The Vids Are Alright

Eyþór Ingi Gunnlaugsson - Ég á Líf (Iceland)

Without the video, Iceland’s entry would totally be in the Michael Buble slot on Sunday X Factor — a well-sung, quiet piano ballad that slowwwwly builds up into a Rousing piano ballad with some Titanic pipe flutes chucked in for good measure. Bor-ring, in other words.

With the video, we have a baffling but ultimately braek-haerts tale of a fisherman who looks like Chris Hemsworth (rub your thighs now, ladies) gutting actual fish in a sou’wester. While slicing up the trout (or whatever, I’m not good with fish identification) he cuts his finger and remembers that the mysterious pair of tiny wellies in the boat belong to HIS DEAD SON, who then appears as a cartoon hallucination and introduces him to a dolphin. Poor old Thor can’t cope with it all so decides to drown himself too. CHEERFUL.

(SPOILERS: It’s ok! He changes his mind at the last minute!)

Who See - Igranka (Montenegro)

More dubstep, but this time it’s actually amazing - sinister rapping by dudes in radiation suits and a balls-out bellowing chorus from a woman with high lung capacity and terrifying eyeliner. It will do terribly but I am rooting for it nonetheless.

The video is, well, not the most feminist piece of filmmaking ever BUT after the Woman with Boobs has a dance-off with the Woman with Buttocks, they become friends! Also features majorettes, welding, suitcases, ninjas, a pirate, cage fighting, one kid in his school uniform, some dudes with massive blue headdresses etc. ‘Igranka’ is Montenegrin for ‘party’ so I guess that makes sense…

Rona Nishliu - Suus (ALBANIA)

Video: Rona has taken up residence in a trendy Shoreditch gallery, where her confusing minimalist artwork involves two small boys drawing on the walls in chalk while she stands in a box and plays with executive stress toys. In a plague mask. There’s tons of SYMBOLISM but unfortunately my Albanian is not great so I shall just have to interpret the cuckoo clock on the Baby Belling as… a subtle attack on the Swiss entry? I have a horrible feeling they’re going to do EXACTLY THIS on stage as well D:

Tune: Waily srs bsns ballad. I’m not surprised she’s upset, being stuck in that box. Her knees must be giving her proper gip. I give this a 5% chance of making the final.

Sébastien Tellier - Pépito Bleu

Well here’s an early contender for WTF of the Year! Seb T’s home planet is about to explode so he escapes in hummingbird/moth form, wiggles his way through a wormhole and lands on Earth assuming the shape of a reincarnated Jimmy Saville.

Were you or I to embark on such a journey, the next logical step would be to find some childless couple with sturdy morals and get yourself adopted, then become a reporter in a city with high crime levels and so on. Sebastian decides to skip this bit and move directly to constructing an ice palace and telepathically recruiting members for his new cult (including a pretty lady who is on the verge of building a mashed potato edifice when she gets the call - I hope she gets a proper square medal afterwards.)

Now then (‘now then’), I don’t know about you but all I achieved on this frosty Monday morning was buying a domain name and setting the DNS servers for it, so Seb has done quite well in less than three minutes.

Christos Mylordos - I Loved You Like An Angel.

Country: Cyprus
Song: Ridiculous emo rock maundering with yer standard Mediterranean balalaika sounds over the top.
Plot: Dude is getting married (maybe?) and lass is wiping off her makeup. We get a flashback of them in a restaurant, except it’s not a flashback it’s happening OVER THERE next to the dude singing (??). Cut to the beach where the couple are having a wonderful time, but it’s interspersed with ANGER (lipstick on the mirror!) and a woodland scene - he’s buring the body! Except she is running away from him? ARGH WHAT. Beware the owls! EFF KNOWS what is going on here.
SFX: Those trees look like they are indoors! This basically looks like an Aaron Spelling production, i.e. brilliant.
Tourist Board Rating: Nice beach! However Cyprus is now officially the Land of Confusion and should probably put Phil Collins in charge of holiday PR. 6/10.
Better than 2010? HELL YES. For a start they haven’t brought in an Irish ringer.
Overall verdict: Amazing. Alas I fear this may not translate well on stage.

Nelly - Just A Dream.

What better way to revive TVAA from its autumnal hibernation than with an amazing emo dream sequence from Nelly? Poor old Nells has fallen asleep in his car and his subconscious has decided to remind him that the old biological clock is TICKING and it’s time to settle down. You’ll have to look closely as the imagery involved here is rather subtle. The flashy car that symbolises his old fast-n-loose blinged-up lifestyle is being washed out to sea by the slow but inevitable WAVES OF OLD AGE. See, I told you it was subtle. The giant revolving ring that dips in the waves* but fails to get wet is a clear metaphor for matrimonial anxiety dreams of dominating Middle Earth! Unfortunately there is no added bonus of invisibility powers: this becomes clear when the ring is set on fire and no mystical writing appears on its surface. Nelly will have to find another way of sneaking into the girls’ changing rooms unseen.

