Oh, lazywebs...

 

I'm looking for projector recommendations.

 

Portable is necessary. Mini, pocket or pico are not.

 

WSXGA is necessary.

 

Audio is not necessary.

 

High brightness is desirable.

 

Long lamp life is desirable.

 

Wireless, if it actually works, would be really cool.

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Remember that Moldovan entry that I couldn't show you because the record company tried to block international viewing? Well, I guess the letter from the EBU got to TRM (Moldova's member network) and was passed along, because it's available now.

I love pop-folk. Moldova gives us pop-folk. It's not as crazy as last year's entry, but it's a bit wild.

The video? Not so great. On stage Parfeny wore crazy clothes. The video is a nightclub-type performance with much less crazy staging and costume.

But it's still fun.

We wrap up semifinal 2 with Lithuania. Donny Montell sings Love is Blind.

What starts as a big dramatic ballad changes half-way through into a disco power ballad. I'm not kidding. It's got that total 70's tinny electric wah-wah guitar and lush strings and pornobeat. But it never really resolves into that and keeps dropping back to no-beat madness. That said, Donny Montell is a pretty good singer. I wish he had a better song.

The video is the selection contest performance. Montell sings the first half of the song with a blindfold on. The beat kicks in and he rips off the blindfold. Clumsily.

I like this one, from a "corny Eurovision kitsch" point of view. I think it's a much better "crack jokes about Eurovision" song that I'm a Joker. But that's it.

We're winding up here. Bosnia & Herzegovina are sending Maya Sar with Korake Ti Znam to Baku.

This is a charming little ballad. It's got very subtle hints of folk melodies. Sar has a beautiful voice, and works the song just enough.

And, yay! Another music video! It's got ironmongering! And manufacturing! And... a grand piano on an assembly line? No, really, the video is just as charming as the song. All those other videos that throw together bizarre imagery and don't really make any sense? This one does and tells a story. The story itself doesn't make a lot of sense, but it's coherent.

I like this one.

You might think sending an Iranian-born kid doing a number laced with middle-eastern rhythms and harmonies to Baku for Eurovision would be a calculated attempt to play the hosts.

Norway has a televoted national selection contest, and Tooji's Stay was really popular.

So, yeah, middle-eastern styled dance pop. Tooji has a pretty good voice, though, even if he does have a hard time with a few of the notes. I expect that will be sorted by May.

The video is the contest performance. On the other hand, he's a model who built up the beginnings of singing career. As long as it showcases him, it's doing its job.

I like this one.

We're how far in? Slovakia's Max Jason Mai finally comes through with the rock and Don't Close your Eyes.

It's definitely hard rock. It's definitely melodic. Mai has a good voice for the style (but I'm wondering about the processed bit in the middle).

The video is pretty meta. It's a "making of the video video" and it's fun. I think the video they're making in the video would be a lot creepier, and probably a lot more pretentious. So it's a win.

I like this one.

We're back in the Baltics with Kuula by Ott Lepland for Estonia.

It's a solid melodic ballad. Lepland has a good voice. It's not over-the-top.

The video is his selection contest performance with a few filters and post-production animated text pasted over it. No great shakes, but it's at least a little effort.

I like this one. Again, not to win.

Turkey has been a powerhouse in recent years. Can Bonomo's Love Me Back is totally not from their traditional mold.

If you think this sounds like klezmer, you aren't mistaken. Bonomo is from Turkey's Jewish minority, and he blends pop, Turkish folk music and Jewish music like a master. The lyrics are a bit... odd. But it's a bundle of fun.

And we get a music video! Remember that bit about blending? Well, there's imagery from the lyrics. All that wacky boat stuff. There's all sorts of musicians performing together. There's costumes and dancers.

Yeah, I like this one. I don't expect it to win, but I like it.

There have been a lot of comments about how bad Georgia's entry is this year.

I'm a Joker by Anri Jokhadze is pretty bad. It's pretty incoherent. It's an English pun on his name, and a series of broken rhymes of that. It's not even a good novelty song.

I still like it better than Latvia's Beautiful Song. It has an over-the-top energy that's lacking in the other bad songs.

And we get a music video. Oy, do we get a music video. It doesn't make any more sense than the song.

I don't detest this one, but it doesn't rise to the level of "so bad it's good."

I always like Sweden in Eurovision. This year the oddsmakers do too, and they're tipping Loreen to win with Euphoria.

So let's get this out of the way. Euphoria wasn't my favorite candidate from Sweden. There's no debating its popularity, though. It's selling like hotcackes on the European iTunes stores.

It's kind of a dance ballad. I think Loreen has a great voice, but I don't think this is a great song.

The video is her performance from Melodifestivalen. I don't really like the production, I think it's sloppy and incoherent. I hope she does something to punch it up a bit.

So I like it, better than a lot of other Eurovision entries, just not as much as some of her competitors in Melodifestivalen.