Iceland ICELAND 2015 - María Ólafsdóttir - Unbroken

[Lolinna]

I know this is crazy, but I got really curious and wanted to get a better sense of the ranking in Semifinal 2, and when I get in that mood, I do crazy things I decided to round up what countries people believed would qualify from Semifinal 2 to the final and I am basing it on the recap video on the Eurovision Song Contest channel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ICbpVmOgzU

As of now there are about 555 comments and I went through everyone of them. Many of them were just discussions, but the ones including mentions of favorite qualifiers I gathered, wether people mentioned their favorite one, their top 3, top 5, top 7 or top 10. Most of the time, people gave their top 10 favorites. The numbers below are the number of times each country was mentioned as a possible qualifier to the final. People rarely mentioned which country got 12 points, 10 points and so on. So here goes (ranking from most mentions to the least):

1. Sweden - 269
2. Slovenia - 244
3. Iceland - 214
4. Norway - 209
5. Azerbaijan - 200
6. Malta - 180
7. Ireland - 177
8. Israel - 172
9. Latvia - 153
10. Poland - 148
11. Switzerland - 143
12. Czech Republic - 137
13. Lithuania - 119
14. Montenegro - 74
15. Portugal - 61
16. Cyprus - 43
17. San Marino - 30

Sweden was mentioned in almost every message, I would say like 9,5 out of 10 times while Slovenia was mentioned like every 9 out of 10 times. Iceland about 7,5 out of 10 times. I was very surprised of how big a favorite Slovenia is and also how often Ireland and Czech Republic was mentioned.

So if this gives us any idea of our qualifiers in Semifinal 2, Switzerland, Czech Repuplic, Lithuania, Montenegro, Portugal, Cyprus and San Marino will not qualify to the final.

What are your thoughts on this?

 

[martin]

Well Poland will do it better. Azerbaijan will probaly be top 3 and Norway, Iceland and Poland fight for 4 place i think. I think Ireland will be lower than 7, but this could happen i suppose. Hopefully this happen i say

 

[Halldor]

I think Iceland might struggle being between Azerbaijan and Sweden, since there will be people listening for the first time that night, we might be forgotten...

 

[Lolinna]

I think Iceland might struggle being between Azerbaijan and Sweden, since there will be people listening for the first time that night, we might be forgotten...

I see your point, Azerbaijan is a big favorite, but as you can see, Iceland was mentioned more often than Azerbaijan. Of course, Azerbaijan could get more points than Iceland on average, but this is how I see it. Maria has a great stage charisma, and if the staging is done well, which I am rather optimistic about since that will be in the hands of Selma, she could steal the show, since like we all now, Eurovision is so much about the show. Since we are also so lucky to have a commercial break after our performance, her performance will be remembered more than if Sweden would have performed immediately afterwards.

 

[musicfan]

I think Iceland might struggle being between Azerbaijan and Sweden, since there will be people listening for the first time that night, we might be forgotten...

It's got a better tune than Sweden or Azerbaijan, much more direct. Would have sounded even better in Icelandic but still sounds decent.

 

[Halldor]

I see your point, Azerbaijan is a big favorite, but as you can see, Iceland was mentioned more often than Azerbaijan. Of course, Azerbaijan could get more points than Iceland on average, but this is how I see it. Maria has a great stage charisma, and if the staging is done well, which I am rather optimistic about since that will be in the hands of Selma, she could steal the show, since like we all now, Eurovision is so much about the show. Since we are also so lucky to have a commercial break after our performance, her performance will be remembered more than if Sweden would have performed immediately afterwards.

Well, it was described well on ESCInsight, The ending to ‘Hour Of The Wolf‘ is going to be huge and little barefoot Maria Olafs may appear a little timid to the wall of noise just before her. The break into the pop chorus will bring it back to life, but that life energy is just going to be hoovered up by Sweden taking the stage afterwards and showing the viewers exactly what a pop performance needs at Eurovision.

So it is true that the commercials might help, but not all countries have commercials, UK for example are still in the arena doing interviews, we will need a long commercial break for it to help a lot.

 

[musicfan]

A pop performance really needs some chidlish animation projected on some backscreen? Not to me it doesn't.

 

[Lolinna]

Well, it was described well on ESCInsight, The ending to ‘Hour Of The Wolf‘ is going to be huge and little barefoot Maria Olafs may appear a little timid to the wall of noise just before her. The break into the pop chorus will bring it back to life, but that life energy is just going to be hoovered up by Sweden taking the stage afterwards and showing the viewers exactly what a pop performance needs at Eurovision.

So it is true that the commercials might help, but not all countries have commercials, UK for example are still in the arena doing interviews, we will need a long commercial break for it to help a lot.

OK, you are obviously very pessimistic on us qualifying to the final I have on the other hand not been as sure of us qualifying since Yohanna in 2009. That year, Icelanders were not very optimistic, thought it was a boring song that would get lost amongst all the pop songs.

