I keep forgetting that Australia is in this year’s contest, and I don’t know why!
Australia is sending Electric Fields, who absolutely killed it at the 2019(!)Australian National Final with their song 2000 and Forever. There is no reason a song that is performed by two people in all black with no discernible choreography should be so mesmerising, but this performance is, to pardon the pun, electric.
So I am excited that Electric Fields are finally, finally representing Australia on the Eurovision stage! Except that the only thing we know about the song is this:
As an autistic person, this is possibly the most uncomfortable video I’ve ever watched. I felt like I was doing that New York Times ‘stare into someone’s eyes for four minutes and fall in love‘ challenge. It’s like I was sitting on the sofa next to them and they were looking at me expectantly just waiting to hear what I thought of One Mikali. (Well, either that or they were inviting me to join a polycule.) Electric Fields, I already love you! I don’t need anything more that a good song!
And when I listen to the song outside of the video, without Michael’s eyes boring into my soul (Zaachariaha’s gaze is kinder, like he gets how embarrassing this can be for someone as unhip as myself) the song is good! It’s got some of the hookiest lyrics of the contest – ‘escape with us to the planets/to the Fleetwood Macs and the Janets’ and ‘Spill the tea on reality and the 0.618’ which is a reference to the golden ratio.
How is this going to do at the contest? I have no idea! I get that Australia is far away, and doing pre-parties is completely impractical, especially if an act is going to turn around and just come back to Europe a week later. (Pre-parties should not be a requisite for Eurovision participation!) But – compared to their counterparts in the contest – I feel like Electric Fields have gone completely radio silent. There’s no video performances of the song; no covers being released as part of the A Little Bit More YouTube series. It’s like Electric Fields just dropped this song and will show up in Malmo.
Again, that’s completely legitimate, and fair play to them! The Eurovision machine is grueling. Promoting oneself on top of preparing for a performance is really an unfair obligation that we place on the artists, and I do not in any way blame Electric Fields for opting out of a system which only demands more and more and more. (I say this as a hungry consumer of content and a person demanding more so yes, part of the problem, but a self-aware part of the problem?)
Anyway, that’s all a long-winded way to say that I like One Mikali, and I think it will be an amazing performance in Malmo, but I have absolutely no idea what is going to happen on that stage. In my heart of hearts, I harbor a desire for Electric Fields to emerge with something heartfelt and energetic that could win the entire thing, just to throw the odds and the betting and the whole discourse into a tizzy.
dudepoints.fun 