The gloves are off in the Netherlands. Coming in the same week that the country announced Douwe Bob as its Eurovision 2016 representative, the 2013 act has laid into the 2015 performance. Speaking on last night’s RTL Late Night, Anouk shared her true thoughts on Trijnte’s downfall in Vienna. And the “Birds” singer didn’t pull any punches.
Anouk on Trijntje Oosterhuis | RTL Late Night
As y’all will remember, the Netherlands crashed out of this year’s first semi, finishing a lowly 14th out of 16. And in Anouk’s eyes, the staging and styling were to blame.
I suddenly saw her in that dress on the evening news. That’s when I thought: Jeez… Shit! What the hell…that’s not gonna work out… Trijntje really didn’t expect those reactions to her dress, to which I told her that that was a bit naive. I mean, if you come up with a dress that goes all the way down to your clitoris, there’s really no surprise when people react to it… She said no one told her the dress didn’t look right, but I don’t think anyone was being honest with her.
For those that need reminding, here is the infamous dress:
As we know, the frock was quickly binned and wasn’t seen again after the first rehearsal… until Edsilia Rombley fished it out to announce the Dutch points. However, Anouk was not happy with the finished product either.
I mean, the lights, the angles of the cameras… What the hell was that with the thing she threw off? The grieving veil thing… I just didn’t get it. The angles, the way they filmed — I just don’t get that no one there ever said: ‘Let’s do that differently, because it doesn’t work.’ I just don’t get it.
Was Anouk watching our jury reviews? Because we thought the same. But there’s one thing we don’t get. Where was Ms. Teeuwe when all these decisions were being made? After all, when she appeared on RTL Late Night in November she said that she wanted to “to be there for the first rehearsal in Vienna, to advise about lighting, staging, sound and so on.” Perhaps she prefers to criticise from afar?
Anouk softened the blow slightly, by adding that Trijntje “absolutely sung well”. Unsurprisingly, there was no criticism of the actual song, “Walk Along”, which she was responsible for writing.
When asked about the selection of her occasional duet partner for 2016, Anouk had nothing bad to say.
He was all ready, even before Trijntje… Indeed, he will cook for me next week, he wants to talk Eurovision… He’s going to do it just right. He has a good voice, good head, is fun to watch. I really think he’s going to do great.
What do y’all think of Anouk’s comments? Is she entitled to her views or should she just walk along? Let us know below.
Anouk can throw all the shade she wants about the performance, but I really think she is the person at blame for the Netherlands poor result this year. I am a big fan of Trjntje Oosterhuis and was looking forward to her singing at Eurovision, but the song which Anouk wrote was terrible. All of the other issues aside Walk Along was very repetitive and didn’t have many actual lyrics. A lot of people I knew were so put off by the song that they never noticed at what Trijntje was wearing. So while Anouk can blame Trijntje all she… Read more »
Anouk is correct. It needs to be said so they don’t make that mistake again.
It is surprising that the dreadful staging made it to the semi final. You would have thought someone would have said “Hold on. This is crap” before it crashed & burned on stage.
Anouk is right, the performance was a disaster
The song was good enough to be in the grand final, but all the performance was sooo boring
@Huh I agree that she should have been.more supportive at the time. I get that Anouk probably didnt want the song and it was a song found somewhere that Anouk didnt seem to care for, but if you are going to let your song go to Eurovision you could at least get involved with it – or say no and not let your song go at all. I agree with all she said, but if she thought it was going rhat bad maybe she could have gone to Vienna and advised on how she felt it should be staged, or… Read more »
She should’ve helped Trijntje in Vienna. Her words reflected so much with what the fans was thinking about her performance in the semi-finals. Anouk is a Eurovision icon and now has an idea of making a recipe for success in this contest. Why can’t she continue volunteering in bringing the Netherlands back to the grand final with quality performance? You know, why not be a part of the delegates this time? If she have helped managed her country this year, she wouldn’t spill all these words to the public.
