As we near the end of September, it’s rather surprising to remember that Copenhagen was only four months ago! With that in mind, three of our editors; Liam Clark, Aoife Geraghty and Peter Dunwoody decided to once again band together to pick out our favourite songs from the 2014 preselection season that did not make it to Copenhagen. In part 1 we hear which songs Liam liked from Estonia, France, Finland and Belarus.
Estonia
Brigita Murutar – Laule Täis Taevakaar
Anyone who knows anything about me will know I have an often inexplicable obsession with Estonia. So it is always kind of hard to narrow down and select a favourite song. It’s like a parent trying to pick their favourite child! But for the sake of this series, I have done this and my favourite child this year is Brigita Murutar. This I feel like is an apt analogy, as this song almost sounds like it belongs more in the Junior contest; it’s a twee piece of vaguely country infused pop sung by a spritely 17 year old from my European home town of Tartu. To try and explain why I like this song so much is actually pretty easy. Quite simply, it makes me really really happy. I’m using the semi final performance of the song here though, as I feel it’s performed a little more confidently than in the final.
France
Destan – Sans Toi
I think the fact that France only had two rejected songs actually made this choice harder than the other countries, because I genuinely liked both songs. However I give the point here to Destan because it feels more honest. It’s a cheesy boy band ballad and it never pretends to be anything more than it is. It also has some fun shout along moments and it’s bilingualism makes it nice and accessible to all fans without losing it’s Frenchyness. I am however choosing to use the film clip of the song because the live performance really just isn’t very good, but at least they’re still pretty.
Finland
Mikko Pohjola -Sängyn Reunalla
I know it’s somewhat cliché to pick the song that came second, but there truly is something magical about this performance. From the way YLE shot it all in black and white, to Pohjola’s delicate vocals. I was quite upset when this gentle ballad didn’t win although I will admit I think Finland did ultimately make the right choice. It’s not easy to make Finnish sound as beautiful as it does here, but he somehow does it and manages to touch me without me ever knowing what the song is actually about.
Belarus
Elena Sinyavskaya – Via Lattea
If I were a man who felt guilt about his musical choices, this is probably one I would class as a guilty pleasure. Thankfully I don’t, so I can say completely unashamedly that I entirely and completely live for this song. There is a place in my world for gentle, delicate Finnish ballads which touch me in a magical way, and then there’s a place for high energy, high camp perfection. It’s songs like this that make me aware of exactly how much of a “bubble” Eurovision is, and very aware of the fact that I never ever want to leave it. Sadly there aren’t very many good videos of this around, but that’s okay as her live performance wasn’t quite as enjoyable as the studio version.
Do you agree with Liam or do you think that there were better songs that he overlooked? Tell us in the comments below! And stay tuned next week for another set of reviews reminding us of the songs that made up 2014’s National Final season!
