#Melodi Grand Prix 1997

[eurovision-revisited]

1997 Dublin - Number 15 - Manjari - "Lys"

This is a little different. Perhaps Eurovision is changing after all. The whole thing is full of enigmas.

At the front and centre is Manjari, the stage name for 18-year-old Trude Trefall. This is her one and only song. After this she disappeared from the musical world. Apart from the fact she also got married in 1997, there's nothing else out there. Her story feels similar to that of Silje Vige, Norway's entry in 1993. A young girl coming from nowhere, put in front of a huge audience, enchanting everyone then vanishing. Silje did have a longer musical career, but not on such large stages.

Then there's the song, Lys (Lights). It's trance. Laid back beats, lyrics filled with a positive vibe of harmony an togetherness, repeated several times. Specifically it's uplifting trance, a subgenre that as peaking in popularity in 1997 with a number of big name DJs releasing tracks of a similar style. That makes this probably the bravest, most contemporary track in what was a largely lower quality MGP.

Behind Lys and Manjari is the song-writer, Rune Lindstrom. He had been the original drummer with deLillo's, one of the biggest rock groups in Norway throughout the 1980s and 1990s, and who continue to release music today. Rune also drummed for several other Norwegian bands and still contributes to deLillo's on occasion. The reason for his early departure from the band in the mid 1980s was that he joined the Hare Krishna movement - and that gives context to Lys.

Lys's lyric and vibe is Krishnacore, a microgenre that was undergoing a renaissance on the back of several UK bands incorporating into their aesthetic, combined with the mantra friendliness of trance (notably Goan trance music). How all of that managed to wash up in second place in MGP 1997 is one of those weird coincidences that makes the world so much more enjoyable. For it's uniqueness and genuine chill, this has to be celebrated.

At Eurovision, the song that beat Lys scored nul points. I'm confident that Lys would have done considerably better.

[sweetdreamsjeff]

Jeff Buckley For my sweetheart, the drunk

By DAVID BOWMAN

PUBLISHED MAY 28, 1998 4:13PM (EDT)

The young icon was just 30 years old when his wrecked body was pulled from the water. He drowned wearing his boots. He was a young god to those who loved him, but they no longer recognized his ravaged face. He was identified by his fancy nankeen pants from Malta. He was Percy Bysshe Shelley, and he died in the Ligurian Sea off the coast of Italy on July 8, 1822.

Many years later, on May 29, 1997, another young icon perishes the same way. This one is a scant year older than Shelly was when he died. This one also drowns in his boots. He isn't identified by his exotic Maltese trousers, however. Instead it is his navel ring that identifies him as Jeff Buckley, raised as Scott Moorhead, drowned on the banks of the Wolf River outside of Memphis, Tenn.

Besides their age and death, the personal similarity between Buckley and Shelley is they were both guys who loved high jinks. The mythic connection is that Shelley was too ethereal to be anything other than a poet, while Buckley was too ethereal to be a mere "rock star." Not with that voice. This was the voice of a seraph. This was a voice to make a doubter believe in God again.

This voice would never win something as mundane as a Grammy. No. This was a male chanteuse whose first album would win a "Grand Prix International du Disque" -- an award previously bestowed on Edith Piaf. And this young man died having no idea how to live possessing such angelic pipes. As much as he hated being the son of Tim Buckley -- singer, junkie, nonexistent father -- Jeff also raged against being a girlie-man, an "Edith Piaf with a penis." Jeff wanted to be Jimmy Page. He even allegedly died singing "Whole Lotta Love" as he swam out into the brown water. This Led Zep obsession wasn't necessarily a good thing. Buckley's first studio album, "Grace," was a ponderous redoing of "Houses of the Holy." Buckley's songs didn't even have melodies. They were just moody Led Zep posturing.

A million young women disagree. Buckley was a rock star for young women too sophisticated to care about rock stars. Just these past months, more than one journalist has been able to lure young strangers up to his bachelor pad with a promise of hearing a prerelease tape of Jeff Buckley's posthumous album, "Sketches for My Sweetheart, the Drunk."

Now, the record these young women will hear is not the same record that a man hears. Men hear a record that is mostly ... magnificent. Young women will either agree or feel betrayed that Buckley has revealed himself to be nothing more than a cad. More about this cad factor later -- but first, let's assume there is magnificence in the album. The good cuts were all produced by legendary guitarist Tom Verlaine, in sessions conducted in New York and Memphis. These songs transform Buckley's Led Zeppelin fixation into healthy influence instead of making him sound like Freddie Mercury. Even more important, Buckley's new songs possess melodies. A listener might even be walking down the street and find him or herself humming a catchy song like "Yard of Blonde Girls." Indeed, "Yard of Blonde Girls" could be a hit single. But Buckley was dissatisfied with the Verlaine-produced tracks. He had summoned his band down to Memphis to rerecord them with "Grace's" producer Andy Wallace. They were to arrive the day after the death.

What didn't Buckley dig about these songs? No one associated with the record is talking -- at least not officially. This winter, publicists were claiming that "Everyone is too broken up about Buckley's death to talk about the record." But why? After Shelley was cremated, the poet's very heart remained intact, sitting within the smoking cinders of bone. Buckley left only this album, but surely it is as valuable as an aorta. Why wouldn't his fellow workers want to honor his final statement? No one was talking. I tried to track down Tom Verlaine. No luck through official channels. Then one day I was passing the Strand Bookstore on East 12th Street in New York City and Tom Verlaine was browsing the outdoor stalls.

"Tom?" I said.

He turned. Know that Verlaine is very tall. I identified myself, but the very tall man said he didn't want to be interviewed. "Everybody is so broken up," he said. He said that he didn't do anything special at the sessions -- he just turned on the tape player. He admitted that Buckley wanted to rerecord the songs. Then Verlaine didn't want to talk anymore. He'd been burned before "because of how the piece is edited."

