Cannes was way too close to miss the occasion ; 1959 marks the first participation of Monaco in the contest.
The United Kingdom came back after skipping the previous edition, something they never did again up to this date.
11 countries took part in the last Eurovision Song Contest of the 1950’s.
TOP 3
1 – Switzerland
2 – United Kingdom
3 – Netherlands
Eric Saade is the kind of “artists” who have as many way-over-his-age masculine fans who get wet very quickly at his sight as just-about-his-age feminine fans who couldn’t place half the countries of the world on a map.
Although I didn’t find Manboy too bad ; the album it was part of (Masquerade, his first album, 2010) didn’t impress me at all probably because being muscially too close to the intellectual level of the feminine fans I just talked about.
Indeed, when you got lyrics like “You know my weakness, That is why I’m sleepless, Baby I’m thinking of your love, Oh-oh-oh” ; the guy can be all Swedish he wants, one can think he will never come close to what Sweden is famous with, when it comes to music. (You know who I am referring to, they just opened a museum about them a few weeks ago).
And by leaving not so much of a good impression on me with his first album, I actually found quite an improvement on this one, to a result that I will admit to find nice.
We can feel the Manboy is dropping little by little the last three letters, to reach us with a more perceptible identity / consistency to help us get the style, universe he evolves in.
There’s is a lot of energy in the sounds and it really comes out much more and better canalised than it used to do. This way, the first half of the album is full of enthusiasm and positive vibes in the sounds and slight as it may appear, I tend to believe there is an improvement in the lyrics too, “Stupid with you” ironically being the closest we can get to deep lyrics. Or maybe is it just the music that has gained so much in quality that it makes it even make sound the lyrics less stupid ?
We won’t reproach the lack of catch in any case.
If one had to point a flaw, well it wouldn’t be a lie to say that it sometimes still feels like there are some traces left of the weaknesses the first album was full of ; “Still Loving It” probably being the closest to that ; the fifth track like the useless remix to fill the album, “Someone new” which doesn’t really sound new to me at all, or original should I say, but the the occasion here was just too good…
In the end I can’t really say it’s the best album I have heard in months, but I caught myself dancing quite a few times and if I had to get wet because of him, it would be after moving too much on the music rather than the other kind of wet, something I highly believe, will be more flattering for him to know.
6/10
Just another light 