@ Dutchie . Interesting information, yes i can see how she is connected to so many artists ( be that good or bad). And i am certainly not complaining as prior to her involvement I was not really a fan of any Netherlands entries in the past decade. I’m excited to hear his song and glad it’s his own. I always find singers deliver a better and more passionate performance when they have their own song and i enjoy seeing more singer/songwriters in the contest 🙂
@james
What you get in a small country in Holland is that everyone’s connected to Anouk in some way, she’s the queen of Dutch pop music so that’s inevitable. Even Ilse DeLange is connected in the sense that she’s her arch enemy 😉
The song is already finished, and Anouk hasn’t been involved in the songwriting at all. DB wrote it with two of his mates in Lissabon.
@dutchie.
Oh absolutely and im totally ok with anouk giving advice – yes totally logical. i just dont want her to be too involved this year and i hope douwie submits his own song. I am totally ok with anouk representing netherlands again in the future – i agree she is a pivotal artist, i just want dont want the netherlands to include her every year when there are loads of other great artists some of whom have said that are happy to do it.
I think what Anouk said is true, but I miss selfreflection on the song. Too simple, too repetitive, Trijntje could have dealt with much better songs to show what she is really able to.do.
Anouk is the Ralph Siegel of the Netherlands now?
She is totally right by the way. Such a performance like Trijntje had at the Voice of Holland, back to December could have brought Dutchies to final and might have succeed a place in top ten.
@james Anouk is a pivotal figure in the sense that she showed the more ‘serious’ Dutch artists that you can go to Eurovision with a proper song and get pretty far. Without her, there’d have been no Common Linnets or Douwe Bob in Eurovision, I’m pretty sure of that (in fact, they said as much themselves). There’s much talent, sure, but these are the artists that are taken seriously by the general public and music critics alike. In that branch of the market, the only other young talent of Douwe Bob’s caliber I can think of is Jett Rebel. So… Read more »
For me Walk Along was a massive hit and it got only killed by that horrible staging. I listened to the song since December of last year countless times. On a flight to Madrid I listened to the song in an infinite loop. This song is great!
Ooooh the shade!
On a serious note, Walk Along was a bad song, hampered further by bad staging and not even redeemed by a good vocal performance. No wonder it crashed. So Anouk is at fault as well. Wonder why she gave the third rate song to someone else and kept the masterpiece to herself… 😉
I feel that Douwe won’t do well (he’ll qualify but will be on the right side of the scoreboard) and that to that 2018’s contest is in Amsterdam, they should get Ilse back.
Nothing she said was wrong.
Unfortunately, she missed out the fact that song was awful and the singing was poor. These were more important factors than camera angles and the dress.
Yeah indeed…
Trisha’s staging over the place & too random…Her both dresses were just FAIL..
Only her song saved it as *Walk Along* was amazing <3 ( was my 2nd favorite from the 40! )
Anouk did a GreAtY job on that with being the producer..
Was surprising the fact that still Trisha did really good in the juries with finishing even 5th there alone!
She’s entitled to her opinion but using hurtful criticism is low. I believe in constructive criticism. I feel bad for Trijntje. She seems like a really nice individual.
As much as I respect Anouk, the fact she is also mentoring (and maybe writing?) the 2016 song as well, that’s 3 Anouk related acts in 4 years. It’s great that they are taking it more seriously and I’ll take any of these songs over pretty much all of their 2000s entries, but there is so much Dutch talent out there. If Anouk didn’t really want to support this song, she could have said no and let someone else submit a song for Trijinte.
@Denis, I agree but it was a song stashed away that Trijinte asked if she could use. Anouk didn’t bother to do anything extra to the song, because it sounds like she didn’t really like it in the first place and couldn’t care less about.
I still think that birds should fall from the rooftops rather than down them
As stated, Anouk already said this to Trintje. It’s not like she’ trash-talking her now.
But she’s right. With a dress like that, there were bound to be talk. Trintje was really naive if she honestly didn’t see that coming.
The dress wasn’t the only thing wrong though. The performance was nothing spectacular and the song itself was bland.
Anouk herself should be blamed too. As the song-writer she could have varied it up a bit instead of repeating the same lines over and over. That’s lazy writing.Of course the viewers would get bored of it pretty soon.
*Niamh not Nieve I should know that lol.
