Luxembourg is BACK, baby! After 31 years of absence from the contest, they’ve returned with the song Fighter by Tali.
And after 31 years of absence, of course it’s going to be a little rusty the first time out! We can’t expect a winner immediately.
Look. Fighter is a pleasant song. But Luxembourg’s National Final was set up for the model of a 1990s contest, when songwriters brought songs that were performed by singers, and barely the twain did meet. There’s a reason that Why Me? is largely considered Johnny Logan’s third Eurovision win, even though he didn’t go near the Eurovision stage, because he wrote the song that Linda Martin brought to life. So Luxembourg thought that it could bring a bunch of talented and telegenic youths together with some songwriters, pair them up, and voila! Magic occurs!
Except that’s not the way things work anymore. Only two of the eight entries in the Luxembourg National Final were co-written by their artists. The rest were given songs to perform that were written for Eurovision, instead of written by the artists about their own experiences. And yes, a good singer should be able to embody the emotion in any song, but we know that’s not what happens.
Again, Fighter is not a bad song. It’s just not a memorable one. It’s a lightweight frippery; an amusing bonbon that wears out its welcome around the two minute mark. A Eurovision revamp tried to give it more depth by adding ten seconds of slowed-down drama, but none of this worked. Instead, it simply messes with the tempo of the song, making it seem like someone has left the master tapes out in the sun too long to warp.
I’m glad Luxembourg is back, but let’s look on this as a starter, baby steps year. I can’t wait to see what they deliver once they’ve got an initial Eurovision under their belt.
dudepoints.fun 