Tim: Quick warning for you, Tom: you may want to have some Xanax on hand for after the middle eight. Every normal person, though, will FIND. THIS. GLORIOUS.
Tom: Good heavens, that’s a powerful introduction.
Tim: It got to the Gold Final of Norway’s contest this year, and oh, it’s just one of the feel-goodest songs we’ve heard in a long, long time.
Tom: So obviously I’m going to disagree here. Sure, an attempt at a feel-good song in a long, long time. But it’s like a teacher trying to be cool, or a Christian rock band trying to get a group of bored schoolchildren interested in Jesus. Yes, they’re hitting what should theoretically be the right notes, but the result just hits a wall of cynicism, along with a vague wondering whether Norway have accidentally dug out an entry from thirty years ago.
Tim: Mate, you’re just messed up. For the first couple of minutes I was wondering why the lighting and staging were so calm for a song of this nature, as right from the first chorus it’s very much a THIS IS AWESOME number. Come the final section, though, WOW, didn’t they just hit that out of the park and into orbit around the moon. And that camera shot facing out to the audience? Just now, that’s overtaken the Måns Zelmerlöw shot as my favourite of the year, purely for what it’s hiding.
Tom: Yep, I absolutely can’t fault the staging and technical direction on it: it’s just a shame about everything else.
Tim: ‘Shame’? Bloody hell. You may hate the number of kids there (and wonder how they were planning on doing that at Eurovision with its age limit of 16 and performer limit of six), but damn, you surely can’t deny that’s a bloody wonderful way to close this track.