Saturday night saw the grand final of Melodi Grand Prix 2012, Norway’s four-week selection process to find an entry for the Eurovision Song Contest in Baku in May. And the winner was a surprise for many – Tooji with the song “Stay”.
Bookmakers and commentators alike seemed to think populist folksy rockers Plumbo had the event in the bag, what with a recent Grammy win and number 1 hit single under their belts (albeit tarnished by a controversy concerning supposedly racist comments at the former award ceremony). Indeed, they made it comfortably into Saturday’s superfinal along with the other two semi-final victors – Nora Foss al-Jabri with her Disney-esque ballad and country music veteran Bobby Bare accompanied by local boy Petter Øien – where they were also joined by Tooji, easily the most talked-about of the runners-up.
Contrary to expectations, however, the televoters dramatically deserted Plumbo (and the juries weren’t much kinder) – and the superfinal ended up being a fairly comfortable affair for the pop bunny among the group. The final result:
1. Tooji – Stay
(18,000 jury points + 137,480 televotes = 155,480)
2. Nora Foss al-Jabri – Somewhere beautiful
(24,000 jury points + 66,046 televotes = 90,046)
3. Petter Øien & Bobby Bare – Things change
(8,000 jury points + 71,685 televotes = 79,685)
4. Plumbo – Ola Nordmann
(10,000 jury points + 51,868 televotes = 61,868)
So it is 24-year-old Tooji, brought up in Norway but born in Iran (in Shiraz, no less – as people who enjoy a glass of wine with our contest-watching, esc-chat.com officially approves!), who will represent his adopted home in Baku – interestingly, right next-door to the country where he first saw the light of day. His song certainly mixes oriental flavours with western pop (and South London hoodies) – so perhaps it will prove a successful combination across the continent.
(We still think “Little Bobbi” should have won though.)
As a footnote, chat regular DylanUK kindly archived the votes of the #esc chatroom. Apparently we would have preferred a different winner (although only narrowly), but we were entirely satisfied with the members of the superfinal – our top 4 being Nora (7.06 points average), Tooji (6.91), Petter and Bobby (6.06) and Plumbo (6.00). Meanwhile, the Carburetors were the chatroom’s least favourite by some distance, coming in at just 2.90 points.
Having been were “drawn” 6th and 7th in the line-up, this should perhaps have come as no surprise – indeed, the song performed last had won the past three Icelandic finals, so hopes were high for Gréta Salóme & Jónsi, and not only among fans of the latter’s arms.Despite this, boy(ish) band(ish) Blár Ópal tried their best, setting the bar high with a stirring (shouty? The line is so fine) rendition of “Stattu upp”, and indeed apparently narrowly won the televote – but the juries opted to swing things in favour of the happy couple. “Mundu eftir mér” is expected to have been transformed into English by the time it turns up in the first semi-final in Baku.
Now Mr. Snæbjörnsson can continue on his quest to shake off the tag of being “Iceland’s second most famous musical Jónsi”, while Eurovision party organisers might draw inspiration from the fact that Microsoft Word insists on correcting the name of his duet partner to “Great Salami”. Which is nice.
As a footnote, chat regular DylanUK kindly archived the votes of the #esc chatroom. As it turns out, our chatters preferred the in-your-face Regína Ósk’s “Hjartað brennur” and the bloke-rock equivalent of linedancing otherwise known as “Hugarró”. Our marks were high across the board, though – “Mundu eftir mér” only placed 4th in our vote but still gained an average score of 7.38 points. Whether this bodes well for May remains to be seen!
Source: esc-chat.com, escdaily.com, ruv.is
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