The Wiwi Jury — our in-house panel of music unprofessionals — continues its look at the contestants in Sweden’s Melodifestivalen, reviewing the acts battling it out for the four remaining places in the final via the andra chansen round. Next is Dolly Style, who have returned with their song “Rollercoaster”. Were we lining up to take a ride? Read on to find out…
Dolly Style – “Rollercoaster”
“Rollercoaster” reviews
Angus: “Rollercoaster” has its ups and downs but the big sugary sweet selling point is Dolly Style 2.0. These girls rock the cloud, look and sound to the max. It is exactly the kind of sugar rush you want in a Melfest lineup that is all too serious. Sometimes amongst the towering ballads, cool electropop and dance bangers you need to add a little sugar to the mix.
Score: 7/10
Deban: Although “Rollercoaster” isn’t dire by any means, I am not a 12-year-old J-pop androgen. Moreover, multiple lineup changes where band members adopt the same names can’t be taken seriously. In “Rollercoaster”, Dolly Style are channeling high-octane pop. Although it’s cooked well, it’s just not my kind of meat. When three minutes clocked, I applauded out of sheer relief.
Score: 5.5/10
Padraig: Destiny’s Child, Sugababes, Dolly Style – they’ve all undergone multiple line-up changes, but each time they come back as strong as ever. While it lacks some of the immediacy and bubblegum quirkiness of “Hello Hi”, “Rollercoaster” is probably the better song. Any number of acts would kill for the EDM backing track while the melody is completely infectious. Admittedly, the lyrics get a bit repetitive, but I don’t care. I’m on a rollercoaster and I’m not getting off.
Score: 8/10
Robyn: I want to appreciate this song as disposable bubblegum pop, but it’s not good enough for that. While “Hello Hi” had gloriously captivating pop magic, “Rollercoaster” gets boring fast. Even the staging seems to run out of ideas. It’s not terrible, but it just has no appeal beyond the three minutes of the performance. It’s extra weird that a song this underdeveloped could come from the G:son/Boström pop powerhouse.
Score: 5/10
Tobias: The trio of sugar sweet candy pop is back at Melodifestivalen. I must say I prefer “Rollercoaster” than last year’s “Hello Hi”, however it’s not really my cup of tea at all. “Rollercoaster” is a very childish song/performance, but hey, that’s their style. The song itself is very easy to sing along and gets stuck in your head after just listening to it the first time, but it gets really repetitive which makes it flat and boring. The kids at home will like this, I’m sure, but I don’t think Dolly Style will end up at Friends Arena.
Score: 4/10
William: I like the bright colours, the dancing and the camera angles. They enhance the girls’ natural energy and eye-popping looks. Notice that I’ve said nothing about the song, which is disposable and, after a minute or so, quite irritating. The group’s vocal weaknesses come into focus whenever they sing solo, so I advise against this in the future. “Hello, Hi” was much stronger. “Rollercoaster” does not deserve a spot in the final.
Score: 4/10
Sami: This song is minute too long. It starts off fun and catchy, but it gets very boring and repetitive towards the end. The performance looked little cheap as well and without the pre-recorded backing vocals, they sounded really bad. It doesn’t stand a chance against Samir & Viktor, so Dolly Style will miss the final once again this year. Hello, bye!
Score: 5/10
Mikhail: This song is catchy, but, damn, it’s so sugary that my teeth hurt and I might need to get checked for diabetes. I would have probably loved that if I were a ten-year-old girl who loved anime, but thank God I am not. And what’s more is that their voices are so terribly irritating. They sound very slutty and that is not good.
Score: 2/10
Bernardo: Last year this would have been fresh and fun for me. Dolly Style conquered me with “Hello Hi” — but “Rollercoaster” does not do it for me. As one of my felow wiwibloggers said, “we like cheap”, just not this kind of it. I really think Dolly Style don’t stand a chance in andra chansen.
Score: 6/10
Luis: I don’t think this song is comparable to “Hello Hi”. Not commenting on its quality, last year’s song at least felt authentic to them, while this sounds just as if they were randomly paired with an song à la Lithuania’s national selection. There’s nothing distinguishable about “Rollercoaster” that makes it worth having three J-Pop looking girls representing Sweden this year. There are limits of randomness one doesn’t want to cross.
Score: 4.5/10
In the Swedish Wiwi Jury we have 25 jurors but only have room for 10 reviews. The remaining 15 scores are below!
Bogdan: 2/10
Denise: 2/10
Marek: 0/10
Maria: 4.5/10
Patrick: 5.5/10
Rezo: 1/10
Sinan: 6.5/10
Chris: 9/10
Josh: 4.5/10
Anthony: 5/10
Ron: 4/10
Antranig: 10/10
Max: 5.5/10
Steinunn: 2/10
Ramadan: 4/10
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 0 and a high of 10.
Its actually quite entertaining. The new members are pretty fun. Too bad they’re going up against Samir & Viktor…
I’ll take this over Samir and Viktor, thanks! One of the dollies really need to work on her vocals, however. It gets a 7.5/10, mainly because of melody and staging effects.
It’s pretty catchy 😉 7/10
Even more horrible than I expected it to be.
10/10
Molly, Holly and Polly were three lovely dolls with three crazy wigs living in anywhere like Dollyland and singing about stupidity, Hello Hi and who they were. Dolly Style 2016 are three teenagers who have eaten too much candy and look frenetic with three cheap wigs and singing a “deeper” theme. Bad madurity.
The problem I have with Dolly Style is that I do not like dolly style…the song is not that bad, but the presentation is hard to swallow unless of course you’re a fan of the style 😉
This seems to me to be a mind-blowing cross between Eric Saade and “Popular”, “Hello Kitty” and “The Crazy Frog”…..It’s just not my kind of thing…..
At least the lyrics is much better than last year, still enjoyable for me tho
Bad, bad singers.
They should not go this far in the competition, no matter what novelty they have.
OT – THE 4 studio versions of the Israeli ‘Rising Star’ Eurovision final have just premiered on Israeli radio a few minutes ago. You can listen to the songs here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qe_fzHBUfmo&feature=youtu.be
First song starts at 04:00 minute
Rollercoaster couldn’t be more annoying. I want to get off that ride not a moment too soon before I spill my guts on innocent bystanders…I’d rather get me some pain killers instead of going through these three minutes of senseless noise-fest.
Reading the reviews make me agree that Dolly Style should not advance to the MF finals. The song is like a bubblegum where some would like the flavor or not, then those who would like the flavor may get tired chewing it once it’s gone.
Samir & Viktor may sing out of tune but their song almost sounds like a sing-a-long where listeners can engage to it, unlike Rollercoaster. Although Groupie is more engaging than this year’s Bada Nakna.
Unlike Raisa I’m not going to claim that this is at all original – but I actually feel that it’s the best song of *all* the qualifiers. Sure, the lyrics are not great, but musically speaking this has the best melody and the best instrumental of the songs. And not all the girls in Dolly Style might’ve sounded as good as they should’ve on stage, but they’re still better singers than Samir and Viktor.
A different song from any other in Eurovision can win. Doesn’t necessarily have to be the best. Just unique enough to stand out from all the other seen-before- in-Eurovision songs. This is a completely new, fresh, original style for Eurovision. Lordi were a completely new style for eurovision as well and they were predicted to not even pass the semi finals and they…won 😛
Honestly, Rollercoaster > Hello Hi any day. Rollercoaster sounds more suitable for the Eurovision than Hello Hi and if it does make it to the Eurovision, they’ll surely get the Globe Arena up and dancing for Sweden.