Buckley's friends and co-workers are the only ones who can tell us what bugged Buckley about the Verlaine tracks. Whatever it was, Buckley recorded a number of four-track demos just before his death, and five of them are included on "Sketches" as an indication of which direction his artistry was turning. One of these songs is OK, just Buckley strumming a guitar and singing about girls. But the other four songs are nothing short of awful. There's no reason to try to convince you just how awful they are. What is more important is to state how these four awful songs mire an otherwise lovely record. You can go ahead and purchase "Sketches" and just program your CD player to skip cuts 5, 6, 7 and 8 on the second disc, but the inclusion of these songs reveals that Buckley was as screwed up as Bob Dylan with regard to artistic judgment (the latter famous for scrapping wondrous records). Buckley's demos expose that the lad didn't just want to be Led Zeppelin -- he wanted to be Metallica and Sonic Youth as well. He sings as if his voice is the worst curse a man-child could ENDURE. No wonder they're not talking at Columbia. Who on earth believed that anyone would want to bop down the street listening to a horrible, horrible song like the "Murder Suicide Meteor Slave" on their Walkman?

The answer is Buckley's mother, Mary Guibert. She was the one who created this record. One has to have respect for her quandary, if not her judgment: how to honor her son's artistic intentions with finished tracks he didn't believe in? Buckley, who was publicly hounded by myths about his junkie father, has become more-or-less a mama's boy in death. Guibert chose to end her son's album with a song that starts with Buckley lazily noodling on a guitar, then singing the Appalachian chestnut about dying with a "Satisfied Mind." This cut is beautiful, yet pointless. Buckley has no idea what he was singing about so beautifully. He's like a gorgeous girl who wears terrible clothes because she doesn't know her own beauty. Or is at war with it.

Which leaves us with those million young women who loved "Grace" and will now buy "Sketches." Is it sexy when Buckley sings, "Your flesh is so nice?" When he sings about licking and being licked? Or have you heard it all before on bad dates? How does Buckley's oral fixation reconcile with his curious lyric "You're a woman/I'm a calf." Is this absurd? Or does this make you want to mother him? These are honest questions only you can answer. Whether or not you agree that this album has magnificence in it, surely you'll thank God -- the real one or maybe only the God of Poetry -- that Buckley's mom didn't honor her drowned son by releasing only those god-awful demos.

By DAVID BOWMAN

David Bowman is the author of the novel "Bunny Modern" and the nonfiction book "This Must Be the Place: The Adventures of the Talking Heads in the 20th Century."

[eurovision-facts]

Eurovision Fact #277:

Norway's 2022 entry Subwoolfer is the only Eurovision entry where the true identities and faces of the contestants were not publicly revealed during the time of participation.

However, after the conclusion of the contest, UK entry, Sam Ryder, was cited as saying that Ben Adams from British-Norwegian pop band A1 was half of the intergalactic duo. Ryder said that he saw Adams on a buffet line, and he concluded that he must be a member of Subwoolfer. Ryder also said that as he was interacting with the duo while they were in costume, he kept thinking that he knew he was talking to “Ben from A1,” but he didn’t want to let on that he knew.

At Melodi Grand Prix 2023, this was confirmed as Subwolfer performed ‘Give that Wolf a Banana’ which slowly mixed with their song ‘Worst Kept Secret.’ During the performance, they stripped away their yellow gloves, turned backstage, and with the help of some backup dancers, removed their wolf heads. On screen, the names Ben Adams and Gaute Ormåsen flashed as they sang “that’s not my name, is it Ben? Is it Gaute?”

[Sources]:

‘Eurovision: Sam Ryder confirms Ben Adams is Subwoolfer after buffet meet-up,’ msn.com.

Subwoolfer - Worst Kept Secret (Official MGP Performance), YouTube.com.

Turin 2022 Participants: Subwoolfer, Eurovision.tv.

Turin 2022 Participants, Eurovision.tv.

Rotterdam 2021 Participants, Eurovision.tv.

Tel Aviv 2019 Participants, Eurovision.tv.

Lisbon 2018 Participants, Eurovision.tv.

2017 Kyiv Participants, Eurovision.tv.

2016 Stockholm Participants, Eurovision.tv. 

2015 Vienna Participants, Eurovision.tv. 

2014 Copenhagen Participants, Eurovision.tv. 

2013 Malmö Participants, Eurovision.tv. 

2012  Baku Participants, Eurovision.tv. 

2011 Düsseldorf Participants, Eurovision.tv. 

2010 Oslo Participants, Eurovision.tv.

2009 Moscow Participants, Eurovision.tv. 

2008 Belgrade Participants, Eurovision.tv.

Eurovision Song Contest 2008 - Grand Final - Full Show, YouTube.com.

Eurovision Song Contest 2007 SEMIFINAL full show, YouTube.com.

Eurovision Song Contest 2006 - Semi-Final (AI upscaled - HD - 50fps), YouTube.com.

Eurovision Song Contest 2005 Semifinal HD, YouTube.com.

Eurovision Song Contest  2004 Semi-Final (FULL SHOW), YouTube.com.

Eurovision Song Contest 2003 - Full Show (AI upscaled - HD - 50fps), YouTube.com.

Eurovision Song Contest 2002 - Full show - British commentary - BBC - Remastered HD, YouTube.com.

Eurovision Song Contest 2001 - Full Show (AI upscaled - HD - 50fps), YouTube.com.

Full show • HD • Eurovision Song Contest - Stockholm 2000, YouTube.com.

Eurovision Song Contest 1999 (English Commentary), YouTube.com.

🔴 1998 Eurovision Song Contest BBC Full Show (Presenter & Commentator: Terry Wogan) FULLY SUBTITLED, YouTube.com.

Eurovision Song Contest 1997 (No commentary), YouTube.com.

Eurovision Song Contest 1996, YouTube.com.

Eurovision Song Contest 1995 (English Commentaries), YouTube.com.

Full show • HD • Eurovision Song Contest - Dublin 1994, YouTube.com.

Eurovision Song Contest 1993 Full Show (No Commentary), YouTube.com.

#EurovisionAgain - Eurovision Song Contest 1992 - Full Show - No Commentary - Remastered HD, YouTube.com.   

Eurovision Song Contest 1991, YouTube.com.

Eurovision Song Contest 1990 (No commentary), YouTube.com.

Eurovision Song Contest 1989 - Full Show (AI upscaled - HD - 50fps), YouTube.com.

Eurovision Song Contest 1988 - Full Show HQ, YouTube.com.

Eurovision Song Contest 1987 (English Commentaries), YouTube.com.

Eurovision Song Contest 1986 (Full show from NRK) Full HD, YouTube.com.

Eurovision Song Contest 1985 - Full Show HQ, YouTube.com.

Full show • Eurovision Song Contest - Luxembourg 1984, YOuTube.com.

Eurovision Song Contest 1983 - Full Show (AI upscaled - HD - 50fps), YouTube.com.

