Eurovision 2010: Portugal

I’ve seen it written elsewhere on the interweb – I really can’t be bothered to dig out the link and increase the blogger’s Google juice by linking to the piece – that there’s hardly any decent songwriting in this year’s contest.

There are some absolutely howlers this year, it has to be said. But on the whole, I think this year has seen considerably more convincing, attention grabbing and fundamentally satisfying songs than ever before. And Portugal’s 2010 contribution – Há Dias Assim – is one of those songs.

The strength of this song is the measured way it builds after the tortured chord progressions of the first verse. The warbling is a slight problem for me – only because my preference is for strong melody rather than melodic masturbation – even so, 18 year old Filipa Azevedo carries herself off well, demonstrating her obvious mastery at live performance.

Nice work Portugal.