Tallinn, calling! The Wiwi Jury — our in-house panel of music unprofessionals — continues reviewing the songs competing in Estonia’s Eesti Laul — its national selection for Eurovision 2017. Next up is the Alvistar Funk Association with “Make Love, Not War”. Did we want to travel around the world with them? Read on to find out!
Alvistar Funk Association – “Make Love, Not War”
“Make Love, Not War” reviews
Jason: You know when a song is so bad that it’s good? This is not one of those songs. After clicking play on my computer to listen to “Make Love, Not War”, I actually thought it had been infected with some God-awful pop-up enabling virus. But no, instead I was treated to the musical stylings of Alvistar Funk Association. I think I’ll take the virus please.
Score: 0.5/10
Robyn: If the song is based around a list of current and former participants in Eurovision, they’ve missed out a few and inexplicably included Kosovo. So I have written an extra verse. Imagine a bossa nova beat with a sexy lady voice murmuring “Australia. Morocco. San Marino. Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. But not Kosovo because they’re not current members of the EBU”. I’ll waive my fee. If they correct the lyrics, I will raise my score.
Score: 3.5/10
Mikhail: This is hilarious. I had such a good laugh listening to it and I don’t quite understand why everyone is hating on it. Yes, probably not the best lyrics ever. In fact I’m not sure if these can be called lyrics (maybe “list” would be more appropriate). But they bring some welcome humour. However, the melody is great. I would totally download the instrumental version. Unfortunately I wouldn’t be able to enjoy the song to the fullest with random country names popping up.
Score: 6.5/10
Chris: I gave it this score simply because, unlike one other song in this selection, it didn’t make me turn it off at any point. I mean, let’s be fair, this is not really a “song”. It’s more of a poorly performed list of country names set to elevator music. The whole point of the song is the message at the end, which is lost because the singer is so incomprehensible. As a reminder: Grete Paia entered and didn’t get selected. This did.
Score: 2/10
William: Screw the trends and do your thing! That seems to be part of the thinking behind this pro-peace song, which makes the enumeration of country names somehow funky and fresh. My favourites are Azerbaijan and Kosovo. To foreign ears she could be singing about anything. But to Estonians the monotony of naming countries may prove to be underwhelming. In any event, it’s lovely to have a nice joke entry thrown in the mix. Very Estonian! But not a winner.
Score: 2.5/10
Zakaria: I have never been that excited by an act’s name as I was for this one. I was thinking for once we would have some funk in the Eurovision bubble. But instead we get this. I still can’t put a name on what this is. The rhythm sounds very Brazilian bossa nova, but the lyrics smack of a boring geography class. I wonder how this “song” made it through the pre-selection phase?
Score: 0/10
Anthony: When I first saw their song title, I imagined it was a blatant attempt to annoy the EBU as much as they possibly can. Song-wise, it’s less the funk that their name suggests and more monotonous drivel. I can imagine what was going through the minds of those deciding the semi-finalists: “Let’s just plonk a novelty entry into the mix, shall we?”
Score: 2.5/10
Luis: What do we get from a group which calls themselves a Funk Association? A kind of bossa nova tune with a list of countries as lyrics. Aha. I assume this is an attempt to be artsy gone wrong. As much as their message (or what I infer they want to say) is needed, its shape is poorly conceived. It’s like trying to convert someone to Christianity by praising the Spanish Inquisition.
Score: 0/10
In our Eesti Laul Wiwi Jury, we have 20 jurors but only room for 8 reviews. The rest of our scores can be found below:
Antranig: 1/10
Bernardo: 0.5/10
Dayana: 2/10
Edd: 7/10
Forrest: 2.5/10
Josh: 1/10
Kristin: 3/10
Matt: 7/10
Natalie: 6.5/10
Patrick: 0/10
Sami: 0/10
Steinunn: 6.5/10
Before calculating the average score, the highest and lowest scores are dropped. This is to remove outliers and reduce potential bias. We have removed a low of 0 and a high of 7.
They sadly went against their usual way of making songs.. songs that have no understandable words in it. Also most of their songs have more funk than bassa nova feeling to them. Don’t know what went wrong.,
I like the sound but the song doesn’t go anywhere.
But, in its defence, you can learn geography.
I could almost swear that there is a hotel in Dublin that plays this song on repeat inside its lifts (or “elevators.”)
To be fair, the musicians performing this song do have to play instruments and learn the tricky rhythm of the bossa nova. Not to mention the lead singer, who has to memorise the list of countries. But that’s really all there is to it, and that’s disappointing 🙁
@Colin – Not true. Some songs are worse.
Not a great entry but harmless. Quite fun in places and does not take itself too seriously. I don’t turn it off when it comes on.
It was funny at first but it got boring quickly.
So so bad.
This is boring as it is useless. They remind me of British act of 2007 (Flying the Flag) with all of that random repetition of countries. Their music is more pleasant for the background, though.
2/10 – worst song of Eesti Laul ’17