This is a blog entry and represents only writer Morten Thomassen’s own views.
Now I’m going to do a mind game, the answer to the question I’m asking will never be answered, but speculating on what the answer could have been can be fun.
Chances are that our friends from the small town of Trofors, which those who have driven the E6 through Nordland have thus driven through, took the trophy home with them and for the first time Sweden is represented entirely by “foreigners” as artists, even though I would think that the dancers certainly have their Swedish citizenship in order.
M & M actually got the same total score as Loreen got last year, but while last year’s winner-artist won with a margin of 39 points, the young men Gunnarsen won with a margin of 73 points, so time will tell if it’s a good one omen or not, so far their victory has not made a big impact on the odds, but here we know that a lot will happen when we turn to May on our calendar.
But, back to my little mind game, someone has reacted to the fact that Norway’s most famous twins are in the Swedish selection and not in the Norwegian one, so what do I think would have happened if they had performed this song in MGP and not in Mello?
First of all, I think that it would have been received with great joy if it had been in MGP that “Unforgettable” had been one of the contributions and I think that they would have easily made it to the final, because they are so big and have such a large fan base in Norway, as exactly that part of the MGP job had been a good job.
However, I think that they had faced rather tougher opposition in the final than the one they ended up getting in the Swedish final and I am simply not sure if they had won at all.
Let’s first imagine what their number would have looked like with the toolbox NRK made available to create MGP this year, in which, as you know, the department for LED screens was completely missing and there was a good part of that on the number we saw win in Sweden.
I can imagine that there would have been a lot of flashing lights and maybe some screens where the numbers we saw had been swirling around, or they could have done as was done during the number for Riddle that we saw some film clips with these numbers, just as impressive it might not have been.
I think what the artists did on stage, both those who sang and those who danced, was not very impressive, so I think that could have been done at least as well by NRK if they had been responsible for this show.
One of the most dance-wise impressive things I’ve seen this year is probably the two who danced together with KEiiNO, that’s what I call dancing at a high level, what M & M’s dancers did was at the normal level for dancing in our beloved competition, in that number it was probably the total package that impressed the most and in the end it is probably what counts the most.
Back to the song, in terms of style, I would say that it was perhaps most similar to the song by Margaret Berger, which only came in 6th place, a very synth-based rhythmic song with well-choreographed dance as a main element in the performance and, well, exactly that type of music has rarely done particularly well in MGP has it?
I think therefore that M & M should have really had to fight for the victory if they had participated in the MGP, especially if their stage show had not been as impressive in a Norwegian final as we saw it in the Swedish final.
I think it’s possible that they had lost, not least against Gåte, but perhaps also against KEiiNO since I think many of those who voted thought that the two contributions had been better than what M & M had been able to show at an MGP- stage.
Fortunately, we never get an answer to this since we now Gåte who if they qualify for the final will meet M & M there and it is not the first time two Norwegian artists meet for a friendly battle on an ESC stage, only 2 years ago met like Subwoolfer and Amanda Tenfjord in the same type of match and those who represented Norway lost that match, do you think it will happen again this year?