Tim: Yesterday you reckoned Italy’s track wouldn’t work because “it’s not a modern audience-appeal pop song”; this here is the one and only track of that description that we both thought was any good whatsoever – your third favourite, and my actual favourite.
Tom: Let’s talk about “favourite” there: I looked up our stats, and I rated it 60/100, which roughly works out to “could be a major artist album track”. Yes, my standards are high.
Tom: And I stand by that rating.
Tim: As how you’ve defined it, fair. It’s female power pop, of the Katy O’Perry or Kelly MacLarkson brand, and more importantly it’s good female power pop!
Tom: Apart from the na-na-na-na-na bit, yes. I think I might have actually rated it closer to 70 (“could be a major artist lead single”) if it wasn’t for that single grating lyric.
Tim: Oh come now, it’s hardly alone in that respect. This could be an actual release, even, rather than the type of track that gets stuck at the end of a album just to fill the runtime. It’s got all the usual tropes – powerful backing instrumental, speedy verse that although plenty good enough is really just put there before we head to the kicker that is the chorus, with raised vocals, empowering lyrics and a good load of chanting to sing along to right from the first listen.
Tom: Even the sounds of the instruments and synths sound very, very much like Katy Perry a couple of albums ago. It does say something that the most “modern audience-appeal pop song” we got in Eurovision was still a bit dated, though. All the tropes are there.
Tim: They’re tropes for a reason, though: combined, they make a heck of a good song that would have stood out nicely against all the ballads – however building and inspirational they may be, sometimes you just need good pop.
Tom: And I think, just because it stood out, it would have punched above its weight.
Tim: Ah, well.