🔴 1982 Eurovision Song Contest from Harrogate / England - Full Show (No Commentary), YouTube.com.

Full show • Eurovision Song Contest - Dublin 1981, YouTube.com.

Eurovision Song Contest 1980, YouTube.com.

Eurovision Song Contest 1979 - full show, YouTube.com.

Eurovision Song Contest 1978 - full show, YouTube.com.

Eurovision Song Contest 1977 - full show, YouTube.com.

Eurovision Song Contest 1976 - Full Show HQ, YouTube.com.

Eurovision Song Contest 1975 - full show, YouTube.com.

Eurovision Song Contest 1974 - Full Show HQ, YouTube.com.

Eurovision Song Contest 1973 - Full Show (AI upscaled - HD - 50fps), YouTube.com.

Eurovision Song Contest 1972 - full show, YouTube.com.

Eurovision Song Contest 1971 - full show, YouTube.com.

Eurovision Song Contest 1970 - full contest - No Commentary, YouTube.com.

#EurovisionAgain - Eurovision Song Contest 1969 - Full Show - Remastered HD, YouTube.com.    

Eurovision Song Contest 1968 - Full Show (50fps), YouTube.com.

Eurovision Song Contest 1967 - full show, YouTube.com.

Eurovision Song Contest 1966 (Full Show), YouTube.com.

Eurovision 1965 Full Show, YouTube.com.

Eurovision Song Contest 1964 (Full Show), YouTube.com.

Eurovision Song Contest 1963 [English commentary], YouTube.com.

Eurovision Song Contest 1962 - full show, YouTube.com.

Eurovision Song Contest 1961 - full show, YouTube.com.

Eurovision Song Contest 1960 - full show, YouTube.com.

Eurovision Song Contest 1959 - full show, YouTube.com.

Eurovision Song Contest 1958 (Full Show), YouTube.com.

Grand Prix Eurovision 1957 (Full show from HR), YouTube.com.

Eurovision Song Contest 1956 (Full Show), YouTube.com.

[dezbee2008]

EUROVISION 2024 REVIEW: Denmark

Alternative title: Held Together by Sand in Denmark This country won the last time Eurovision is in Malmo. Can they do it again? Here is Denmark’s entry: Saba — Sand 26-year-old Anna Saba Lykke Oehlenschlaeger (August 11, 1997) is an Ethiopian-Danish singer, musical theater actress, and model. She took part and won the 2024 edition of Dansk Melodi Grand Prix on February 17, 2024. I never…

[harrisonarchive]

Gerhard Berger and George Harrison at the 2000 Canadian Grand Prix, Montreal, 16 - 18 June 2000. Photo © LAT Photographic.

"[We] were in the kitchen, preparing Bengal noodles, and George stated that whoever was cooking was not really the real George. That’s why he has no problems with his identity as Beatle. He says, ‘Everyone says I’m a Beatle, but that was just a fantasy I used at the time. People keep seeing those fantasies, so they think this is George. But, in fact, I’m a completely different person.’ [...] To relax mentally, he meditates for three to four hours a day. He managed to explain in the language we master. Our consciousness has 3 stages: awake, sleeping and dreaming. But to fully relax, one needs some time in neutral, and that is meditation. I can spend hours listening to George talk, his voice would be enough. He speaks the most beautiful English I have ever heard - the word of a charming musician, who lets the syllables slide in all their nuances, giving them a certain melody. Sometimes he takes the Hawaiian or electric guitar off the wall and sings a few verses, including (to my delight) Old Buddha’s Gong, with which Hoagy Carmichael serenaded Bach. And the most beautiful song of the Beatles (unfortunately it’s not his, it’s John’s) - Norwegian Wood - is not it heart breaking? … so I lit a fire isn’t good Norwegian Wood? No microphones or recordings, just for me. [...] Very carefully, George tries to promote the Indian philosophy. He likes me and wanted to do something good for my soul. Going to a pub with George Harrison can be a bit painful, especially Japanese tourists almost faint when they see him, but before they lose consciousness, they run to take a picture with him. In fact, he is very patient with them, at least for some time. George has no tolerance for background music in restaurants or bars. He says he cannot stand bad music, that it represents almost a physical attack on him, it hurts in his bones. 'It ruins my nervous system.’" - Translated from Zielgerade by Gerhard Berger (1997) (x)

[sole-cuore-amore-e-droga]

Tel Aviv 2019: Straight outta Denmark to Eurovision with a cute multilingual jingle

Dansk Melodi Grand Prix is... a NF I don’t really have anything to say about. Like, you expect me to rile up 3 big paragraphs about the pre-NF dramas and what-not, but honestly... what’s the point.

Well, aside from the fact people did not really get excited over the lineup this year. Me neither from the names alone, actually. Even last year was more interesting to look at despite with another lineup of songs you can’t give a fuck about and then move on - I noticed they had Sannie who used to be known as Whigfield (”Saturday Night” <3333 the duck quacks <333), Ditte Marie (anyone remembers “Overflow” from 2012?) and Albin Fredy (which seems to be the same Albin that brought me my one of the two DMGP 2013 favourite songs, “Beautiful to Me”???). This year was a big “WHO IS SHE?? WHERE DID YOU FIND HER???”, so I just left DMGP in the corner where it picked cobwebs until not too long ago when someone got chosen.

Well, this NF keeps being a NF where I don’t personally feel too emotionally fucked about any of them entries, so that’s a big plus in my book, which will mean that I won’t throw a “THIS WAS ROBBED!!!1″ post on Denmark NF-wise... at least this year and the last year because I really loved “Venter” in 2012 and the said “Beautiful to Me” and “Invincible” in 2013 (I also liked “Only Teardrops” but I was mad its victory was so obvious xD). As for why I like it when the NFs don’t toy with my feelings, A Dal 2019 is an obvious demonstration, but more on that on my Hungarian writeup, which is significantly longer than this one - that’s how much of a demonstration it is.

Anyway, let’s talk about the chosen song, shall we? Performed by a smol skater girlie Leonora (Jepsen), here comes “Love Is Forever”, which was co-penned by the ever-so-notorious Lise Cabble - the champ-mastress of writing Eurovision songs for the Danes (by that I mean she wrote their 1995 entry... and then none of her entries got chosen for ESC until 2011 lol). And this is a significally softer turn of hers compared to “Only Teardrops” - ever since Anna Ritsmar in 2018′s DMGP, she tends to write cute, acoustic tunes sung by young ladies with their lil cute and lil crispy voices. “Love Is Forever” is just that, tbh.

