{"id":2333,"date":"2013-05-16T13:31:06","date_gmt":"2013-05-16T12:31:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.willhowells.org.uk\/blog\/?p=2333"},"modified":"2013-05-16T13:40:18","modified_gmt":"2013-05-16T12:40:18","slug":"eurovision-2013-semi-final-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.willhowells.org.uk\/blog\/2013\/05\/16\/eurovision-2013-semi-final-two\/","title":{"rendered":"Eurovision 2013: Semi-final Two"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The first semi-final was pretty good. Good work, Sweden, and a particular mention to Ireland and Belgium, who both came across much better than I expected. Most of my preferred songs got through &#8211; although Serbia didn&#8217;t help themselves with their bizarre Hello Kitty outfits and didn&#8217;t make the cut. We rightly said au revoir to Slovenia and Montenegro, with the dreary Lithuanian entry an unexpected qualifier.<\/p>\n<p>Tonight it&#8217;s the second semi final and 10 of tonight&#8217;s 17 songs will progress through to Saturday&#8217;s final to join Belarus, Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Moldova, Netherlands, Russia, Spain, Sweden, the UK and Ukraine on stage.<\/p>\n<p>Here are my thoughts on the 17 songs vying for those coveted final places coming up tonight (from 8pm on BBC Three).<\/p>\n<h3>The Good<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=r5egVzkZGTg\">Azerbaijan<\/a><\/strong> &#8211; This is nice enough middle-of-the-road Eurovision fare, albeit with a key change that&#8217;s almost squashed. I actually prefer it to their winning song <em>Running Scared<\/em>, but &#8220;Hold me\/Unfold me&#8221;? No.<\/li>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=FdU02F9lT2g\">Finland<\/a><\/strong> &#8211; Now here&#8217;s a fan favourite and no mistake. It&#8217;s pretty silly but has its camp sense of humour in exactly the right place and the result is good, toe-tapping fun.<\/li>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=UmjsIhihJMY\">Hungary<\/a><\/strong> &#8211; This is a lovely, gentle little number and not traditionally Eurovision at all. It might not come off as well live as in the pristinely produced studio recording but it&#8217;s another good entry from Hungary and I hope it does well.<\/li>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=P4lwr-zMSnM\">Latvia<\/a><\/strong> &#8211; The first couple of seconds are awful but suddenly it segues into a genuinely catchy chorus &#8211; and then they ruin it all with some naff rapping. Despite that it&#8217;s very jolly and that could be enough to carry it through.<\/li>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=8WmJXIR9xtw\">Malta<\/a><\/strong> &#8211; Yeah, this is a bit twee but it&#8217;s sweet and hard not to like. It&#8217;s gentle, tuneful and, let&#8217;s face it, a nice change for Malta from a big-lunged ballad.<\/li>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=gjm-kCOMaPY\">Norway<\/a><\/strong> &#8211; That bleating noise on the backing track is pretty annoying but the vocals are stark and the whole thing has a relentless drive to it.<\/li>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=xi8mZ2ejLcE\">San Marino<\/a><\/strong> &#8211; This is another song that leaves it almost too late to get going. Two minutes in, it finally goes up a few gears and we have one third of a good song. Most of it is pretty middling but the end, including a handsome key change, push it up to the next level.<\/li>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=fBGpqq2LFSQ\">Switzerland<\/a><\/strong> &#8211; Not only have Switzerland got a very well-thumbed copy of a rhyming dictionary, it appears to be a simple primary school version. Nevertheless, this is hard to dislike and the Salvation Army singers manage to beat you into submission through repetition.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>The Bad<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=JSs03Sp-4ME\">Armenia<\/a><\/strong> &#8211; This is in danger of turning into the Stonecutters song from The Simpsons. &#8220;Lonely planet\/Who has done it?&#8221; is as good as the lyrics get and they are sufficiently cringeworthy to spare us considering the reasonable melody and render this worth avoiding. The end&#8217;s annoying too. Still, key change.<\/li>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=rYuSe5h-rrg\">Israel<\/a><\/strong> &#8211; Israel does seem to swing back and forth wildly with its entries. Last year&#8217;s was fun but this is dreary entry and a perfect moment for popping out to make a brew.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>The Ugly<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=-LwGGo5ZfF8\">FYR Macedonia<\/a><\/strong> &#8211; Good grief. With the rest of the former Yugoslavia out of the running, Macedonia could be on the receiving end of a lot of local douzes, and Macedonia&#8217;s answer to Freddie Mercury (Lozano) and Monserrat Caball&eacute; (Esma) will certainly need them. Not only did they forgot to bring a decent song, Esma genuinely appears to be gargling at one point. It&#8217;s like Lozano&#8217;s great aunt has turned up drunk to ruin his big moment on <em>The X Factor<\/em>. Are these two even talking to each other?<\/li>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=G3k2MOJOkKg\">Greece<\/a><\/strong> &#8211; Bless Greece. Things have got so bad, they&#8217;re left with a song in honour of booze. I&#8217;m entirely in favour of the sentiment but some funky instrumentation can&#8217;t get away from vocals that sound like the subject of the song is also its fuel.<\/li>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=8pNEEb6dzi8\">Romania<\/a><\/strong> &#8211; Ladies and gentlemen, we&#8217;ve struck the motherlode. This is almost impossible to judge but I&#8217;d like to see it get the exposure it deserves on Saturday night. It&#8217;s kind of got a good melody but that&#8217;s hard to talk about without&#8230; Well, you really have to see for yourself. This is going to be Friday morning&#8217;s water cooler momment and I wouldn&#8217;t want to spoil it for you. I just hope he finds them again.