Today the Wiwi Jury – our in-house panel of music unprofessionals — travelled back to Oslo to get dance lessons with Tooji. After getting drenched in sweat and Tooji asking us to stay, we bailed and settled down to review the ten acts competing in Norway’s national final, Melodi Grand Prix 2018. Next up, we look at Aleksander Walmann and his song “Talk to the Hand”. Does Aleksander’s hand make us want to flip him the bird? Read on to find out…
Aleksander Walmann – “Talk to the Hand”
“Talk to the Hand” reviews
Bernardo: Aleksander’s smooth and sexy voice invites you for three minutes of good feeling vibe. It comes on the same line as “Grab the Moment” but better. The song suits Walmann’s voice better and the verses are really strong, which makes the chorus weak compared to it. Nonetheless, it’s one of the standouts of MGP.
Score: 7.5/10
Cinan: Another strong entry for Melodi Grand Prix this year. I’m surprised to see him back so soon, but his comeback is very good. The song itself has great potential to do well, and I’d love to see another song full of personality from Norway this year.
Score: 7.5/10
Josh: It’s cool to see Aleksander giving MGP another crack, this time under his own name. “Talk To The Hand” is a fun, upbeat entry and it’s memorable enough for Aleksander to give Eurovision another shot and do well. I just wish the title of the song wasn’t so tacky. Stop trying to make “talk to the hand” happen. It’s not going to happen.
Score: 7/10
Lukas: This is much better than what Aleksander had with JOWST last year. The song is very catchy and a lot of fun. You just want to move along with the beat. Performed live, this should be even better because Aleksander can give an amazing performance. From all the songs in Norway this year this one might be the strongest one. It is fresh, modern and easy to remember.
Score: 8/10
Robyn: Call me an old granny, but I remember when “talk to the hand cos the face ain’t listening” came to fame as a cringey catchphrase from an early ’90s sitcom. So whenever the chorus comes along, it just sounds so naff. The rest of the song is great, though! The Walmann/JOWST combo proves to be a success, and this time I get the feeling the song is more in line with Walmann’s taste in music. I’m not sure if this would do better than “Grab the Moment”, but it wouldn’t do badly.
Score: 7.5/10
Our jury for 2018 consists of 15 jurors, but we only have room for 5 reviews. The remaining 10 scores are listed below.
Antony: 7/10
Antranig: 7.5/10
Bogdan: 10/10
Chris: 5.5/10
Deban: 5.5/10
Jonathan: 8.5/10
Kristin: 7/10
Rezo: 9/10
Sebastian: 8.5/10
Steinunn: 7.5/10
The highest and lowest scores are dropped prior to calculating the average score. This is to remove outliers and reduce potential bias. We have removed a low of 5.5 and a high of 10.
I like this one. It’s modern, nice beat. The chorus may be too fast for me. It reminds me of his song last year. I wasn’t a real fan.
6.5/10
Easily the best song in Norway’s selection. Why NRK put it 2nd in the running order is absolutely beyond me.
How can a song use modern cringe terms and outdated cringe terms at the same time?
Anyhow, the baseline is great, the rhythm is nice… But returning to this one after the outsider success of last year would be a downgrade. It also finishes sorta… suddenly. Top half of the better ones here, but not a winner
6.5/10
I’m actually worried whether he’ll be doing the reprise of Grab The Moment with JOWST or not since he’s competing. The reprises for the past few years were really great. He-he.
I really like Aleksander and JOWST, both professionally and personally, and this song continues along that same style of modern “voices in the head” music to enable self-empowerment and help build self-confidence. They have a big challenge on their hands this year though, as because they did so well in 2017 it will be hard to top that. The other issue is that the competition is arguably much stronger in 2018 than it was last year.
Best of luck to Aleksander. x
He sells this song really well, and makes it sound current rather than dated. I haven’t heard every track but this would be a fine winner
Aleksander actually manages to make this cool. What an achievement considering the premise of the song. The guy might just be the coolest in Norway. No problems if this won. After one listen, I could sing the whole track back, word-for-word. Seriously catchy, seriously good.
I have a soft spot for this one (and Aleksander). It really is a feel-good song. I wouldn’t mind see it going to Lisbon, tbh.
No final for Norway this year. :/
Rebecca or Rybak and they are sailing through to the final.
Love this one, just as good as grab the moment. However I’m torn between this and Rybak’s song but either one will do very well at Eurovision I’m sure
This can be my guilty pleasure. No matter how cringy the lyrics get, the chorus is still so catchy. I can’t get it out of my head. The rest of the song doesn’t meet my expectations, though. Good effort but I prefer Grab the Moment.
I also think grab the moment was better and it suited his voice better.
My favorite! When I heard the title, I somehow assumed what’s the punchline (“cause the face ain’t listening”), but surprisingly, the obvious pun didn’t diminish the humor of it. Aleksander is an amazing performer, and while the song has some connections with his previous entry, the energy of thought is very different – While Grab the Moment contained the word “kill” over and over, it was a very positive, feel-good song. Talk To the Hand, while serving a lot of good vibes musically, is actually very ironic and subtely negative. I love the shift!
8.5/10
Catchy song but the lyrics are complete nonsense.
Great song, find myself singing along and making me feel good when I hear it.. Wouldn’t mind it going.. As far as quality, it rises above the other songs for me, in spite of the tacky title haha Plus, Aleksander is 1 sexy guy.. Helps too..
That’s quite a high score and I don’t think it should be that high. This is a good catchy song and with a good beat but worthless lyrics. Grab the moment was better.
A 7/10.