Time for me to review the Icelandic entry this year
María Ólafsdóttir - Unbroken
Status: ok
Song: I listened to the song for the first time during the semi and to be frank, I remembered nothing but the underwhelming vocals... Had I been obliged to rank this song, it would have been near the bottom because I could not have hummed it to save my life, like seriously. Like Albania, this is one of the few songs I completely discovered when listening to the studio version afterwards, and I wouldn't say it's a bad song. It does lack character and originality - Icelandic would have been very welcome in this regard - but it's still not totally insignificant to my ears. I like the beat, the melody is cute. It gets repetitive after a while though, a bridge with a change of pace would have been great. It sounds like a song Emmelie de Forest would sing, which is not bad, but I guess it's still too soon for people to appreciate that kind of music again without thinking of the 2013 winner. Good effort Iceland, it's not a great song by any means to me, yet it's enjoyable and better than some recent Icelandic entries.
Voice: Gosh, Maria's vocals were the only thing that I remembered the first time. And I thought it was a disaster, I couldn't even concentrate on the song. Her voice is very childish, it's not what I prefer in terms of tone, but I guess it works with the song. However, the live performance was really bad, it seemed like she couldn't hit one single note right. Ok, she's Young. Ok, there's lots of pressure. But what can you do, I only judge what I hear. Sometimes, the performance is so-so but the song is so nice that it still works. Not here though.
Staging: Why? After Amber's been inspired by Conchita, why did they want to make Maria look like an Emmelie 2.0? This was the only thing to avoid, and they did it
That's a shame, I'm convinced they could have presented it another way. Nothing wrong with what they came up with, it's just that it rings a bell. I've got the feeling the stage was quite empty, I don't know why.
Outcome: I thought she would have been a borderline qualifier despite her underwhelming performance. But non-qualification was deserved as far as the whole package is concerned. Based on the song only, it should have got through. In my personal ranking, Iceland is ranked between 18th-20th places, not a bad song but all the other aspects of the act were too disappointing to have a real chance of doing well unfortunately. See you next year Iceland, I hope for something stronger and with more character. What about bringing Icelandic back? Consider it please