Still, it’s hard to keep a cheerful lad like Nelly down, even when his car tyres** get set on fire 30ft above the waves to signify his old lifestyle crumbling away, he’s still spending every spare moment grinding up against ladies in the club or indulging in a spot of underwater shagging to desperately hang on to the Fun Times. Alas it is all futile in the end and Nelly wakes up from the dream with his glass eye smashed in, revealing the true message behind the video: the torrid mid-life crisis that has resulted in him finally manning up and getting contact lenses to look younger. Brilliant.

*The waves are a bit too shallow for the giant ring if you assume the whole beach follows the gentle slope of where the car is positioned. Perhaps this is a metaphor for Nelly losing PERSPECTIVE on matters?

**I was always under the impression that the petrol tank was the most flammable part of a car. Tyres are usually only the first bits to set on fire if you are travelling very fast (e.g. 88mph) or you are Eddie Irvine who IIRC never travelled very fast at all except in 1999 when Michael Schumacher broke his leg that time innit. Nelly’s car is not travelling fast, neither is he Eddie Irvine.

Juliana Pasha - It’s All About You.

Bringing up the tree-hugging hippy quota this year are Albania and Slovakia. Half the latter’s video is live footage of singer Kristina dressed as a tree nymph, the other half sweeping Slovakian vistas and wild horses in the snow. Albania’s Juliana Pasha is aiming more for the Clarks Magic Steps enchanted forest princess angle, and the result is wonderfully unfathomable. As far as I can make out Juilana draws a sperm on a picnic bench that COMES TO LIFE, then she gets chased by her evil twin into the arms of a confused Doctor Who villain. And there’s a sofa dangling from a tree. I love Eurovision.

Lady Gaga - Bad Romance.

…Where to start? How about at the end, where Gaga is having a post-coital cig next to the charred skeleton of her ‘highest bidder’ whilst her bra randomly fires sparks, accompanied by a chirpy harpsichord refrain?

Nah - let’s start with those HOOFS in the middle eight (3.27, just after the spinning gyroscope bit). It’s all very well saying “walk, walk fashion baby” but feet are not meant to DO that, dude - I don’t care what Alexander McQueen says.

Then there’s the post-middle 8 bit with her polar bear dress catching fire while she says some words in French then screams “I don’t want to be French!” (or “friends”, whatever). At this point you may end up overlooking the fact that she’s wearing a red belt-based outfit with only one leg. Only Lady Gaga would make a video where this is barely noticeable.

See how many other things you can spot in amongst all the vodka:
- wrinkly cat
- solar eclipse
- Burberry trenchcoat
- sunglasses made out of razor blades
- the Judderman
- gold chin protector

Well done everyone involved in the making of this video.

Paul Oakenfold - Southern Sun.

Best of 2002: Well ‘best’ is probably pushing it, but I challenge you to get through this video without making a noise along the lines of ‘pffffffffnyaaaaaaahaaaa’.

During a photoshoot, a model finds a couple of magic ice cubes (???) and suddenly realises the inherent SHALLOWNESS and FAKENESS of the fashion world where she is beholden to THE MAN. Naturally she immediately legs it over to the Clarks Magic Steps forest to get in touch with her inner 10-year-old. Verrrry slowwwwly and seriously.

I’ve watched this four times now and I still can’t keep a straight face at 3.11, when things elevate to a whole new level.

La Roux - I’m Not Your Toy.

Infamous Tilda Swinton lookalike Elly Jackson has gone to one of those charity bashes held at the Tropical House at Kew Gardens (note the inflatable crocodile, the rarest of its kind, brought back from an isolated factory in the Galapagos). The other guests take little notice and continue awkwardly gyrating their hips, except for the spooky children rolling their eyes at the tinny music and the old dude with the beard kindly pausing the track so anyone who might have a stitch from all that wiggling can take a breather.

I wonder if Elly approves of the attire of the serious women dancing beside her? Someone’s bound to ask her opinion on it sooner or later. After all, Elly knows that there are far more ways to be sexy than to dress in a miniskirt. It does get pretty hot in the Tropical House though, and not everyone has access to the local Crown Green Bowls Club wardrobe like Elly - perhaps as the media-appointed Role Model For Young Women she should hand them each a nice cooling ankle-length skirt with matching chastity belt (with a picture of her face on it)?