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>The Rest<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=_Pf-ZCI-UuA\">Albania<\/a><\/strong> &#8211; A fairly standard rocky chorus and an OK guitar solo are undermined by letting the guitarist&#8217;s gravelly blandless loose on the opening verse.<\/li>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=bExp3aNOFsE\">Bulgaria<\/a><\/strong> &#8211; Oh dear. This starts promisingly enough with a bit of Eurovision Percussion but then the singing says the same for three minutes, with no variety or structure aside from a bit of wailing near the end. There&#8217;s a drumming interlude that&#8217;s enjoyable enough but otherwise it&#8217;s only real use is as background music in an Indian restaurant.<\/li>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=CvdcRmzuXKM\">Georgia<\/a><\/strong> &#8211; It&#8217;s not bad when it gets going, pulling out a nice key change and (unintentionally, I&#8217;m sure) name-checking Denmark&#8217;s best entry of recent years. It could do well but lyrically it&#8217;s pretty flat and the opening is dull.<\/li>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=PtunhyMW1hM\">Iceland<\/a><\/strong> &#8211; Slightly bland but it builds gently, has a good key change and Iceland&#8217;s Badly Drawn Boy sings it well.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The first semi-final was pretty good. Good work, Sweden, and a particular mention to Ireland and Belgium, who both came across much better than I expected. Most of my preferred songs got through &#8211; although Serbia didn&#8217;t help themselves with their bizarre Hello Kitty outfits and didn&#8217;t make the cut. We rightly said au revoir [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,12,11],"tags":[949],"class_list":["post-2333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geeklife","category-music","category-tv","tag-eurovision-song-contest"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Eurovision 2013: Semi-final Two - No geek is an island<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/www.willhowells.org.uk\/blog\/2013\/05\/16\/eurovision-2013-semi-final-two\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Eurovision 2013: Semi-final Two - No geek is an island\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The first semi-final was pretty good. Good work, Sweden, and a particular mention to Ireland and Belgium, who both came across much better than I expected. Most of my preferred songs got through &#8211; although Serbia didn&#8217;t help themselves with their bizarre Hello Kitty outfits and didn&#8217;t make the cut. We rightly said au revoir [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"http:\/\/www.willhowells.org.uk\/blog\/2013\/05\/16\/eurovision-2013-semi-final-two\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"No geek is an island\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-05-16T12:31:06+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2013-05-16T12:40:18+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Will\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Will\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.willhowells.org.uk\/blog\/2013\/05\/16\/eurovision-2013-semi-final-two\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.willhowells.org.uk\/blog\/2013\/05\/16\/eurovision-2013-semi-final-two\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Will\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.willhowells.org.uk\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/143a6b60a322d001fdc07f2007384300\"},\"headline\":\"Eurovision 2013: Semi-final Two\",\"datePublished\":\"2013-05-16T12:31:06+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2013-05-16T12:40:18+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.willhowells.org.uk\/blog\/2013\/05\/16\/eurovision-2013-semi-final-two\/\"},\"wordCount\":890,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.willhowells.org.uk\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/143a6b60a322d001fdc07f2007384300\"},\"keywords\":[\"Eurovision Song Contest\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Geeklife\",\"Music\",\"TV\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"http:\/\/www.willhowells.org.uk\/blog\/2013\/05\/16\/eurovision-2013-semi-final-two\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.willhowells.org.uk\/blog\/2013\/05\/16\/eurovision-2013-semi-final-two\/\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/www.willhowells.org.uk\/blog\/2013\/05\/16\/eurovision-2013-semi-final-two\/\",\"name\":\"Eurovision 2013: Semi-final Two - No geek is an island\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.willhowells.org.uk\/blog\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2013-05-16T12:31:06+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2013-05-16T12:40:18+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.willhowells.org.uk\/blog\/2013\/05\/16\/eurovision-2013-semi-final-two\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"http:\/\/www.willhowells.org.uk\/blog\/2013\/05\/16\/eurovision-2013-semi-final-two\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.willhowells.org.uk\/blog\/2013\/05\/16\/eurovision-2013-semi-final-two\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.willhowells.org.uk\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Eurovision 2013: Semi-final Two\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.willhowells.org.uk\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.willhowells.org.uk\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"No geek is an island\",\"description\":\"\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.willhowells.org.uk\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/143a6b60a322d001fdc07f2007384300\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.willhowells.org.uk\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":[\"Person\",\"Organization\"],\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.willhowells.org.uk\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/143a6b60a322d001fdc07f2007384300\",\"name\":\"Will\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.willhowells.org.uk\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/edd7c0105cc6a39125db7653749feae1?