're 50 or something?
It's a philosophical song about being true to yourself, to live your life the way you want to. It's not something you expect of an 18 yearold dressed like a 14 yearold. The quasi-tiara, the stockings under a short dress, which went out of style a few years back, btw, made her look unique, sure, but it also made her look less mature and grown-up than, say, Safura who chose a billowing evening gown-ish type of dress. Anna set herself up to look young on purpose, which kind of didn't help her sound credible when singing about existential and philosophical matters.
Like how Martin Stenmarck's "Las Vegas" was wholly out of place and really out-of-place for him to sing because there was nothing Las Vegas about him. A Swede singing about Las Vegas? Please.
I'm not saying it would never, ever work. It kinda works in the studio version since you don't actually
see Anna performing it them. But live, she gave off a very "I'm a young hipster" vibe, which clashed with the spirit of the song. Meanwhile, Lena sang a song about someone driven kooky but their puppy love and
acted kooky while singing it (and
after singing it), which only served to help her.
Deltage said:
By the way, I definitely agree with the people who have said that this song was much more worthy of the final than "Hero" or "La Voix" (because it's originality in the ESC context, not because it's "better", although I personally think it was).
Original =/= Good
Also, it's hardly original in the context of the contest. Tell me 3 things that are so original and unique about this song and I'll be able to name at least one recent ESC entry that had all or most of those 3 things.
Also, rewarding entries for simply being original is not a good thing. It encourages people to send in entries that aren't necessarily good but simply stand out and are original.