#Who The Hell Is Edgar?

[hola-mi-bebebe]

no no, you misheard, I don't support Poland, I support Poe land

[spaceytrash]

EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS SONG IS ART

[wardrobeoftime]

Eurovision Song Contest + Costumes

Teya’s black & red outfit when performing Who The Hell Is Edgar? for Austria in the 2023 contest.

[because-its-eurovision]

watching Austria’s music video like

[the-spotty-scribe]

My brain was not ready

[depressed--and--bisexual]

POE POE POE POE POE POE POE POE POE

Who could think that a silly little song about an English 19th century writer could end up being about the current music industry and how it barely pays anyone who isn't a big name,

AND ABSOLUTELY STILL SLAP

[borisbubbles]

Eurovision 2023: #18

18. AUSTRIA Teya & Salena - "Who the hell is Edgar?" 15th place

Decade ranking: 51/116 [Above Ronela, below Jeangu]

OOOOOH MIO PADRE, I'VE GOTTA ROAST ME SOME BARBIES, ooooooooooh no.

It does NOT pay to be funny, sadly. Yeah, I wish I didn't have to go there, but sometimes the stars just don't align. With Loreen and Pasha being reunited and the year generally being mediocre, Liverpool 2023 already had enough parallels with Baku 2012. The "preshow obsession has a disappointing live" part I could have done without.

Like seriously. Was there ever a more slam-dunk end of contest favourite for me than TeyaLena? (well other than You Know Who, but we'll get there). My recent faves were Think About Things, Shum and In Corpore Sano. All uptempo, all enjoyable, all secretly very clever entries, eating and mothering (or in Da­ði's case brothering) as THE act on everyone's lips as the dust settled. Edgar was one of two entries who could have been The One for this year!!! But as Poe Poe Poe became Poo Poo Poo I'm forced to pack up my praise pen and bring out my critical analysis quill :-/

Fortunately, like the ladies, I am such a good writer, so enjoy this lengthy review, which is more like a vivisection:

ON THE FLAWS OF 'WHO THE HELL IS EDGAR?'

The first instinct would be to say that the song was impossible to bring, but I don't buy into that logic. "Edgar" was great, a vision, and absolute fucking BANGER. That's the hill, I'll die on. Despite the flaws of its live, I will always cherish it as a song.

Granted, the song was a lot of things at once. That's what made it both iconic and live liability. You try to explain to a layman casual audience member what Edgar is about. How it satirizes the music industry. How self-deprecating it is. What an API is. What an A&R is. What the 0.003 stands for. Now do that in the THIRTY SECONDS TIME FRAME it takes for the video teaser to play. You can't. You can be the best commentator or the most eloquent eurovision-obsessed guncle. Also, you're making me think with your words. Thinking bad. ME WANT ENJOY SHOW. ME WANT GOOD TIME, NO THINK.

So, there's two approaches you can take here, if you play to win.

The first by embracing the campness and going full ham, which how the televote countries would handle it. Your Moldovas, Ukraines, Finlands, Serbias, Norways. Hand Edgar over to one of them, and TeyaLena would start bent over a laptop or typewriter, harrassed by ravens or men in Edgar Allen Poe costumes, who would so a possessed zombie dance while TeyaLena try to escape the clutches.

Naturally, such an act requires less effort from the performers and could be seen as an easy cop-out by juries (die, juries!) and result in a loss of points and well, Austria don't play that way. Austria don't have a built in televote base and feel they are better off playing for the same juries that would normally reject an Edgar.

So instead they went for option two: embrace the hyperpop and try to build momentum off its hyperactivity. Fair enough, that's less interesting and safe, but a valid choice that can result in a very good time.

On this occasion though, it was a MISTAKE.

The best part about Edgar was the combination of dumb hyperpop memes with clever satire, and the staging ignored the latter completely. It showed Edgar Allan Poe TWICE, and then spliced in the Spotify reference in the background without context. That was all the act did with the satire. They should have named this song "Where the hell is Edgar?". The vague references only work when the entire audience is already in on the joke, otherwise it's a three mins of braincell murder. If a pleb tuned in blind (over 75% of the audience), tough luck on them for trying to make sense of it all. SHOULD HAVE FOLLOWED ESC ON TIKTOK!!!.

Bottom line: THE STAGING WAS PEDANTIC.

