Belarus lived up to its reputation as Europe’s last dictatorship this evening by choosing a contestant with a dodgy record in a “contest” potentially fraught with voting irregularities.
That’s right, people. Alyona Lanskaya—the shrieker who “won” Euro Fest 2012 with the song, but later had her title stripped by authorities—has “won” this year’s national selection. Remarkably she managed to place first with both the public and the jury. Hmmm. It makes me laugh that two separate people at Junior Eurovision told me this would win—and they were right!
You could make the case that she won legitimately. “Rhythm of Love,” her winning song, isn’t nearly as appalling as last year’s “All My Life.” That’s mainly because it’s an electro-dance number rather than a ballad, which make the singer’s voice a lot less important. Thank God for the backing. As a song it’s kind of catchy, and the lyrics do make us giggle. “This is the dance/ Let us confess/ The secret that’s burning/ Inside of our our chest.” That’s clever. Though we think it’s heartburn rather than love.
Legitimate or not, the sad reality is that Eurovision fans will forever view her as something of a fraud because of last year’s drama. But there is a silver lining. Based on her choreography, which includes a lot of writhing on the floor, we suspect she’ll get 12 points from Hungary. Hungary’s Adok Zoli (Eurovision 2009) and that crazy heifer who covered Loreen on Hungarian X-Factor both opened their performances in the same way!
The core problem might be… That Belarus doesn’t know how to hold an actual vote. It’s not something they’ve had any practice at.
This reminds me of the same situation Trackshittaz were in. They narrowly missed out in 2011 before they eventually represented Austria at Baku this year. The Belarusian public must’ve ensured that lightning doesn’t strike twice for Alyona, having narrowly missed out last year for all the wrong reasons.
There’s no doubt she’ll be pleased that she finally gets the chance to represent Belarus at the Eurovision Song Contest . However, it’s a risky choice considering there’ll be better songs out there in Malmö.
Didn’t Lukashenko step in last year? He might do it again…
And I def agree that she will be viewed as a fraud and that does not look good for Belarus, IMO.
She got more than twice the votes of Nuteki, who ranked 2nd in the televote. Just fuckin’ ridiculous. Another ripoff. Where’s the dictator when we need him? This song is just .. blergh. I’ve listened to stuff like this more than one hundred times in my life. Once again a fraud but .. what can we expect from the only european country that has a dictatorship? How Vinnikova would say, I LOVE BELARUS! #not