#ODIS

[eurovision-revisited]

2001 Copenhagen - Number 19 - Arnis Mednis - "Too Much"

I've been dying to write about this one...

The song is almost objectively awful. Lyrically, the English is poor and although not ambiguous, there's enough there to make you wonder exactly what's going on. The character that Arnis Mednis is portraying is not a nice man. Someone has described him as a 'drunk uncle at a wedding', and yes, although he's drunk, and he may be an uncle, it's the events around his own wedding he's describing. There's the strong possibility that he cheated on his wife the night before the wedding. He drags his new wife to a bar when she'd prefer a cup of tea. At least she dumps him in the end.

This version is a glow-up from the version that scraped the win in Eirodziesma 2001 by two points. That was slower-tempo affair with much more restrained vocals and a jolly accordion and a rapped section with Arnis begging to be taken back. Allegedly it's an anti-drugs song, and although he sounds coked up to the eyeballs, it's far too happy a song to be anti-anything. Apart from Arnis and his lyrics, there isn't a dark thing about Too Much at all

Arnis is great at portraying a truly obnoxious man, a terrible human being with barely a sliver of self-awareness. Troublingly I'm not sure how much of this is genuine and how much is an act - however confrontational.

He was in a band called Odis from the end of the 1980s and the early 1990s. Their first album was called Sātana Radītā (Created by Satan) and contains tracks called Black Girls and Portrait No. 2. Woman In Bathing-costume. That this album consists of lounge jazz or possibly lethargic library music might be part of an elaborate joke that I'm not getting, or it might be that there's a huge degree of delusion and misogyny going on.

And yet, here it is at number 19 in my top 26 for 2001. Why on earth would I do this to you?

Well, I like that happy little tune. I admire the backing singer in the final who truly throws herself into her new vocal line with abandon and whe there's nowhere to hide doing that live in front of 38,000 people. There's the guitar that kicks in on the choruses, the call and response, it's rough, it's dirty and it absolutely suits the song. And they got rid of the rap. Without the context of the lyrics, the song itself is an absolute blast.

Arnis the singer clearly does have some self-awareness that Arnis the character in the song is an awful person. There is parody here, even if I can't tell what level that parody is operating at. His usual output is jazz, and as this is about as far from jazz as you could possibly get. As he wrote this, it could be pastiche. I don't think it's trolling Eurovision, but I can't be 100%. That's an enticing, teasing ambiguity.

Mostly though this song is the utter antithesis of the love song. Eurovision is awash with love songs, positively bathing in attachment, passions, desire and happy hormones. It does need contrast. And here is that friction; the sand in the lubricant. It is an excellent representation of someone who is so self-obsessed and far too gone on whatever substances he's taking that his memory is destroyed and his lies fail to last even two days into a marriage. Someone you'd never want to go near once you'd get to know him.

This is a song somewhere on the spectrum between Silvia Knight's Congratulations and Hatari's Hatrið mun sigra. Plus it has an accordion, and I love accordions in Eurovision. Too Much is a song you cannot ignore.

[grumpy-zane]

What ever happened to Zane’s kid? You talked about him a bunch then suddenly stopped. I loved his shyness. Made me feel not so bad about my own.

((He has been in my thoughts, but I have not drawn him in awhile. Well, until now that is, haha.))

[a2zsportsnews]

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[owollene]

Lost my mind making the connection between Garfield & Odie and Stan & Fiddleford,,, it's real to me, here's your food fiddlestan enjoyers

(PS: they're watching the 80s Garfield cartoons on TV in the last pic as two grown men should)

[ochiody]

theyre literally already married

[scrumblewonk]

what r ur kinks

murder

[haley-harrison]

Calypso: The stars are beautiful tonight.

Odysseus: You know who else is beautiful?

Calypso (blushing): Who?

Odysseus: Penelope.

[id247news]

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[dark-elf-writes]

Odysseus after ten years of suffering, picking up Poseidon’s trident: Traumatize them back :)

Poseidon: Hey… Buddy… can we talk about this?

Odysseus: No :)

[raointean]

[sloanslone]

Owlthena AU fanart! Ib: @irunaki

[a2zsportsnews]

England skipper Buttler out of T20 series against Australia, could miss ODIs

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[mandersie]

Was listening to "Wouldn't you like" on repeat at the gym today, had to get these off my head (and also finally draw Circe-)

Also in the first one, Hermes is basically adding wood to the fire (with a saying that we have where I live) because I thought it'd be funny to imagine him watching the fight and being an annoying goof sakjdghag