Well THAT and also it sounds like a lovely acoustic background song for those funny photos/student quotes/test answers/etc. compilation videos on Youtube (I actually am talking about the channel Scoop, because other kinds of compilation videos use Youtube Audio Library-like pop songs or something straight off NoCopyrightSounds). Or the theme song for a TV programme for animals. Or the theme song for a children's programme they show at hospitals. There's so many places you can insert it into, I guess. At the same time it feels like a cupcake with pink frosting that tastes nice. And a cup of warm cocoa with whipped cream and sprinkles. It's a delightful bite. Yum.

Realistically though, the song itself has an easy noddable-along-to rhythm, cute violin string plucks, the capability to melodically progress to sound even more joyful (I mean, the chorus just adds more and more layers of brass as it keeps repreating, just giving it a bit more of a typical Scoop channel background music material), the D flat major key of this song’s uplifts the spirits of this whole shebang and it also somehow includes lines in some more languages than expected in a Danish song ever, how odd it seems like??? And it’s especially given that we haven’t really heard Danish in a song since like what, 1997?? We only got “shout insh’allah” and “taka stökk til hærri jörð, taka” ever since then, and these aren’t remotely Danish lines. But this year we’re getting some Danish, and French, and even German. Feeling the love in multilingual. L’amour est pour toujours, y’all! Liebe IST für alle da!

There are also people that aren’t buying into the song all that much because Leonora looks way too creepy to sell a song about love love peace peace, like someone emerging out of a demented cabaret. I suppose that other people think that this song was forced onto Leonora when she didn’t really want it, and now has to pretend that we have to spread love to the world, make friendships with others, don’t get too political, and then act all supercool about it. The saddest bit that she does sound like that person that would sing a song like that... young, with a passion for skating, looks like a person that could probably hug you when you least expect it, the one that posts light purple sweater pictures with a glitter effect applied to them on Tumblr, the one who would wear white mittens with a giant red snowflake painted on/knitted into them... I don’t know if that’s all Leonora wanted to compete with in DMGP to make a breakthrough with her singing career after skating so darn much, and if she even believes in what is she singing (this is my rare reminder of the war situation in Israel that’s going on, and I’ll probably never have to speak of this again in any writeup, hopefully. Yeah sure, love is for ever...), but I somehow buy it, sue me. Those acoustics and that touch of brass instruments won me over.

So my final thoughts on this song is that it’s a joyball with that kind of song message so overused I cannot be angry on it because it’s not slapped on a dreary Russian peace ballad - it’s a singer-songwriter-esque small showtune, which makes it all seem a lot different because love is cute and this song is cute. So I guess I have no issues with it, whereas I can’t stand the aforementioned Russian peace ballads all that much because if you remove the good singers singing it, they’re cliché af; “Wars for Nothing” (Hungary 2015) sounded too innocent while having a full gun tree serving as a backdrop for them and if you looked too much into Boggie’s eyes, you could very well feel her penetrating your soul with war imagery; and Iceland last year was a knock-off Russian peace ballad that sounded too good to be unbearably dreary and the vocalist wasn’t even a belting girl. So yeah, I like it. More adorable songs about spreading love, less overdone ballads about world peace.

Thing is though, why did she really dress like a barista from a late-night-open cocktail club? I get that looking like a princess à la Maria Olafs won't cut it anymore as it would look way more saccharine, but Leonora is up like she's there to serve you your damn drink as soon as possible so she could go outside for a small smoke break, not to advertise love. Watch me make "when you have Eurovision at 9 and job at a cocktail bar at 11" memes on the night of the 16th. Seriously, her image barely even fucking suits the song!

Approval factor: Well, one of my faves won DMGP again, for the 2nd time in a row, so why wouldn’t I approve? ^_^ Love from me is forever!

Follow-up factor: For Denmark it kind of seems like a decent follow-up? For all those out here that remember Denmark as the nation that plagiarises every other entry, it would just seem logical for them to finally send a generic royalty free ukulele song for Youtube videos. Which is spectacular! No one knows which song did this one exactly plagiarize - the entire concept was ripped off! Jokes aside, it’s an interesting one after Rasmussen. After a song that urges you to lay your weapons down in a war and go find higher ground more peacefully, we’re now getting a morale on the fact that love is for ever and everyone. Isn’t it sweet. I’d rather these than a bland love song about laying down armours and guns. ^_^

Qualification factor: depends. For now I feel like writing it off because to the 1% of the people who’ve already heard this song beforehand and hate this song, the whole thing feels like “love :) is :) forever :) please love everyone you little shit :) :) :)”. To some others however, like Luke Malam from ESCXtra, it’s a song that definitely makes them feel the love being forever, just like “yaaaay we love each other and the world yaaaay!!! ^o^”, so it’s perhaps a bit of a mixed bag. I wanna see it through though, just as much as I want to see Lithuania, about which I will be talking next in these write-ups. But I see it very much so as a borderline because... idk, just a gut feeling. Sometimes songs that ooze loveliness just don’t quite get themselves across the other hand side of the viewer thus they don’t really qualify, for example, Finland 2012, another song sung by a lady better known as a sportswoman rather than a singer (but maybe that’s just because there was too much intimacy of hers with her and her celloist’s mom, and she looked too awkward to pass the intimacy to the viewers so they too could feel the loving bond and the life metaphors coming from a Finnish entrant singing in Swedish). For now from me it’s a positive borderline. Yes, I think that it probably will make it and we’ll see that large Ikea chair prop with many people swaying to the rhythm on it next to Leonora on Saturday as well.

NATIONAL FINAL BONUS

Even with me not having much to say about DMGP, I will go ahead and cherrypick the favourite songs from the event:

• The big favourite of mine this year was brought by Julie & Nina, who served a bilingual schlager-like midtempo track, “League of Light”. Hats off to sounding properly Eurovision-y but without using a “rent-a-NF-songwriter” songwriter for to write this! It’s soaring, majestic, somewhat memorable and inclused Greenlandic. Yeah. Do you believe that this would have been a year where we could’ve gotten more exotic Language spins? Now we have lost both Aboriginal and Greenlandic out of Eurovision, hopefully just for this year so the languages can return again sometime. I’m proud of these women being so courageous and delighting some that really wanted schlager pop that still can click with some that are bored of Eurovision NF schlager cliches. Oh and this song is in A flat minor, probably one of my favourite keys in music. Not too bad, everything this was, although the aggression they transmitted through the song during their live DMGP performance kiiiiinda made them looked like pissed-off housewives imo?

