Popera (that’s pop-era, not pope-ra) is a longstanding genre for Eurovision. The ability to shift one’s voice across vocal registers and into soaring notes is seen as a skill that impresses juries. And Austria’s JJ certainly has the range for the operatic demands of his song Wasted Love. The man’s day job is with the Vienna State Opera, for goodness sake!
No, the problem with most popera is the pop. Funny thing – it’s easy to write a good opera part. The challenge is making it slap.
Wasted Love – co-written by Teya, of Who The Hell is Edgar? fame – spends its first two minutes seesawing between a sad girl ballad (a la Victoria from Bulgaria) and some impressive if slightly incomprehensible operatic vocals (a la Raiven from Slovenia). And then, suddently, in the last 40 seconds, a beat drops and we are suddenly raving.
The whole thing doesn’t quite hang together. Should we be hanging back and paying attention to the vocals, or going hard on the dance floor? Eurovision songs shouldn’t be an either/or choice – and we have some songs this year (Malta!) where great vocals are paired with a pop hook. But Austria can’t quite manage to negotiate the fault line between the two.
Finally, I think what bothers me about this song is the division between the repeated ‘wasteds’ and the chopped-up arias. These are both vocals that were recorded originally by JJ. Logically, he can’t perform them both at the same time on stage. I find the chopped-up bits to be more interesting vocally. But because Eurovision requires live vocals, we never get a sense as to what JJ might do with them live using a mic with some effects. Instead, we get this person with a fantastic voice standing there for about 30 seconds just repeated “wasted” over and over again, with diminishing appeal.
Given that the ‘wasteds’ are evident on the karaoke version of the track, I am hoping that JJ can use that time to do something a little more interesting with his voice.
Anyway, Austria is tipped as a jury winner, so it turns out that everyone may think this song does hang together and we may be in Vienna next year. If so, I at least hope to catch a State Opera performance in my free time.
dudepoints.fun 