Monday 15 January 2018

Norway 2018 - Stella & Alexandra - You Got Me


Talk about a game of two halves. Rarely before has there been a song in the old MGP that raised you to such hopes in the verse and build, only to whip the rug out from beneath you with such a vanilla pop chorus. Stella you'll remember in her Mwangi form and that disappointment in Düsseldorf. Alexandra you may just remember from her showing in Junior a year earlier. And together they make a curious blend.

Stella kicks things off with a rollicking steamboat of a two beat stomp, bringing in soft notes of Swingfly and Pump Up The Jam, and spitting out the lines with glorious attitude. It builds to what should be the chorus of your life, but instead, sadly, tips over the edge into a saccharine-sweet and whiter-than-white confection, kind of like that marshmallow fluff you can buy in jars in American-themed sweet stores.

It's almost as if they're recalibrating the Northern European sensibility briefly after all that exotic promise at the start, not quite wanting to risk going the whole hog after what they've come to call, in hushed tones and smokey rooms, "the last time". Perhaps I'm being just a slight to cynical, but unless they've got a smashing little mismatched-kids-having-a-lark schtick planned for the live show, I really kind of wish they'd let our Stella have the whole song to herself - and that's no disrespect to dear Alexandra here, as she does a sterling job with shat she's been given. It just doesn't have the pure dang along ling long as the good bits.

Yep, a pure curate's egg of a tune.

2 comments:

  1. This is all a bit of a mare - an attempted mash-up of low level hip hop and C&W? Everything on their own would work really well and I suspect that this will be really joyous on stage but the standard phrase of 'hot mess' comes to mind...

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  2. I really shouldn't, I know I shouldnt, but little by little that Stella has well and truly got me!!

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