• Them both and this guy below, Sigmund, were picked to the superfinal to compete against Leonora. What was Sigmund’s contribution and why did he deserve to be there so much? Well, I really love his colourful flamboyant electropop track that has piano influences, “Say My Name”, which lyrically reflects on the song’s protagonists big power that he will probably have if only the invisible force Sigmund’s singing to would just “say [his] name”. And I definitely think he deserved his spot over some really nice pop entries that the fandom definitely overrated. Oh and the song is in A flat minor too. Maybe I’m biased, maybe I’m not. You judge. >:)

• See, I don't feel like talking about the DMGP songs this year. It's a cool bunch of songs that some of them I like but nothing quite outstanding to talk about beyond those I already have paragraphs for. Well maybe you'd like to look up the entries by Humorekspressen (for to get a pub singalong song) and Jasmine Gabay (for to get yet another Latino-influenced Havana club track). But that's it. Here from me the last one you'll be getting is Simone Emilie with her teen-flavoured light radiofriendly dance-ish song "Anywhere". Why didn't it do better despite having the power to click with the Eurofans quite much? Well, maybe it's because her backdrop and the fairytale-esque dress went for another kind of atmosphere than it was required to have on the song.

• I don't know, I just find this particular winning reaction shot funny. Not sure if she's yawning or being like "yaaaazs bitchesss ;) 😄 ✨" in here. I gotta say - her lipstick was definitely on fleek that night.

That guy below her takes the cake at making this shot memorable too. Do you want the invisible meal Leonora is about to take a bite of too?

And besides that moment I don’t really have any on-show moments besides songs that were somewhat memorable. Why do Danes always have to be this vanilla in the Nordic country barrage, I will never get. That’s it. That’s their crime. Of being average. And being sued for plagiarism a lot in the past.

For now I’d just wish Leonora good luck in Tel Aviv and show ‘em that love can and will prevail before hatred does, if only people remember to love... ah wait, wrong kind of philosophy.

[dweemeister]

A list of all films featured in 2019′s 31 Days of Oscar

This is the exhaustive list of all 388 short- and feature-length films featured during this year’s 31 Days of Oscar marathon (up from 296 last year). Best Picture winners and the one (and only) winner for Unique and Artistic Production are in bold. Asterisked (*) films are films I haven’t seen in their entirety as of the publishing of this post.

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927)

Two Arabian Knights (1927)*

The Crowd (1928)

Sadie Thompson (1928)*

Speedy (1928)

Street Angel (1928)

A Woman of Affairs (1928)

White Shadows in the South Seas (1928)*

The Broadway Melody (1929)

The Divine Lady (1929)*

Weary River (1929)*

All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)

The Big House (1930)

The Doorway to Hell (1930)*

Flight Commander (1930)*

The Criminal Code (1931)*

Little Caesar (1931)

The Public Enemy (1931)

Flowers and Trees (1932 short)

Grand Hotel (1932)

What Price Hollywood? (1932)*

42nd Street (1933)

Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933)

Morning Glory (1933)*

The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933)*

Cleopatra (1934)*

Imitation of Life (1934)

It Happened One Night (1934)

Manhattan Melodrama (1934)*

The Thin Man (1934)

Alice Adams (1935)*

Captain Blood (1935)

A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1935)*

Top Hat (1935)

Dodsworth (1936)

Fury (1936)*

The Great Ziegfeld (1936)

Libeled Lady (1936)

Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936)

Captains Courageous (1937)

Night Must Fall (1937)*

The Prisoner of Zenda (1937)

A Star Is Born (1937)

Way Out West (1937)*

The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)

Boys Town (1938)

Merrily We Live (1938)*

Pygmalion (1938)

You Can’t Take It with You (1938)

Beau Geste (1939)

Dark Victory (1939)

Gone with the Wind (1939)

Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939)

Gulliver’s Travels (1939)

Lady of the Tropics (1939)*

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)

Ninotchka (1939)

Only Angels Have Wings (1939)*

Stagecoach (1939)

The Wizard of Oz (1939)

Wuthering Heights (1939)*

Young Mr. Lincoln (1939)

The Great McGinty (1940)

The Mark of Zorro (1940)

Night Train to Munich (1940)*

Our Town (1940)

The Philadelphia Story (1940)

Rebecca (1940)

Strike Up the Band (1940)

The Thief of Bagdad (1940)

Waterloo Bridge (1940)

Dumbo (1941)

Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941)

Suspicion (1941)

Bambi (1942)

Casablanca (1942)

Johnny Eager (1942)*

Kings Row (1942)*

The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)

Mrs. Miniver (1942)

Now, Voyager (1942)

Random Harvest (1942)

To Be or Not to Be (1942)

Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)

The Desert Song (1943)*

The Human Comedy (1943)*

Lassie Come Home (1943)

The Ox-Bow Incident (1943)

The Song of Bernadette (1943)

Henry V (1944)*

Lifeboat (1944)

National Velvet (1944)

Anchors Aweigh (1945)

Blithe Spirit (1945)*

Brief Encounter (1945)

The Lost Weekend (1945)

They Were Expendable (1945)*

The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)

The Harvey Girls (1946)

It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)

The Stranger (1946)*

First Steps (1947)*

Forever Amber (1947)*

Life with Father (1947)*

The Perils of Pauline (1947)*

Bicycle Thieves (1948, Italy)

Hamlet (1948)

The Naked City (1948)

The Red Shoes (1948)

I Remember Mama (1948)

Romance on the High Seas (1948)*

Adam’s Rib (1949)*

Battleground (1949)

The Heiress (1949)

A Letter to Three Wives (1949)*

Mighty Joe Young (1949)*

On the Town (1949)

She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949)

The Stratton Story (1949)*

The Third Man (1949)

White Heat (1949)

All About Eve (1950)

Broken Arrow (1950)*

Destination Moon (1950)*

Mystery Street (1950)*

Rashômon (1950, Japan)

An American in Paris (1951)

Royal Wedding (1951)

Show Boat (1951)*

Strangers on a Train (1951)

High Noon (1952)

The Quiet Man (1952)

Umberto D. (1952, Italy)

The Band Wagon (1953)

