In Praise Of Country Music

While I try to plot out how to cover Eurovision fortnight 2012 next week and the week after, despite not knowing how many hours I have in the day, I shall continue to try to get all the reviews done as quick as I can. Anyhow while I originally set out to have all this stuff done before rehearsals started that seems increasingly likely that I won't have. Anyhow might be time to down a small medium large bottle of something and bang these out but anyhow here goes the Netherlands.

You might be forgiven in not remembering that the Netherlands in fact launched a new open style national final contrasting from their previous internal artist selection and public song mix. Anyone remember the giant suitcase. No? This is the problem, like Portugal despite changing the selection procedure they still have produced a fairly formulaic Dutch song.

And this is a great thing.

I am in the minority of fans who have liked most of Netherlands entries over the past five years. This year si no different. Joan Franka may have come from the most dull and deary national final you could think of this is a really nice and sweet country music song. It bounces along and really does draw you in. I'm not the biggest fan of Joan's outfit choice though and think that she should go with something more natural for Eurovision.

This has a couple of weaknesses: namely the song is too early in the running order to really make an impact on the voting public. I also think that despite the fan popularity of this song it is failing to make an impact in fan circles outside of the UK and Ireland. On the positive side I think this might make an impact outside the usual Eurovision fan voting public in the semi finals.

Verdict: This really is a great song. It's not one that makes me pick up the phone but really this is one I really am going to look forward to. Sadly though I cannot imagine this making it though to the final. Which is a real shame and will mean that thanks to Norway's unfortunate decision not to send Bobby Bare to the contest, there will once again be a final lacking in country music.


Grade: B+