Thematic acts can alleviate that problem. Think Konstrakta's spa tableau vivant, Katryna's tron aureole, the presence of Gagnamagnið on the stage alongside Daði Freyr. This year we had Vesna's hexaplet choreography, Käärijä's ballroom dancers, Loreen's panini press, Gustaph's motivational graphics, even Alika's fucking self-playing piano applies to this principle. All of these did well, the competent ones with juries, the camp ones with the tv. Intuitive but thematically fitting visual cues that instinctively get the vibe across without requiring the audience to ponder it too deeply (or become a parody, I SEE YOU, France.) that's what effecive staging is about. Now compare the above good stagings to what Austria came up with: Four dancers in Samanta Tina garb, some more created by the LEDs in the background, and a VERY basic choreography. This is not a just simplification but a dumbing down. Every visual cue comes across as nonsensical, because nothing quite ties it together with the music. If only the song itself had provided us with a clear visual reference point, huh?

Of course, a dumbed down staging concept could still yield a good result despite itself if the live was teeming with energy and bounced off in every direction to match the music. Folks would be voting based on pure performance skill and nothing else. After all, Ewnicorn bluffed its way into third on that very principle. Sadly, neither Teya nor Salena were versed in the art of singing and dancing at the same time.

So ultimately, you're given this awkward performance where Teya acted really well and produced delectable facial expressions - I mean who doesn't love THIS:

-but failed to harmonize with Salena, while Salena hit most of her notes but clearly struggled with the Dietmann's simplistic, toddler-like choreography, like a Leila Jane or Mirud on stilts. Nice that they complimented each others weaknesses by showcasing opposite talents, but if you wanna do well just get yourself a girl who can do both.

And there we have it, Teya and Salena. High Risk, High Reward usually plays out for the better, but this is one such occasion where the high risk was avoided and the just reward was a disappointing score on the middle of the scoreboard. Such is the price of not embracing your queer-coded campness in Eurovision. We have landed in mild-like hell, just like Nina Zilli and Jonsi and all the others that I wish I could love more, but sadly did not live up to their initial hype. That too is life. Onward to better things, and things will surely get good as we move forward, right?

THE RANKING

[denjixpower]

IF THIS SONG DOESN'T WIN EUROVISION 2023, I AM GOING TO BE REALLY MAD!

[blacknekolucky]

I love it when big questions in history are finally answered

[brokenandcreative]

Austria back dancers serving the Oompa Loompa looks

They are absolute kings for it

Look at them, I want twenty!

[hola-mi-bebebe]

when you're feeling generous and finally decide on how many points your least favourite performance is allowed to get this year

[spaceytrash]

No but seriously I love how catchy and funny Who the Hell Is Edgar? is but how at the same time it has an important message and is a critique of the music industry with how they handle streaming aka you're only getting 0.003€ per stream and especially in the mv how you're taken way more serious as a man in the business with them dressing up as men to showcase their song to the big executives, who are also all men, cause they are the ones getting favoured in business.

And those aren't the only ways to interpret it there's also the thing with universal how you almost need to sign to a big label if you got some fame and want to keep it, that when you're not big and famous people will always just as who the hell you are under every post about you, how a lot of inspiration comes from past writers or how there are literally ghostwriters for popular songs etc

there's just so much meaning in this campy lil bop I LOVE IT

[wardrobeoftime]

Eurovision Song Contest + Costumes

Salena’s white & red outfit when performing Who The Hell Is Edgar? for Austria in the 2023 contest.

[valoale]

could Edgar also possess me, I’ve got fanfictions to write and approx 0.003 brain function

[gaymer-hag-stan]

Meet the Liverpool 2023 Eurovision Artists

Teya and Salena from Austria 🇦🇹

For Teya & Salena, it’s all about Eurovision.

The duo met while competing in the Austrian talent show Starmania 21, bonding over their love for the Eurovision Song Contest. When they later put their heads together at a songwriting camp, their dream took hold and they united specifically to enter Eurovision.

Both artists have come close to Eurovision stardom before: Salena came second in Austria’s 2019 pre-selection, where PÆNDA beat her to the draw; and Teya had a similar experience, losing out to Vincent Bueno in 2020. However, the girls can lay those ghosts to rest if they deliver Austria’s first qualification from the Eurovision Semi-Finals since Cesár Sampson in 2018.

The talented twosome wrote the satirical Who The Hell Is Edgar? by drawing on their experiences as female songwriters in an industry that all too often doesn’t give women enough credit for their hard work and expertise.

[moonmeg]

"Who The Hell Is Edgar" by Teya & Salena (Austria's ESC entry) has been playing in my brain on repeat and as much as I love the song, I'm slowly going insane