Song Of The Day 5/24/2015: Electro Velvet – “Still In Love With You” (United Kingdom)

I'm Ovision -- Eurovision! 2015: Well, or vell if you prefer, the Eurovision Song Contest for 2015 is history, and as the bettors had it all along Sweden ran away with the victory. They had to fend off a charge from the Russians as so many of us have had to do, and a presentation from Il Volo that made everyone but the most utterly resistant MRA’s swoon, but in the end Måns Zelmerlöw’s “Heroes” became its own sweet self-fulfilling prophecy. So that means next year the contest is probably going to be held in Stockholm (or wherever the Swedish authorities deign fit to ask a lot of money from), which means I have one year to figure out how to get a full press credential and find a sugar daddy to foot the bill. This would be so much easier if I was in Belarus.

What Did We Learn From Eurovision 2015? Probably nothing very unexpected. Grandiosity still trumps peculiarity, as you'll read in a minute. Your top three this year each had that expansive, hangar-vast attempt to mobilize emotional phenomena in as many participants as possible, heedless of which flags the countries were carrying. Although, despite the shiny presenters' admonition that this year's contest (theme: "Building Bridges") placed "people above politics" to resounding acclaim, it's hard to believe that Russia's "A Million Voices" was on the up-and-up at the state level, although the woman who sang it, Polina Gagarina, seemed like a very nice person. Tell that to your barebacked equestrian Prez and see how he smirks back, the twit. Rather, it was the personal mythologizing of "Heroes," its premise that all of us can save a life or make a decent Gordian knot or tip our waiters, that washed away the troublesome grit and rechristened its listeners as New Power People. If there's any country I trust to make us clean and hypoallergenic, it's Sweden.

Anyway, we’ll close this week out with the United Kingdom’s entry, which a lot of people in the United Kingdom didn’t care for. Turns out not many other people cared for Electro Velvet’s entry either as it placed a distant 24th and got the kind of attention one doesn’t want to receive from the British press. In fact this was a terrible year for every country in the Big 5 except Italy, a washout that might spell severe reconsideration as to the future of financing for the contest. Or, more appropriately, maybe reconsideration of what exactly the Big 5 calls a “good song.” Although I kind of like Electro Velvet’s Taco-esque blend of ’20s jazz and silliness in spite of itself.

That’s it. Our Eurovision heck is over. I’d like to thank the rest of the Earth for visiting this blog over the last eight days. We now return this blog to its default condition of detente. Ciao!