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/edd7c0105cc6a39125db7653749feae1?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Will\"},\"logo\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.willhowells.org.uk\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/www.willhowells.org.uk\/blog\"]}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Eurovision 2013: Semi-final Two - No geek is an island","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"http:\/\/www.willhowells.org.uk\/blog\/2013\/05\/16\/eurovision-2013-semi-final-two\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Eurovision 2013: Semi-final Two - No geek is an island","og_description":"The first semi-final was pretty good. Good work, Sweden, and a particular mention to Ireland and Belgium, who both came across much better than I expected. Most of my preferred songs got through &#8211; although Serbia didn&#8217;t help themselves with their bizarre Hello Kitty outfits and didn&#8217;t make the cut. We rightly said au revoir [&hellip;]","og_url":"http:\/\/www.willhowells.org.uk\/blog\/2013\/05\/16\/eurovision-2013-semi-final-two\/","og_site_name":"No geek is an island","article_published_time":"2013-05-16T12:31:06+00:00","article_modified_time":"2013-05-16T12:40:18+00:00","author":"Will","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Will","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"http:\/\/www.willhowells.org.uk\/blog\/2013\/05\/16\/eurovision-2013-semi-final-two\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"http:\/\/www.willhowells.org.uk\/blog\/2013\/05\/16\/eurovision-2013-semi-final-two\/"},"author":{"name":"Will","@id":"https:\/\/www.willhowells.org.uk\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/143a6b60a322d001fdc07f2007384300"},"headline":"Eurovision 2013: Semi-final Two","datePublished":"2013-05-16T12:31:06+00:00","dateModified":"2013-05-16T12:40:18+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"http:\/\/www.willhowells.org.uk\/blog\/2013\/05\/16\/eurovision-2013-semi-final-two\/"},"wordCount":890,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.willhowells.org.uk\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/143a6b60a322d001fdc07f2007384300"},"keywords":["Eurovision Song Contest"],"articleSection":["Geeklife","Music","TV"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["http:\/\/www.willhowells.org.uk\/blog\/2013\/05\/16\/eurovision-2013-semi-final-two\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"http:\/\/www.willhowells.org.uk\/blog\/2013\/05\/16\/eurovision-2013-semi-final-two\/","url":"http:\/\/www.willhowells.org.uk\/blog\/2013\/05\/16\/eurovision-2013-semi-final-two\/","name":"Eurovision 2013: Semi-final Two - No geek is an island","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.willhowells.org.uk\/blog\/#website"},"datePublished":"2013-05-16T12:31:06+00:00","dateModified":"2013-05-16T12:40:18+00:00","breadcrumb":{"@id":"http:\/\/www.willhowells.org.uk\/blog\/2013\/05\/16\/eurovision-2013-semi-final-two\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["http:\/\/www.willhowells.org.uk\/blog\/2013\/05\/16\/eurovision-2013-semi-final-two\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"http:\/\/www.willhowells.org.uk\/blog\/2013\/05\/16\/eurovision-2013-semi-final-two\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.willhowells.org.uk\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Eurovision 2013: Semi-final Two"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.willhowells.org.uk\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.willhowells.org.uk\/blog\/","name":"No geek is an island","description":"","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.willhowells.org.uk\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/143a6b60a322d001fdc07f2007384300"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.willhowells.org.uk\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":["Person","Organization"],"@id":"https:\/\/www.willhowells.org.uk\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/143a6b60a322d001fdc07f2007384300","name":"Will","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.willhowells.org.uk\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/edd7c0105cc6a39125db7653749feae1?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/edd7c0105cc6a39125db7653749feae1?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Will"},"logo":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.willhowells.org.uk\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/"},"sameAs":["http:\/\/www.willhowells.org.uk\/blog"]}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.willhowells.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.willhowells.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.willhowells.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.willhowells.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.willhowells.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2333"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.willhowells.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2333\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2339,"href":"http:\/\/www.willhowells.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2333\/revisions\/2339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.willhowells.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.willhowells.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.willhowells.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}