Okay, so i have some views after the first semi that i thought deserved a new thread.
Did anyone else feel that none of the uptempo/dance oriented songs really worked in the overall presentation? They came across as glossy and professional, but ultimately meaningless noisy exercises. Instead of invigorating and inviting they all felt cold, heartless, and empty, and really failed to deliver the visual gut-punch needed to connect with the viewers. It didn't help that many of them used the "lead singer + identical dancers on a row" staging which was so similar it begged for ridicule, but it wasn't the only problem.
Azerbaijan, Croatia, Cyprus and Israel came out looking, or at least feeling similar with nearly identical concepts that made the songs feel redundant and pointless. The most talked about entry, Malta was also a disappointment, i think most of us expected something classy and luxurious, instead it just looked like a cheap TV show appearance with garish yellow and pink colors. Lithuania also came across as repetitive and not really acheiving anything more after the first chorus.
I guess the overall visual directors for this year had some specific ideas of how they wanted to use the stage, which just didn't work out that well in practice. The similarity in backgrounds and overall color theme was an outright mistake that shouldn't have happened, but even besides that, there was an overall weakness to the presentation for those songs that depended on it.
The large empty stage and camera angles made the performers look small, often they just stuck in a tiny spot and appeared like little figurines placed side-by-side on a shelf. They didn't really use the full potential and size of the stage, other than moving out on the catwalk at some point, and none of them used any particular props or even interacted with each other, which made them seem even more artifical and stiff.
Of course, this just makes it even more likely for a truly different entry like Switzerland to win, still my one and only bet, and outsider entries like Finland, Italy, France and even Portugal to do really well. Maybe that's their actual intention with it...
Did anyone else feel that none of the uptempo/dance oriented songs really worked in the overall presentation? They came across as glossy and professional, but ultimately meaningless noisy exercises. Instead of invigorating and inviting they all felt cold, heartless, and empty, and really failed to deliver the visual gut-punch needed to connect with the viewers. It didn't help that many of them used the "lead singer + identical dancers on a row" staging which was so similar it begged for ridicule, but it wasn't the only problem.
Azerbaijan, Croatia, Cyprus and Israel came out looking, or at least feeling similar with nearly identical concepts that made the songs feel redundant and pointless. The most talked about entry, Malta was also a disappointment, i think most of us expected something classy and luxurious, instead it just looked like a cheap TV show appearance with garish yellow and pink colors. Lithuania also came across as repetitive and not really acheiving anything more after the first chorus.
I guess the overall visual directors for this year had some specific ideas of how they wanted to use the stage, which just didn't work out that well in practice. The similarity in backgrounds and overall color theme was an outright mistake that shouldn't have happened, but even besides that, there was an overall weakness to the presentation for those songs that depended on it.
The large empty stage and camera angles made the performers look small, often they just stuck in a tiny spot and appeared like little figurines placed side-by-side on a shelf. They didn't really use the full potential and size of the stage, other than moving out on the catwalk at some point, and none of them used any particular props or even interacted with each other, which made them seem even more artifical and stiff.
Of course, this just makes it even more likely for a truly different entry like Switzerland to win, still my one and only bet, and outsider entries like Finland, Italy, France and even Portugal to do really well. Maybe that's their actual intention with it...
