Tim: And finally in our trek through the Melodifestivalen final, the song that was runaway favourite heading into to the final, but ended up coming second by just one single point, which has got to be a killer.
Tim: Heck of a song, though.
Tom: Heck of a dress. Actually, the whole staging is brilliant: I can’t believe I’ve never seen what is basically “human disco ball” as a trick before. Even that single beam of light projected into her palm could have been cheesy — so I have absolutely no idea how the production team pulled off the full epilepsy-inducing trick without it seeming completely ridiculous.
Tim: It does look good, doesn’t it? Of course, it’s interesting in this situation to figure what it was that could cause just a few thousand people to vote another way, or if changed could have brought her victory. Is it that bits of the verse are a tad reminiscent of Imagine Dragons’s Thunder? Is it that they saw her start by lying down and thought “yeah, Victor’s already done that, let’s have something new”? Is it even just that not so many people had the phones lit up at 1:25 as they did in, say, a comparable yet almost breathtaking shot from the song just a few previously?
Tom: Or a slightly off note somewhere, or lighting that reflected in a way that seemed distracting rather than cool. Or maybe the audience just got bored of the trick itself. There’s not much wrong with the actual song — I don’t think it’d have won, but there’s not much wrong with it.
Tim: No – these are all tiny, tiny things, that would never normally be criticisms, but might just have made the difference. Who knows. Whatever happened, though, she more than acquitted herself, and hopefully she’ll come back next year.