So the moment we've been pregnantly anticipating for the last few weeks as arrived - Netta's song for Israel has snuck out unannounced, and it's pretty damn decent. Well, for us at least. It's got all the ingredients of the kind of song we'd like. Banging Eastern rhythms, eccentric vocal performance and some deranged time signatures. And had we not had such high hopes for it up in advance (as well as a few bob on it at 50/1) we'd be over the moon. But somehow we're not feeling it as the contender we'd so dearly hoped it would be.
For a start, it's probably just a bit TOO bonkers. It gives us the full range of vocal tics and weirdness we love Netta for, but without ever letting her let loose with the full range of throaty pyrotechnics. And on top of that, while it looks like there's scope for a bit of loop station business, it feels trimmed to a minimum, with naught but a strange chunk of chicken noises and some righteous attitude part way through.
But you just know that she's going to perform the bones out of it, and whenever she flashes that winning smile, the votes are going to roll around like a cash register on Black Friday. She ain't winning, worse luck, but we're so dang flipping glad she's there, because she's going to light the place up like a massive great candle. And just imagine the Israeli party this year. Oh. My. Days!
The official video will be aired tonight and they have removed anything related to the song from YouTube🙁
ReplyDeleteThere are people out there who are less enthusiastic about it, and that's an understatement
"Toy" is on a par with some of her more restrained performances at Rising Star, where ALL of the judges were onside, rather than losing Ben as she did at almost every turn. I would suspect that this will all be put on a backing track (a bit like the official video) and Netta will mime her vocal looper playing on stage. The 'noises' for the most part sound even less like human voices than JOWST last year so I don't think that we really have moved on at all in that regard. As for live instruments being played on stage, that will be for another year, as I totted up 12-13 other nations who would possibly demand that their electronic guitars/drums/keyboards were all plugged in too...
ReplyDeleteI have this as just outside my top ten at the moment which is quite unusual for what most fans are saying - it seems to be either the Second Coming or the worst thing ever!