The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T (1953)*

From Here to Eternity (1953)

Julius Caesar (1953)*

Lili (1953)

Little Fugitive (1953)*

Little Johnny Jet (1953 short)*

Titanic (1953)*

Brigadoon (1954)

La Strada (1954, Italy)

On the Waterfront (1954)

Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954)

Seven Samurai (1954, Japan)

A Star Is Born (1954)

Blackboard Jungle (1955)

It’s Always Fair Weather (1955)

Marty (1955)

Speedy Gonzales (1955 short)

To Catch a Thief (1955)

Around the World in 80 Days (1956)

The Bespoke Overcoat (1956 short)*

Forbidden Planet (1956)

Lust for Life (1956)

Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956)*

The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)

Funny Face (1957)

Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957)

12 Angry Men (1957)

The Defiant Ones (1958)

Gigi (1958)

Mon Oncle (1958, France)

The Young Lions (1958)*

Ben-Hur (1959)

South Pacific (1958)

The 400 Blows (1959, France)

North by Northwest (1959)

Inherit the Wind (1960)

Macario (1960, Mexico)*

The Time Machine (1960)

Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961)

The Children’s Hour (1961)*

Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)

Through a Glass Darkly (1961, Sweden)*

West Side Story (1961)

Days of Wine and Roses (1962)

How the West Was Won (1962)

Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

The Longest Day (1962)

The Miracle Worker (1962)

To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)

Bye Bye Birdie (1963)

Charade (1963)

Cleopatra (1963)

The Leopard (1963, Italy)

Tom Jones (1963)*

Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (1963, Italy)*

A Hard Day’s Night (1964)

Mary Poppins (1964)

My Fair Lady (1964)

The Pink Phink (1964 short)*

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964, France)

Doctor Zhivago (1965)

A Patch of Blue (1965)*

The Sound of Music (1965)

The Battle of Algiers (1966, Algeria)

Fantastic Voyage (1966)

Grand Prix (1966)*

A Man for All Seasons (1966)

The Professionals (1966)

Bonnie and Clyde (1967)

The Dirty Dozen (1967)

Doctor Dolittle (1967)*

In the Heat of the Night (1967)

Two for the Road (1967)*

Bullitt (1968)*

Funny Girl (1968)

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1968)*

The Lion in Winter (1968)*

Oliver! (1968)

It’s Tough to Be a Bird (1969 short)*

The Magic Machines (1969 short)*

Marooned (1969)*

Midnight Cowboy (1969)*

The Great White Hope (1970)*

I Girasoli (1970, Italy)*

Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion (1970, Italy)*

Patton (1970)

Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970)

Fiddler on the Roof (1971)

The French Connection (1971)

The Last Picture Show (1971)*

The Godfather (1972)

Sounder (1972)

Travels with My Aunt (1972)*

The Day of the Dolphin (1973)*

The Way We Were (1973)*

Blazing Saddles (1974)

Nashville (1975)

Harlan County U.S.A. (1976)

Network (1976)

The Slipper and the Rose (1976)

Taxi Driver (1976)

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

Smokey and the Bandit (1977)

California Suite (1978)*

Superman (1978)

The Black Hole (1979)

The Black Stallion (1979)

Kramer vs. Kramer (1979)

A Little Romance (1979)

Every Child (1979 short)

Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)

Atlantic City (1980)*

Kagemusha (1980, Japan)

Das Boot (1981, Germany)

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

Annie (1982)

Tron (1982)

Victor/Victoria (1982)*

Blue Thunder (1983)*

Amadeus (1984)

Dune (1984)*

The Times of Harvey Milk (1984)

Agnes of God (1985)*

Back to the Future (1985)

Legend (1985)*

My Life as a Dog (1985, Sweden)

Silverado (1985)*

Hoosiers (1986)

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)

Au revoir les enfants (1987, France)

The Last Emperor (1987)

The Princess Bride (1987)

The Untouchables (1987)*

Stand and Deliver (1988)

Willow (1988)*

Do the Right Thing (1989)

For All Mankind (1989)

Glory (1989)

Henry V (1989)

When Harry Met Sally… (1989)*

Dances with Wolves (1990)

Misery (1990)*

Beauty and the Beast (1991)

The Prince of Tides (1991)*

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991)

Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)

A River Runs Through It (1992)

Toys (1992)*

Unforgiven (1992)

The Age of Innocence (1993)*

Philadelphia (1993)*

The Remains of the Day (1993)

Schindler’s List (1993)

Legends of the Fall (1994)

Three Colors: Red (1994, France/Poland)

Mr. Holland’s Opus (1995)

Hamlet (1996)

Sleepers (1996)*

Star Trek: First Contact (1996)

Children of Heaven (1997, Iran)

Four Days in September (1997, Brazil)*

Titanic (1997)

Saving Private Ryan (1998)

The Sixth Sense (1999)*

South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (1999)

Toy Story 2 (1999)

Erin Brokovich (2000)*

O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)*

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001)

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

Monsters Inc. (2001)

Y Tu Mamá También (2001, Mexico)*

Chicago (2002)

Big Fish (2003)*

I, Robot (2004)*

The Phantom of the Opera (2004)

Walk the Line (2005)*

The Danish Poet (2006)*

Little Miss Sunshine (2006)

Pan’s Labyrinth (2006, Mexico)

Persepolis (2007, France/Iran)

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)*

The Dark Knight (2008)

Frost/Nixon (2008)*

Man on Wire (2008)*

Milk (2008)*

The Reader (2008)*

Slumdog Millionaire (2008)

The Wrestler (2008)*

The Secret in Their Eyes (2009, Argentina)*

Biutiful (2010, Mexico)*

How to Train Your Dragon (2010)

The Artist (2011, France)

Hugo (2011)

A Separation (2011, Iran)

The Act of Killing (2012, Indonesia/Norway/Denmark)*

Frankenweenie (2012)*

Life of Pi (2012)

Lincoln (2012)

Skyfall (2012)

Ida (2013, Poland)

Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)

12 Years a Slave (2013)

American Sniper (2014)

Interstellar (2014)

Song of the Sea (2014)

Creed (2015)

Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

The Revenant (2015)

Spotlight (2015)

We Can’t Live Without Cosmos (2015 short, Russia)

World of Tomorrow (2015 short)

Ennemis intérieurs (2016 short, France)

Fences (2016)

Moonlight (2016)

My Life as a Zucchini (2016, Switzerland)

