LIST: From angry women to cakes, the top 10 trends of ESC 2014

Every edition of the Eurovision Song Contest can claim its own set of trends. Has anyone forgotten all the large dresses last year, or how semi-finalists went back to black? Rehearsals for this year’s show don’t get underway until April 28, but we’ve looked into our cyrstal ball (and on YouTube) and can now present the Top 10 trends for Eurovision 2014. We hereby declare this to be the year of twins, angry women, honkey tonk and cake!

1. Twins or Twin-Twins?

We have to do it without Jedward this year, but there are plenty of other twins to keep us confused about who is who. Russia sends the Tolmachevy Sisters, who remind us a little bit of the Dutch JESC twins Mylene & Rosanna. Besides Russia, France has jumped on the twin train with Twin-Twin. Bandmembers Lorent and François are twins, although the name of the band gives it away more than their looks. If you start worrying that you are seeing double, it’s either Russia or France performing.

2. Countrysongs / folk-fever

We at wiwibloggs really have no idea where this trend suddenly came from, but we think Tennessee by way of Kentucky. The Netherlands are taking a risk with their country song ‘Calm After the Storm’, even though Dutchie Joan Franka failed tremendously in Baku with her folk ditty. Malta chips in with ‘Coming Home’ and Switzerland goes banjo honkey-tonk with “Hunter of Stars”. And Germany takes its turn with ‘Is it right’, which also has a little bit of a country twang. The same for Georgia, with ‘Three minutes of Earth‘. The party is in the barn, y’all! If all the honkey-tonk becomes too much for you, you can always consider a zip of freshly brewed Moonshine to calm you down.

3. Weather forecasts

If you don’t dig any of the songs this year, you can still watch the semis and finals, if only to get a weather forecast from Copenhagen. According to Carl Espen there’s a storm coming, but it will be a silent one. And then there’s the storm that’s working up inside Sanna’s head. The Common Linnets expect it to be calm after the storm, and Ruth let’s us know that it will be raining, but suggests we dance in it. Georgia expects it will be dry again and advices to pick up the rainbow buds from the sky. Sunshine isn’t really expected in Copenhagen around 6 – 10 May, but Suzy offers to be yours like the sun is to the light. That will work for us. Thank you Suzy!

4. Cake baking

We’ve had 58 editions of Eurovsion with zero songs about cake. Then 2014 rolls around and we end up with both Lavia’s ‘Cake to bake‘ and Belarus’ ‘Cheesecake‘. How this happened remains a mystery. But, as this is Eurovision cake-baking-season, we are hungry and ready to eat! Neither of these songs should be ashamed of what they offer, and they both offer something very different. And, when ESC is over and you fall into that black hole of post-ESC-depression, you can always start baking a cake to relive the magic. Thank you TEO and Aarzemnieki!

5. Ballads, ballads and more ballads

We have counted 10 ballads in this year’s edition and we are not sure if it’s a record, but that is more than ¼ of all the songs, people. Armenia, Belgium, Austria, Azerbaijan, Montenegro, Norway, San Marino, Spain, Sweden and Moldova all decided to play it on the safe side. Sweden is likely to win the non-excisting prize for ballad of the year. Out of these 10 ballads, 7 are in the same semi-final, so you might want to get some extra tissues before the 6^th of May. Worst case scenario: if they all qualify and we add Spain (which is already qualified), almost half (10/26) of all songs in the final will be ballads. Luckily Italy has chosen not to send a ballad this year. Rock on, Emma!

6. Allegations of fraud and plagiarism

It’s one of the constants at ESC allegations of either fraud or plagiarism. Suzy from Portugal has thus far been the most controversial, which led to a smear campaign and death threats. Further, Lithuania had to disqualify Martynas Kavaliauskas after strange voting irregularities. Regarding plagiarism, the biggest fuss has been about Twin-Twin  alleged borrowing from Stromae’s ‘Papaoutai‘.

7. Eurovision Dubstep

It’s not new, but it’s the first year we have heard so many songs with a dupstep tune. Armenia, Moldova, Hungary, Lithuania, Estonia, Israel have all chosen to go with the dupstep-sound, while we also hear this in a lesser form with Sweden, Finland, France, Macedonia and Greece. It’s a well chosen alternative from the more ‘cheezy’ dance-tunes that have dominated in recent years.

8. Fierce and/or angry women

It seems Nina Zizic and Amandine Bourgeois set a trend, cause this year we have more ‘fierce’ woman than ever. This year Italy, Moldova, Ukraine and Israel give us a full size performance of what an angry/fierce woman looks like and sounds like. All the songs reference the anger of being left by someone or being betrayed. Now, we are not saying we are scared, but if one of these ladies starts to shout at us, we might run in to the safe arms of Axel’s mother for some protection and comfort. If we have to choose, Isreal’s Mei seems to be the most angry to us (since she’s “skinning” people). Poland’s Cleo isn’t really angry, but deserves a reference anyway. She doesn’t seem to be someone to mess with either!

9. Mothers, family-members and acquaintances

Singing about your mother, family members and acquaintances is also really common this year. Of course we have Axel, who devotes an entire song to mommy. But there’s also Cleo stating that you have to use what your mama gave you and the mothers of the Aarzemnieki who want to tell us how to bake a cake. András Kállay-Saunders sings about the daddy responsible for a little girl’s pain in ‘Running’. Molly Smitten-Downes states that we all are children from the universe. The only exception is Conchita, who has neighbours who thinks she’s trouble. At least it’s something different to every song that’s just about the singer’s lover (and we have had a lot of those in ESC!)

10. Songs in the atmosphere

And we have quite a few songs related to being high in the sky, in the atmosphere or even up above that. Some are figures of speech, like ‘To the sky’, ‘Rise Up’,’Hunter of stars’, ‘Amazing’ (‘floating the skies’) and ‘Miracle’ (‘dancing with the stars’). Some take the concept of ‘higher atmospheres’ a bit more literally: Georgia talks about ‘sky diver’s space jumps’ as they already seem to be in space and are singing about being back on earth in 3 minutes. It’s all a bit foggy if you ask us, but a lot of fun anyway! Let the space adventures begin!

You can read more of our Eurovision lists by clicking here. 

Daphne Dee contributed this report from Belgium. Follow her on Twitter @JacinthaD1. You can also keep up-to-date with the latest Eurovision news and gossip by following the team on Twitter @wiwibloggs and by liking our Facebook page