Tim: The other song the UK jury preferred to Måns’s performance, giving it the full twelve points; in the end it came second, scoring just under half the number of points that Heroes did.
Tim: And that certainly is impressive, but it’s also the first song I’ve heard where, for the most part, the backing vocals bring more to the song that the lead does.
Tom: Ooh, I’m really not sure about that. Those are some bloody good vocals, even if he’s not commanding the stage.
Tim: In quality, maybe, but there aren’t exactly many lyrics there. What he lacks in song presence, though, he makes up for with his story: born in Colombia, adopted by a Swedish-Sami family and was brought up as a reindeer herder, before going on last year’s Talang Sverige, which he won performing music like this, a nice mixture of your standard pop and a traditional Sami form of music called joik.
Tom: This track reminds me of Sigur Rós’ Hoppipolla, not necessarily in style, but in terms of my reaction. Every single aspect of that was pleasant: it’s like it was designed to hack into the basic, goosebumps-generating section of my brain and make it feel like Everything Is All Right Now.
Tim: Hmm, nice comparison, because I got a similar feeling. Fun fact: joik was originally considered sinful by the first Christians who made it that far north, though it appears it’s still alive and well, which is very pleasant if it comes with key changes like that.
Tom: And what a key change. I smiled a lot at that key change.
Tim: Nice song, then, and certainly an impressive staging, but what I’d say it definitely isn’t, though, is a Eurovision winner – there’s not a huge amount of stage presence, and that’s not helped by the aforementioned lack of main vocal line.
Tom: Ugh. You’re right, there. It’s a wonderful, wonderful track, and it deserves to make its writer and performer a lot of money as the soundtrack to sweeping panoramas of the natural world, but it’s not going to work in Vienna.
Tim: Yes, it’s spiritual and all that, but three girls hanging from the ceiling also come across as a tad macabre, which really isn’t what the contest’s about. Also: good luck recreating that very impressive backing vocal with just five on-stage singers.
Tom: Oh. Oh, good point.
Tim: Good thing Måns was there, really, because otherwise Sweden could quite possibly have ended up stuck languishing in the semi-finals, which no-one wants to see.