Melfest Andra Chansen: Wiwi Jury reviews FO&O with “Gotta Thing About You”

The Wiwi Jury — our in-house panel of music unprofessionals — continues to review the eight songs competing in the andra chansen round of Melodifestivalen. Next we look at the boy band Felix, Oscar & Omar aka FO&O and their song “Gotta Thing About You”. Did we have a thing about them? Read on to find out!

FO&O – “Gotta Thing About You”

Click here to watch at YouTube

About FO&O

Formerly known as The Fooo Conspiracy, the successful Swedish boyband recently rebranded as FO&O after member Olly left. The group has won Best Swedish Act at the MTV EMAs for the past three years. Their Melfest appearance is their first as a trio.

Wiwi Jury reviews “Gotta Thing About You”

Luis: “Gotta Thing About You” is more background music than a proper Eurovision act. The guys looked like they were so focused on not missing cues and mastering their choreography that they forgot to put any personality into it. In the end, it looks and sounds so manufactured, and I’m not buying it at all. It might be my personal lack of sympathy for boybands, but this was totally disposable.

Score: 4/10

Robyn: Somehow this shouldn’t work. “Gotta Thing About You” sounds like a One Direction reject from 2012 and it doesn’t even represent The Fooo Conspiracy’s recent sound. The staging is like classic boyband styles from the ’90s and so it should all be a disaster. But yet… it’s my Foo(o) boys! They know how to work it and they bring the performance to life. I’m not surprised this didn’t go direkt till final, but the bonus is we’ll get to see it at again at andra chansen.

Score: 7.5/10

William: Leaning more N’SYNC than One Direction, FO&O have fallen into a time warp and woken up with unfortunate clothes and a sound that comes from another era. The chorus has a nice anthemic quality, but this just feels so schmaltzy, partly because of the lame choreography. Easily the worst song that’s still in the contest.

Score: 3/10

Antranig: Aside from Loreen, FO&O are probably the biggest names in the competition, which is why I’m quite underwhelmed. Their name alone wasn’t enough to go straight to the final and “Gotta Thing About You” wouldn’t have even made it to Andra Chansen if performed by a less famous group. It’s far from being a bad song — it’s musically beautiful and the message is sound, albeit with some questionable lyrics. However, it didn’t even come close to meeting my expectations and was one of the weaker songs in a very strong semi.

Score: 6/10

Chris: An overstaged, clinical performance of a song that ultimately sounds like a bad One Direction album track. There’s absolutely nothing new on offer here and FO&O don’t even come across as all that likeable. They’re pretty much the anti-JTR in this regard — which is why FO&O went to Andra Chansen and JTR straight to the final.

Score: 5/10

Forrest: You can add as many elevating platforms and pyro effects as you want, but it will never hide the fact this song is about as exciting as a blank piece of paper.  “Gotta Thing About You” is a callback to the boyband hits of the late-90s and early-00s, yet FO&O lacks the dynamism to be compared to groups like N’SYNC or the Backstreet Boys.  Their performance looked like they were simply going through the motions, and with such an uninspired song, who could blame them?

Score: 3.5/10

Dayana: “Gotta Thing About You” is rather a track for a playlist of a teenage girl, not for Eurovision. The song is catchy indeed and in the combination of all the One Direction style I can still hear some fresh and new sounds. The lyrics are so simple and naive, especially the “Gotta thing, gotta thing, I’ve already got a ring” part. I really loved the dancing though – but the “lift of death” seems to be stolen from Eric Saade’s performance in Melodifestivalen 2015. All in all, good attempt – but not good enough.

Score: 7.5/10

Deban: A rebranded boyband brimming with just as much soul as denim. “Gotta Thing About You” couldn’t be more formulaic, and predictable if they tried. The Swedish pop industry, which is sometimes attacked for being plastic, has just found new puppets in Felix, Oscar and Omar. They do their job well, but victory at Melodifestivalen calls for much more.

Score: 5/10

Our jury for Melodifestivalen 2017 contains 28 jurors, but we only have room for eight reviews. The remaining scores are listed below.

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 2.5 and a high of 8.5.

Wiwi Jury Verdict: 5.25/10

See our list of Melodifestivalen 2017 rankings here

Read more Melodifestivalen news here