Sunday 12 March 2017

Russia 2017 - Julia Samoylova - Flame Is Burning


Russia, you beauties - you played an absolute blinder there! You kept the continent waiting and hanging on your every move. And then, right at the death, you played the finest card of your Eurovision career. With punters and locals already cueing up their booing manouvres, you plucked practically the most unbooable singer on the planet to be your Eurovision entry. Man alive, nobody saw a move that slick coming.

Of course, the song isn't even intended to win. That's not what this move is for. It's the kind of saccharine sweet, whiskers on kittens confection that would make even Disney gag a bit. But to send such a beautiful woman in a wheelchair who'll smile at every single on of us down the telly pipe and make our cold hard hearts melt just a little is surely job done. This is cynical politics done to the very finest level. And do you know what, I'll bet Julia is an absolute delight in Kyiv too!

Of course there's a counter rumour that this song is just a place holder for when they decide to pull out a little nearer the time, so they didn't have to worry about the quality of it. If this is true it'll please Mrs Apocalypse no end, because she put decent money at good odds of Russia winning this year, and she'll get her stake back if they do. But seriously, Russia have won this game already, whether they get the most points or not, or even turn up at all. Because this will go down as one of the great moments in Eurovision game playing of all time.

And it makes you wonder what they've got planned for next year...

4 comments:

  1. Already this is playing out on social media like PKN in 2015, where what a singer looks like is deemed to be the only reason for them to be sent to Eurovision. Yulia is no patsy - she was the runner-up of the Russian X Factor and she has sung at the 2014 Sochi Winter Paralympics. Poland were more cynical with using footage of Monika Kuszyńska pre car accident in 2015 - Yulia looks a confident performer and I suspect that this will surprise a lot of fans as to where it ends in Kyiv.

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  2. I think I'd better stress that I have absolutely no beef with Julia herself. She's a capable performer with some serious form in singing contests and a wealth of experience. I wish her well and hope she does brilliantly in the contest. I'm just not sure that she'd have been the first choice in any other year.

    PKN were a slightly different thing though. They were currently in the public consciousness in Finland after a movie about their lives, The Punk Syndrome, had become a surprise hit.

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    1. No beef from me Roy - it's just that there are a lot of 'fans' suggesting that Yulia has been sent merely to prevent Russia being booed. If that was the case, you could say that sending a pop star who was very attractive to most of the Globe audience last year had the same effect - no one seemed to mind then...

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