This will be the one

After today's show, my main question is this: when do they start production on mass-produced models of Måns? I want one. Valentine's Day wish?

I'm much more content with this week's results than last week. Well, in one sense, there's a strong similarity between the two weeks: there was one act I was willing to throw everyone else on the fire for as long as it got through--last week, Alcazar and this week, Måns Zelmerlöw. Both did, thank goodness. In results better than last week for me, though, the top four of Måns, H.E.A.T. (the other final qualifier), Amy Diamond, and Lili & Susie are probably just about the four songs I'm most likely to listen to, even if not necessarily in that order.

I'm still having trouble characterizing my feelings towards the semifinal as a whole. Song-wise, it felt more consistent for me than last week's, but also as if it was maybe missing out on the high highs to some degree. Medium highs? Yup, it had those. Me biting my lip with my hands clasped in front of me schlager-praying Måns made it through to the final? Of course. I'm just not sure that we got a true classic out of this semifinal, whereas I can easily see Alcazar's "Stay The Night" being just that for me.

Don't get me wrong: I'm dying for the studio version of Måns's song to come out and I'll probably play it incessantly and have loads of fun doing so. It could well turn out to have a lot more lasting power than I expect it to, and it's already a song I like--a song I love. It just feels a bit...light on the bottom for me. Does that make sense? I don't necessarily need depth in the sense of emotional depth in music (if it comes to that, I actually love the lyrics to "Hope & Glory"), but I'm left imagining would it would be like if the music itself had depth to it; to some degree "Hope & Glory" feels like it's bouncing along near the "top" so much (like the sort of thing you'd wave giant flags to crossed with cheesy marching) that it ends up feeling lighter as a result. This is just minor niggling, though, like the criticism you might give to A- work instead of the A+ you know the student's capable of. The song is still my easy favorite in the semifinal and at worst my second favorite song of the contest so far, with the potential for my opinion of it to improve and improve, something which it's absolutely done with further plays of the live version (to the extent that I may regret any reservations in the future). Måns is such a star, too. And does cartwheels!

(Have I mentioned on here yet that for something like a week now "Impossible," a track from his new album and the one he put the preview of on his site, has been for sale at Swedish-only digital music store Telia? I can't remember.)

The other final qualifier, rock band H.E.A.T., had a singer with a great voice. I wish their song had a little more impact to it, was catchier, but I liked them and it at the level I expected to. I don't know that I would have put them in my top two, but I was glad they were in the top four. Plus, you've got to love a group willing to play the game by using wind machines and putting their obviously best looking member (the drummer) shirtless on stage (and having the camera go back to him and pushing him to the front of the gropu when not performing whenever possible)

Lili & Susie and Amy's songs were both OK--maybe not as good as I was hoping for (though Lili & Susie's "Show Me Heaven" is the better of the two for me), but respectable entries.

All the sites I'd been reading had talked about their dislike for or problems with Markoolio's performance, but I was still surprised at how poorly the aimed-for humor of the staging came across. In theory, Dima Bilan's eccentric and over-the-top winning performance from last year as well as his earlier second place performance from 2006 should be prime fodder for satire that, even if the general public doesn't understand, is laughed at by Eurovision fans; heck, Sergey Lazarev and Dima managed to do so easily enough for a no budget short skit when they hosted an awards ceremony together (each mocking the other), even that would obviously never have sufficed as a Melodifestival performance. The execution here just didn't work.

Cookies 'N' Beans and Jennifer Brown both put in good performances of decent songs--songs I won't be in a rush to buy but am fine with. Ditto Lasse, I suppose.