Pearl (2016 short)

Baby Driver (2017)*

Dunkirk (2017)

Loving Vincent (2017)

The Shape of Water (2017)

At Eternity’s Gate (2018)*

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018)

Cold War (2018, Poland)

Hale County This Morning, This Evening (2018)*

Mary Poppins Returns (2018)

Shoplifters (2018, Japan)

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)

The eight nominees for Best Picture, including the winner, Green Book (2018)

The fifteen nominees for the short film categories (2018)

[usstatesofsong]

ESC 2019 Reviews - Denmark

Semifinal 2, #7 - Leonora, “Love is Forever”

Last year, for the first time in a while, Denmark entered my personal Top 3 with Rasmussen’s unexpected thomper of a single, “Higher Ground.” I really liked the song for a slew of reasons - certainly because of its GOT theming (no spoilers I promise), but also because in some weird way it felt authentic to Denmark. Leonora’s “Love is Forever” takes authenticity to a different place, and we shall talk about it.

She’s Leonora Jepsen, a 20-yr-old from Hellerup who competed as a Danish ice skater, then transitioned to being an ice skating trainer and performing. As far as I can tell, “Love is Forever” is her debut single, written by Lise Cabble (who co-wrote “Only Teardrops”!) alongside Melanie Wehbe and Emil Rosendal. She has a distinct look on stage: pulled-back and cropped hair, almost tomboyish white and black suspenders, bright red lipstick, and sometimes a stitched red cap to match. I *really* dig this look.

People have been comparing Leonora and this song to Regina Spektor, which is fair. It’s a bit sparse, with a plucky orchestration - very similar to another Eurovision entry Cabble wrote (see Denmark 1995), but with a 2019 twist. One unique aspect of the composition is that it’s multilingual - English and French are predominant, but there’s also a single line of German - and for the first time since 1997 - a line of Danish will be sung on the Eurovision stage! It’s a major attraction point for me because the line itself, “Love is forever,” translates beautifully between languages. “L’amour est pour toujours” and “Liebe ist für alle da” make appearances, by the way. Match it with an underlying message about the state of political affairs on our Earth, and you’ve got one of the best songs lyrically in this contest.

In some fantasy world I could see this doing really, *really* well - but it just doesn’t feel correct for 2019. Compare this to previous Danish entries that were perhaps a bit too overrated, or even more recent innocent-girl cutesy themes (Austria 2016). It’s the song’s biggest critique by those “in the know” - it’s too uber-kitschy and saccharine for contemporary tastes. If your brother’s really into rock or hard metal music he will detest this song’s existence. Meanwhile, your sister might secretly add it to her Spotify fangirl playlist. 

And in that way it’s very successful as a recorded track. Leonora has that accented female voice thing going on, somewhat like Ieva of Lithuania or this year’s Paenda (we’ll get to her, trust me), which I guess just appeared sometime in the late ‘00s and hasn’t yet left us. She’s pitchy at times and I’ll accredit that to needing more practice, but she’s lost a bit of ground since Dansk Melodi Grand Prix.

Nevertheless, I enjoy this song when it’s on, and I think it should qualify; it’s not a guarantee but it’d be unfortunate. Denmark’s not going to set everyone’s mind ablaze with this, but it should go on record as being a solid entry for Eurovision. Even if we missed out on hearing Greenlandic...

My Rating: 7/10 Rank: 13th of 41

[upalldown]

Teenage Fanclub - Endless Arcade

Eleventh studio album from the veteran Scottish alt-rockers is its first with Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci member Euro Childs and the first without co-founder Gerard Love

7/13

According to an old sports cliché, when a team’s star player goes down, it falls on their teammates to step up their game and help make up for lost production. “Next man up!” the coaches often say.

That’s more or less the situation Scottish pop-rock legends Teenage Fanclub find themselves in on their new album Endless Arcade.

A bit of background: From 1997 to 2016, TFC (as we’ll call them) recorded and released five full-length studio albums, each with 12 tracks split evenly between founding songwriters Norman Blake, Gerard Love and Raymond McGinley. The last time any of those three wrote more than four songs on a Teenage Fanclub record was 1995’s Grand Prix, when Blake wrote … five—and that included a cheeky instrumental that clocked in under two minutes long.

That commitment to form and approach is interesting and unusual, but it’s the trio’s consistency of songwriting quality that makes them one of the best rock bands ever. Album after album, Blake, Love and McGinley delivered a dozen perfect-or-pretty-close-to-it pop songs that rang out loud and clear like Big Star and jangled sweetly like The Byrds, often bouncing around in the dulcet zone between the two.

Then, in 2018, the band announced Love’s amicable departure after a disagreement about touring plans. The remaining Fannies replaced him by moving longtime multi-instrumentalist and touring member Dave McGowan into the permanent bass role and adding Welsh musician Euros Childs—best known as the frontman for indie band Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci, and also a bandmate of Blake’s in Jonny—on keyboards. (Drummer Francis Macdonald rounds out the lineup.)

To be clear (and to go back to the sports cliché), losing Love is not like losing a benchwarmer, a scrappy role player or even a solid starter. Along with Blake, Love wrote many of TFC’s very best songs, marked by his gift for connecting weary wisdom with winsome melodies. He is a giant of his craft. Losing him is like the 2012-13 Miami Heat bidding adieu to LeBron James. (Apologies for not having a footy reference ready, mates.)

Of course, that Heat team had other all-time greats—Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, Ray Allen—on its roster, just as Teenage Fanclub has Blake and McGinley, who each contribute six songs to Endless Arcade. The result is an album that fits naturally into the band’s trajectory, which has seen them mellowing gradually and gracefully over the past several years.

The album kicks off with what appears to be a curveball—a track longer than seven minutes long—but turns out to be an extended jam baked into classic Blake, spirited in pace, plainly catchy, lyrically lamenting a lost love and searching for a path forward:

Every morning, I open my eyes I’m waking up to reality I’ve been mystified I’ve been losing sight of what it means to be And all this time I’ve been holding on To our memory I sometimes wonder if I’ll ever be home again

These are recurring themes in Blake’s Endless Arcade songs: “I am drifting like ice on the sea,” he sings in “The Sun Won’t Shine on Me,” a beautiful, hymn-like ballad. In “Warm Embrace,” he’s lonely, forlorn and sinking, even as the short song charges through a gauntlet of rhythmic zigzags and keyboard buzz. (This is where Childs’ influence comes through most clearly on the album.) Later, “I’m More Inclined” is almost resistantly upbeat, echoing the fighting spirit of the lyrics: “I could live in isolation / falling deeper into blue / or I could take the path that leads me back to you.”

