With less than a week to go before the Eurovision finals, music fans all over the world wait with bated breath for the moment when the winner will step victorious on stage, finally closing yet another year of collective dance-pop madness.
In the meantime, however, Iceland doesn’t even know where it stands. According to Vísir, our very own 19-year-old talent Ari Ólafsson, the secret offspring of Shrek’s Prince Charming and a smiley Emoticon, killed it during yesterday’s performance of ‘Our Choice’ for the jury show in Lisbon.
Despite his charming performance and his million dollar smile, Ari should not be resting on his laurels right now. The international press and an army of merciless bloggers, in fact, do not seem too impressed with Ari’s sappy song. The Telegraph called it “a pedestrian ballad that never goes anywhere and has a ‘good moment to go and put the kettle on moment’ written all over it”. The self-identified unprofessional at WiWi Bloggs praised Ari for his beautiful voice, but defined the song “outdated and older than Ari himself,” while other bloggers called it unadventurous, unstimulating, too generic and even nauseating in its naiveté.
Unfortunately, even Icelanders aren’t keen on Ari’s song, as more than 51% of them don’t believe that ‘Our Choice’ will get past the Semifinals. Specifically, according to a survey by Icelandic organisation MMR (Market and Media Research), about 34% of interviewees expect ‘Our Choice’ to fall right to the bottom of the charts.
For his part, however, Ari seems to be enjoying himself in Portugal just like any 19 years old would do. Most importantly, he’s even successfully networking amongst the pro crowd. “I can’t really talk about it yet but some opportunities have arisen that will hopefully help me in the future,” Ari told Fréttablaðið. Hopefully he’s not referring to another cringeworthy single.
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