God morgon! The Wiwi Jury — our in-house panel of music unprofessionals — continues to review the songs competing in Melodifestivalen 2017. Now we turn to the acts who have gone direkt till final. First up is Ace Wilder, who is returning with her song “Wild Child”. Did we want to explore the wilderness with Ace? Read on to find out.
Ace Wilder – “Wild Child”
Watch the performance on YouTube
About Ace Wilder
Ace has competed in Melfest twice before, first in 2014, where “Busy Doin’ Nothin’” placed second, and again in 2016 where “Don’t Worry” placed third. Her song “Wild Child” was written by Ace herself along with “Euphoria” songwriters Peter Boström and Thomas G:son.
Wiwi Jury reviews “Wild Child”
Chris: Oh, Ace, I should never have doubted you. I was honestly worried when I heard the snippet of “Wild Child”. In full and on stage though, Ace kills it yet again. She seems so much more at ease on stage and has a great performance to go with it. Maybe I’m too much of a fan, but part of me thinks that this has to be Ace’s best chance yet to go Eurovision.
Score: 9/10
Tobias: I wonder if Ace has been busy doing nothing compared to previous years because this is not what I expected when I found out she would compete again this year. I just don’t feel it, the chorus is nothing I easily remember and I’m still waiting for “Busy Doing Nothing” version 2. “Wild Child: deserved to qualify to the final in Friends Arena in March, no doubt, but only because the other competing songs weren’t good enough. Ace has ended up second (2014) and third (2016) but I don’t think she will do better than that this year.
Score: 7/10
William: This flashes to vintage Icona Pop and Emmelie de Forest’s more recent catalogue, but ultimately this is 100% Ace. Feel-good, zany and totally on-trend, “Wild Child” oozes spirt, charm and optimism and proves to be an earworm of the first order. Visually the simple dance moves pack major punch, the collapsing LED floor brings drama and Ace always remains queen of it all by channeling attitude and joy in equal measure. FernGully has never looked or sounded so fierce!
Score: 9/10
Anthony: When you have the same songwriting team behind “Euphoria” by your side, there’s bound to be something promising. So it’s no surprise we’re treated to another ace performance, and “Wild Child” is refreshingly delicious like a tropical smoothie. Ace Wilder continues to up her game since her 2014 debut. Now it’s just a case of when she’ll finally make her breakthrough and win.
Score: 8/10
Jason: When I first listened to “Wild Child”, I was slightly disappointed. Cool, rebellious Ace seemed to have been watered down to a Disney Channel version of herself, and my heart was sad. Then I saw her perform live and was blown away, as I should have expected. Ace has performance in her very bones, and even with a more minimalist stage show than she usually brings, she still killed it. Obviously a contender for the whole thing. Again.
Score: 9/10
Mikhail: I really can’t make up my mind. Sometimes I think I like it, but at the same time I feel that I don’t. Something is wrong. Maybe there’s too much G:son involved. I’m loving the chorus though, it reminds me of something. Now that I’m thinking about it, I come up with a Russian song of Red Riding Hood, which makes no sense, but let it be that.
Score: 7/10
Robyn: I had mixed feelings about “Don’t Worry”, but I’m happy to be Team Wild Child. This is Ace doing what she does best. It’s a bright, positive poppy track, and the staging wisely only hints at a jungle theme rather than rolling out the grass skirts. And only Ace could believably bring a feeling of calmness and serenity to a declaration of wildness.
Score: 8/10
Ron: Ace Wilder is always so cool, but I think this song is the weakest among her Melodifestivalen songs. It’s really not bad, it’s a great album track for her album, but we expect a bit more from Ace, especially when she’s coming back for a third time and in the second year in a row. I really wish her a huge success and getting to Eurovision, but i’m really not sure it will happen this year. The song is nice, her dance moves are the same cool “Ace” dance moves and she knows well how to deliver a song, but i don’t see a winner here, although performing while wearing pajamas is kinda wild.
Score: 7.5/10
Our jury for Melodifestivalen 2017 contains 28 jurors, but we only have room for eight reviews. The remaining scores are listed below.