It’s clear Blake has had his heart badly broken, and that’s hard to hear. On the other hand, the guy does melancholy pop better than just about anyone.

For his part, McGinley writes songs that are less direct, lyrically, and less overtly personal. Instead, he is focused on the bigger picture, watching the world crumble around him in the sneering rocker “Everything Is Falling Apart” but urging “don’t be afraid of this life” in the chorus of the album’s title track. As is often the case, his tunes don’t fly quite as effortlessly as Blake’s; he gravitates toward low-key melodies (“The Future”) and a steady pulse (“Come With Me”). But he’s also capable of his share of highlights, such as “In Our Dreams,” a sparkling, slightly psychedelic number that pops off Endless Arcade’s back half.

There are a couple of songs here that never really blossom, and it’s easy to imagine them being left off previous albums to make room for Love’s four tracks. Alas, that was not an option here. So while Endless Arcade may not quite match the standard of consistency Teenage Fanclub is known for, it’s an excellent reminder of just how much songwriting talent has called this band home for the past three decades. Next man up, indeed.

https://www.pastemagazine.com/music/teenage-fanclub/endless-arcade-album-review/

[eurovision-revisited]

The Best National Final of 1997

The rumour is that Italy entered Eurovision 1997 by accident. As an EBU member, RAI were supposed to inform the EBU that they didn't want to take part, otherwise they would contractually obliged to participate. Such was the disorder inside the Italian broadcaster they forgot and had to go to Dublin.

Luckily they didn't have to organise a national final or even go to the lengths of choosing an act. They had Festival di Sanremo as a fixture on the annual Italian cultural schedule, and they could simply select the winner.

This one-off accidental Italian entry shows what we've been missing. Sanremo is head and shoulders above all the other national finals in this year by some way. There's a huge variety of music, nearly all sung well. There's the controversial winners too! Sanremo was launching huge musical careers in a way that Eurovision, at the time, was not. If you can take the multi-hour length with the show originally meandering into the wee small hours, this grand old contest is definitely worth your time.

Clocking in at a considerably shorter 30 minutes, is the UK national final, The Great British Song Contest. In the year the UKs government drastically changed and when Britpop pomp was at its pinnacle, the year when Radiohead released OK Computer, the songs weren't anything close to commercial and there were only four of them. One was actually a joke. Yet the overall quality is not that bad and they managed to select the winner too.

Dora continues to be Dora, although overall the quality of the music is declining. It's still good. And the opposite of this, the Maltese selection is finally showing signs of life even though overall it's not great.

The one you should avoid/watch with your mouth agape is Dansk Melodi Grand Prix. Ten songs, reasonable variety, but I have not a single clue what the hell was going on with the staging.

[eurovision-revisited]

1997 Dublin - Number 4 - Kølig Kaj - "Stemmen I Mit Liv"

We all have guilty pleasures, and surely there are few things more guilty that a peroxide white Danish rapper in leopard-print trousers harassing the receptionists of Directory Enquiries because he likes the voice of one of their colleagues?

It nearly didn't make Eurovision. It pipped Jette Throp's Utopia by about 300 phone calls in a 100% televoted Dansk MGP. If there had been juries, I can't imagine that it would have won. In the national final, Stemmen I Mit Liv (The Voice in my Life) was presented more conventionally for a hip hop track with Kølig rapping over backing provided by a DJ with decks. The breaks were samples. But here, in Dublin, they got the full, live orchestra to provide the them and boy, that's a big difference. It gives what's a fun song a whole heap of wall of sound heft. The live strings especially add propulsion and urgency.

This could only achieve 25 points to finish 16th overall. As with Paul Oscar, this scored points from three of the five countries using 100% televoting for the final scores, in this case Switzerland, Sweden and the UK.

For Kølig, this was his year. This track did very well in the Danish charts and he release an album and two other singles of the back of it. He's continued to perform freestyle, continuing to win awards as recently as 2018. The song was written by Chief 1 aka Lars Pedersen, DJ, promoter, manager and pioneer of Danish hip hop and one of the founder members of Rockers By Choice - Denmark's first hip hop act.

However there's another accusation of plagiarism attached to Stemmen I Mit Liv. Here's the evidence. What do you think?

[eurovision-revisited]

Eurovision 2004 - Number 22 - Kaare Thøgersen - "Lykkelig i nat"

This is Kaare Thøgersen's one and only entry into Dansk Melodi Grand Prix and pretty much his only lasting solo piece of music to find it's way on to the various streaming sites. Prior to this, he's a jobbing singer, with a few backing credits and playing Danny in a stage production of Grease. His biggest moment approaching the spotlight was as a singer in the band Momb with some school-friends who somehow managed to bag a deal with BMG in 1997.

The most notable person associated with this song is the writer. Mette Mathiesen has four DMGP credits - but what credits. She has been working with Lisa Cabble since they were in Miss B. Haven in the 1980s. They wrote Fra Mols Till Skagen, they wrote Uden Dig. Lykkelig i nat (Happy Tonight) represents the one and only time Mette entered a song without Lise at DMGP.

It's an earnest song about being into someone so much, that all you want to do is get tangled up in quilts with them and howl like wolves. Otherwise it's waiting alone, eating crispbreads and waiting for the phone to ring. And then it does! Cue another chorus.

It has those Cabble/Mathiesen compositional flourishes all over it. Strings. Joyous chorus. In fact just joy and love all round. Of all the regular Eurovision composers, this team are the ones who can most readily just express pure and sometimes not so innocent joy. Kaare's a fine singer, but you can also hear how the joy is infecting him as he sings. It's a song you can't help but sing with a huge grin. If this feels a touch like the joyous instrumentation of ELO, perhaps that's because Mette was once in a relationship with Jeff Lynne. There are shared musical sensibilities here.

Unfortunately it didn't finish in the top five of DMGP and failed to make the final. Denmark - we need to have some serious words.

Following this disappointment Kaare disappeared back into relative obscurity although there were still backing vocals and presumably musical theatre. Momb reformed and produced a new album in 2017. Mette Mathiesen did get back with Lise Cabble and they wrote at least one more DMGP song in 2007. Beyond that she continued as a song-writer and drummer.