Welcome to The Xtra Files, our new series which will give you an insight into what the team at escXtra think of your favourite entries into this year’s contest! Today, we review Norway.
Now that all the songs have been released, we are able to review each and every one of them. Our honest and brutal reviews will keep you entertained until the rehearsals start in May! We will also each give a score out of 10 for every entry, and create an escXtra leaderboard of the entries! You can see our preview reviews here.
Today, it is the turn of the Norwegian entry, ‘Grab The Moment’ by Jowst feat. Alexander Walmann, to be reviewed by Dimitris, Luke, Nathan, Rodrigo, Ryan, and Wivian. Let’s get started!
The Reviews
Dimitris:
The first time I heard this song I didn’t really like it. I started liking it now, but I’m still not a big fan of it. It’s a modern song, with a catchy beat but it just doesn’t strike me.
Luke:
This was my 6th place in Melodi Grand Prix. Norway made the complete wrong choice. But anyway, Jowst, not to be confused with the air freshener, Oust, have a pretty decent entry for Norway. It does stick around in your head after it’s finished, though I feel it gets boring fairly quickly. The ending needs to have more of a build up.
Nathan:
A nice contemporary number which reflects well on Norway’s presence in the international music scene, just…not as good as others for me.
Rodrigo:
A very good effort by Norway, particularly since the inexplicable thing they sent last year. It has a catchy rhythm and is extremely radio and live friendly. One of the underrated ones to watch this year, in my opinion. This is not “Eurovision-by-the-numbers” which seems to work quite well in the last few years.
Ryan:
This doesn’t strike me as an ideal competition song but as a song itself it is very on-trend, modern and catchy. The distorted vocals perfectly symbolise the “kill the voices in my head” lyric, I just hope it can be replicated live!
Wivian:
This is the third time in six years that I have Norway pretty close to the top of my list. Aleksander is a great singer, and the song is cool, modern and both dancefloor and radio friendly. I think this will do better than a lot of the fans think.
Scores
| Dimitris | 5.5 | Rodrigo | 8 |
| Hlynur | 6 | Ryan | 8.5 |
| Katarina | 5 | Sagheer | 6 |
| Luke | 4.5 | Simon | 3 |
| Matteo | 9 | Sophie | 3 |
| Nathan | 7 | Wivian | 8.5 |
| Nick | 8 | Yassia | 6 |
When we remove the top score of 9 and the lowest score of 3, the average score for Norway is 6.33.
(Removing the top score and the lowest score helps to make the average score more reliable and less affected by outliers.)
Leaderboard
Norway reaches 3rd place in our leaderboard with a score of 6.33.
- Hungary – 6.79
- Moldova – 6.58
- Norway – 6.33
Tomorrow, we will review the United Kingdom.
Do you agree with our reviews of Norway? What are your thoughts on ‘Grab The Moment’? Let us know in the comments!
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