Belgium: Hooverphonic

In the early 2000s a Belgian friend introduced me to Hooverphonic via the brilliant "Out of Sight". I became such a huge fan that I continued to listen to that song a number of times each year and every time I thought "I like this song, I'm glad Damian put it on his mix CD." 

And then in 2020, lo and behold, that band with the song I liked had only gone and done another song and were bringing it to Eurovision!

"Release Me" has made me rethink my Eurovision scoring system. While we will never know what they would have done with the live performance, it seemed likely that "Release Me" would score badly in the categories of "Computer Graphics", "Nonsense" and "Danger". It was one of my favourite songs from Eurovision 2020 and not just because I could act all pretentious and hipster-like giving it the whole "Yeah, I knew them before they were in Eurovision and they were easily like 12 times better than they are now."

Strings are a definite plus in this song. Love a bit of 'cello and Hooverphonic have a whole string section not just a token folky violin. This song would sit happily on my "Sitting on a sofa with a hot chocolate doing the crossword" playlist. And that's an important playlist!

So what of 2021.....

After a few listens to "The Wrong Place" I am satisfied that Hooverphonic have now made it 3 songs that I like. Congratulations, my Belgian friends!

Musically, it's six of one and half a dozen of the other as to which Hooverphonic track I like most. But 2021's tune will score better than its predecessor due to a scattering of quirkiness (maybe "Quirky/Twerky" could be a new category for my scoring?)... 

A bit of detective work will help to get a general feel for the narrative of the song. The video shows our singer sat on a bed. It is morning. There is a man asleep in the bed. She sings "I'm reaching for a smoke to forget about last night." My best guess is that he and she were both in the bed the previous night doing adult things and that it is "The Wrong Place" not because he is meant to be somewhere else but because she regrets doing some or all of the adult things with him. 

The quirkiness comes in the form of things like her wedding veil, all the candles, her protectiveness of her Johnny Cash t-shirt etc. But what really sets this apart from "Release me" is that, at the video planning zoom call, the creatives went beyond "how about we film the band standing up and playing the song" and nobody stopped them until after "why don't we have his severed head lying on the floor singing the final refrain?"

We can only assume that he did wear her Johnny Cash t-shirt. 

There are signs here that Hooverphonic could bring a brilliantly dark and disturbing performance to Eurovision. I look forward to finding out!