People love Baby Lasanga. Rim Tim Tagi Dim landslided the Croatian national final. He’s been near the top of the odds for months.
…and I think I might be a bit lasagna-ed out?
Look, a Baby Lasanga win would be a good thing. Croatia is lovely, Let 3 might get an interval act, and Baby Lasagna honestly seems like a nice guy.
And (putting on my English lit hat) the song itself is an interesting indictment of the economic inequality that exists across Europe, with young people from eastern European countries and rural areas often forced to leave their homes to earn a living. It’s all couched in costuming that references Lasanga’s Istrian heritage. As an American, it also seems to be a nod to the wave of late 1800s/early 1900s migration that took place from southern Europe to the United States. This serious message is wrapped up in crowd-pleasing meme-speak, however, with references to cats and anxiety and other Internet tropes.
I like the song. I like what it says. I like Baby Lasanga. But today, two weeks out from the competition, I just don’t love it.
Partlially, I think that might be due to the fact that I’ve just listened to this too much. Sonically, it’s a pretty straightforward song, along the lines of a more metal Andrew WK. So my brain has stopped finding things to pick apart with it. The overfamiliarity is spreading to the performance as well – if the one major ‘gimmick’ is an extremely simple Tik Tok dance that gets performed the same way every time, I’m going to tune out.
Perhaps Baby Lasagna’s biggest error is that, in my mind, he has simply stopped being weird. I no longer get a frisson of anticipation when he comes on stage. There’s no sense of danger. Unlike his weird counterparts Windows95man, Joost, and 5MIINUST featuring PUULUUP, there’s never the sense that the whole thing could completely implode into anarchy. But that’s my problem of expectations, not Baby Lasagna’s.
Because when a person tunes into Semifinal 1 that Tuesday night, Baby Lasanga’s performance is going to be new, and fresh, and original. And all the things that I’ve come to find rote will seem wildly original and funny, and it’s likely Baby Lasagna might win the contest. Again, a vacation in Croatia would be very nice! But oh, how I wish I could recapture the sense of chaos I felt the first time I saw Baby Lasanga, and how I wish he brought that chaos to the stage now.
dudepoints.fun 