Angus: 7/10
Antony: 9/10
Antranig: 9/10
Bernardo: 7.5/10
Dayana: 8/10
Deban: 7/10
Edd: 9.5/10
Erdi: 7/10
Forrest: 7.5/10
Jordi: 9/10
Josh: 9/10
Jovana: 7.5/10
Luis: 9/10
Natalie: 7.5/10
Patrick: 8/10
Rezo: 9/10
Sami: 9/10
Sinan: 9/10
Steinunn: 7/10
Zakaria: 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 4 and a high of 9.5.
I know it won’t win but it so deserves too! Please Sweden finally choose Ace!
Fun in the beginning, but starts to annoy towards it. To me it’s because of production that sometimes is even too much considering her slightly subdued vocals.
However, I’m kinda shocked of rank…
Love Ace!! Honestly I think she is a little bit underrated which is unfortunate. Her song is simple yet catchy. I think she’d make a fantastic Melfest winner and hopefully she continues to participate in Melodifestivalen again if she doesn’t win this year. I REALLY want to see her be a part of eurovision!
This is very good. I particularly like the oddly relaxing chorus melody, followed by the earworm-based instrumental bit. It’s very Ace Wilder. This is perhaps the least hyped Melfest song that could just sneak up the scoreboard and pull off a surprise win on March 11th. Beware. 🙂
Its catchy just like her past two Melfest entries but unlike “Don’t Worry” it doesn’t need a big staging to sell. It kinda feels like a follow up to her Angry Birds OST track “Riot”. Hope the international juries at the grand ginals give her more love like last year
My favorite of the finalists.
Why is she always so overrated?!
Of the 3 songs she has entered into MF, this is actually the most mature. She brought out more of the “wild child” in her first 2. To me, this is more music-driven than driven by antics.
Looking at her chances, for her to win, the public and the jury will have to fall over themselves over the other strong contenders. For them to be indecisive over Nano, Wiktoria, Jon Henrik, Mariette AND Loreen? That will be a tall order.
8,1 is too high for me!!
It’s a good song, the performance is great. I’m not a fan though.
I would give it a 7.
This is Ace’s strongest entry till the day. She is more herself on stage and lyrics speak to the listener. The performance was Acestastic!
“Ouch!!” 6,3 “Wild Child” 8,1 … Melodifestivalen hype. Don’t make me laugh wiwi!
I really don’t like this. I preferred her last song. It should have won, not Frans. I feel it should be the theme song to the wild thornberries. Even though that show was good it is not a compliment.
It’s quite good, but definitely not a contender.
One of the weaker direct qualifiers.
Loved her 2 previous Melfest songs so much, I still have them in my playlist. This is not quite as good, but it’s my number 3 overall. And it’s also a possible dark horse.
Not a top ten song in Melfest this year for me. From a songwriting perspective, it is the weakest of her three efforts and her vocal is not getting any better. This does not even have last year’s staging to save it.
Love this.
I am #teamace every time she enters Melfest and I absolutely love “Wild Child” !! I love it how calm and confident she is during this year’s performance. If not this year I am confident she will bring an even-better song soon and win the damn thing already!!!
Cannot stand this wild brat.
When I first heard the snippet I was disappointed as a huge Ace fan. However, when I saw the live performance she once again converted me. This song is super catchy, and as always Ace elevates her songs with a fantastic stage performance. I really believe this is her year to win and I really hope that she will
LOL, “Wild Child”, not “Wild Catchy”!
Well-deserved score. Ace slays once again. “Wild Catchy” is an incredibly catchy and fun song and I personally like it more than “Don’t Worry” and almost as much as “Busy Doin’ Nothin'”. Needless to say, she is great on stage. I also like the fact that the performance this year is simpler. Sometimes less is more. This is my favorite direct finalist along with Jon & Aninia.
I would love for Ace to win. Wild Child is my favorite song of hers. She definitely should not place worse than in her first two attempts.
I share 100% of Jason’s thoughts on this. Ace for the win!
Oh please, this could win Eurovision any day.
But so does Wiktoria or Nano.
Not sure about the others.
And no, I’m not swedish.
I have a love-hate relationship with Ace Wilder. She’s such a basic girl, but she wins me over each time with her songs. This one absolutely isn’t a 8/10 for me (vocals, production, music and performance are all 6-6.5/10), but still, I did have it on loop a few times.
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5dnyr6_demy-this-is-love-eurovision-2017-greece_music
Demy s leaked song
8.1 that’s really high, higher than I expected for ace, she deserves it though!
hmmmm…. quite cool, but too simple