@Erin I agree, maybe Anouk didn’t really need to say these things and the “clitoris” comment was perhaps a little much. Although, maybe she wanted to be clear she didn’t have anything to do with how it was staged. Anouk has always pretty much told it how it is I think. Regarding Dana International, that’s interesting, I remember her saying in Eurovision week she was not under any pressure to win and was just there to enjoy it. I guess she just wanted to win her home national final and then get some success abroad, and be back in the… Read more »
Well she’s right. The style of the dress wasn’t bad, but the cuts just look sloppy and messy. If it was a nice smooth and even part that went down all the way down there, then it would’ve been fine.
@James – That explains a few things, but it was always going to be Trijntje picking up the pieces should the song fail to impress and she’s done that and moved on since. There was no need to beat up on it and Anouk could have been more ladylike about the whole thing. Dana International’s case has another aspect to it: she participated in a national final that included 12 acts, but she was the most prominent figure on the list of participants and it was suggested that the final was tailored to her measurements. It later became clear that… Read more »
@stommir. thanks for confirming the source, I knew I had heard that story but couldn’t remember where from.
So basically Anouk wasn’t really interested in this song from the beginning, and as she says she has been working with Douwie Bob “even before Trijinte” , it sounds like she had completely written off Walk Along a long time back.
@James, that is exactly how it went. Anouk told so last year before the song was even made public. It was also in RTL Late Night.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Relzpk8s65M
@Erin I agree, the song is not great, butI don’t really blame Anouk for that. The story I heard (can’t remember the source ) was that Trijinte was hanging out at Anouk’s house, found the song on Anouk’s computer and asked her if she could have it for Eurovision. Anouk just said yes, but she didnt write this for Eurovision. It probably was lazy because it was probably never properly finished. Anouk chose not to put it on her album, so I got the impression it was a throwaway track that Trijinte liked but Anouk didn’t care about. Thats probably… Read more »
Trijntije’s response using Anouk’s own words: “Oh Boy, you better think twice, before I’ll pack my bags and leave your sorry a*s behind…” Why did it take this long for Anouk to bring this forgotten episode back to life again? Sounds to me like she’s making this personal by suggesting that Trijntje had no input, no fashion sense and no strength of character. Perhaps it all boils down to Anouk’s lazy songwriting in this case? Perhaps everybody got so caught up in the moment believing Anouk & Trijntje is an unbeatable team instead of daring to say that the song… Read more »
Anouk is absolutely right, she said to Trijntje in an early stage already that with a song like ‘Walk along’ the staging, clothing and lighting would become decisive.
No matter what your opinion on the original dress, at least it was eye-catching and Trijntje came across looking confidently sexy with it. After so much ridiculous criticism, her confidence was invariably destroyed so much, she ending up drowning herself onstage in a pitch black parachute !
Well, Anouk had a quite awful attire herself so she’s not the best pick as a style judge.
She needed someone to be honest with her, too.
She has a point. The staging and angles WERE pretty awful… It looked like something out of a Portuguese national selection show… Not the Netherlands.
I can’t believe she used the word “clitoris” to describe Trijntje’s styling.
Honestly, all the dresses Trijnte used were awful, the one she ended up using in the semifinal made her look like a clown… but at least that first, infamous dress was fun 😛 I would’ve chosen it instead, she would’ve crashed in the semi anyway… but it would’ve been a hell of a ride! hah
Song was good. Staging was awful. Highlighter on your hands as a gimmick? Please.
Further proof that you can’t just rely on a “catchy song” to get you through to the finals.
Anouk is only saying what she has said to Trijntje to her face. It’s not like she’s trashing her behind her back. Anouk’s own lyrics were a big problem too, of course – just the same few lines repeated and repeated and repeated over and over and over again. Would it have killed her to vary it just a little?
The dress Trijntje ended up wearing in the semi-final performance was actually very nice, in my opinion. It really flattered her figure and she looked great, so no complaints there from me.
Well I think Anouk has it pretty much spot on, and she is not criticising Trijntje herself other than calling her naive. I don’t think she means any insult to her, just that she didn’t get good advice from her team and she went along with their choices. By the semi-final performance, Trijintje looked really unhappy with what she was doing but it doesn’t seem like she had that much input. I don’t think the song ever stood a chance of winning, but it should have easily qualified with great staging. Her live version on The Voice was so much… Read more »
Anouk didn’t write the song. She only wrote the lyrics.
Lost a little respect for Anouk, sadly.