I have to admit that I didn't vote for Maria, I voted for Sunday and then voted for Friðrik Dór in the superfinal, but even after voting for him, I knew that she was going to win this, not because her song was better than his, but because of her stage charisma. I was in the audience and I could just feel it.

So even if Azerbaijan will have more votes than us, we have much better change of qualifying than so many other songs in this semifinal IMO

 

[Pawhlen]

This is like very underrated. It will do better than many think

 

[Lolinna]

Well Poland will do it better. Azerbaijan will probaly be top 3 and Norway, Iceland and Poland fight for 4 place i think. I think Ireland will be lower than 7, but this could happen i suppose. Hopefully this happen i say

I actually thought that Switzerland would do better than Ireland:?

 

[martin]

I actually thought that Switzerland would do better than Ireland:?

agree with that, but Switzerland might be to anonym this year
I think both Ireland and Switzerland will fail or a least fight hard to qualifly. From the west europe i think the Nordic country will do best.

 

[Halldor]

OK, you are obviously very pessimistic on us qualifying to the final I have on the other hand not been as sure of us qualifying since Yohanna in 2009. That year, Icelanders were not very optimistic, thought it was a boring song that would get lost amongst all the pop songs.

I have to admit that I didn't vote for Maria, I voted for Sunday and then voted for Friðrik Dór in the superfinal, but even after voting for him, I knew that she was going to win this, not because her song was better than his, but because of her stage charisma. I was in the audience and I could just feel it.

So even if Azerbaijan will have more votes than us, we have much better change of qualifying than so many other songs in this semifinal IMO

I think we'll struggle, I can see us qualify, but I can also see us get left behind, and I personally thought Yohanna would do well, but she was one of the few artist that sang a slow ballad that year, but now, we have Greece, Russia, Albania, Georgia, Ireland, Malta, Portugal, Latvia, Switzerland, Poland, France, Germany and Spain that all have female singers singing either a powerfull song, a ballad or a power-ballad, just like us.

 

[Kairit]

This wins all the awards for the most annoying and most lazy song of the year. It's not a bad song.. It's just a bland generic radio-pop song. Yet, that's not always bad, so I have tried so hard to like this, but the refrain makes it impossible and I just can't stand listening through it. :|
The beginning is magical, you're thinking "this is amazing, incredible" but then it goes into the super-annoying chorus like immediately.. and it doesn't ever stop. It's just the chorus, the whole song, the same thing and it goes on and on and on. It would be more okay if it actually had more than 2 seconds long verses.. but it doesn't. I don't get this one and why they did this. .. Could've been a great song, but nope. I can't stand so much repetition even with a song I essentially like though. I don't know if Iceland will qualify this year, but she is a super-charming cute girl.. I don't know, this could do really well, or the opposite.

 

[12Points]

This wins all the awards for the most annoying and most lazy song of the year. It's not a bad song.. It's just a bland generic radio-pop song. Yet, that's not always bad, so I have tried so hard to like this, but the refrain makes it impossible and I just can't stand listening through it. :|
The beginning is magical, you're thinking "this is amazing, incredible" but then it goes into the super-annoying chorus like immediately.. and it doesn't ever stop. It's just the chorus, the whole song, the same thing and it goes on and on and on. It would be more okay if it actually had more than 2 seconds long verses.. but it doesn't. I don't get this one and why they did this. .. Could've been a great song, but nope. I can't stand so much repetition even with a song I essentially like though. I don't know if Iceland will qualify this year, but she is a super-charming cute girl.. I don't know, this could do really well, or the opposite.

So in conclusion, the song structure is

Chorus - Chorus - Chorus - Chorus - Chorus - Chorus - Chorus - Chorus - Chorus - Chorus - Chorus - Chorus - Chorus - Chorus - Chorus

 

[Kairit]

So in conclusion, the song structure is

Chorus - Chorus - Chorus - Chorus - Chorus - Chorus - Chorus - Chorus - Chorus - Chorus - Chorus - Chorus - Chorus - Chorus - Chorus

Yeah, well where's the lie, it is though!

 

[DanielLuis]

The verses literary have 4 words and 2 of them are the same. I like the song but it could have been so much better!

 

[Krishoes]

I love this song. I know, it's standard and repetitive but it puts me in a good mood every time I listen to it!

 

[ShoeFlo]

I'm obviously not the only one who noticed the strange construction of this song

I gave 8 points to this song and I basically still like it but it's endangered to become an annoying song for me, unfortunately.

The song simply just contains chorus.. you can listen the first minute of this song and that's enough because there isn't anything new until the 3 minutes are over

There are really no verses, even the part "I'm letting go" is rather a "pre-chorus" than a typical verse.

It took me a lot of time to realize this fact, but it's a pity that the song is very repititive cause there is no doubt that this is a well-produced song that might do very well in Eurovision. In addition Maria is a cute girl

 

[kengaIME]

 

[carl1]

At first I hated this song with a passion and thought that this was a cheap Denmark 2013 copy.
Definitely the biggest grower for me actually and she is so cute
This is defo a dark horse and in such a tight year it could actually be a surprise winner. Who knows