The first of our projects over the summer is to review a selection of the albums released by artists from the 2013 Eurovision Song Contest.
First up is this year’s Finnish entrant Krista Siegfrids, who released her début album “Ding Dong!” a week prior to the contest in May. So, what kind of a record is it? And how does it compare to her Eurovision entry “Marry Me”?
27 year-old Krista took the Eurovision fan circle by storm with her infectious performance on the Malmö stage, and I for one was intrigued enough to seek out this album; hopeful that it would be full of the same quirky, high-octane pop that had quickly characterised Krista’s musical style. And I certainly wasn’t disappointed!
The album contains ten songs, all but one of which are up-tempo numbers which feature the similar pseudo-electro instrumentation and ridiculously catchy hooks to “Marry Me”. For many, the obvious comparisons are to the music of Katy Perry and Ke$ha, and this is understandable when you consider the combination of sassy spoken verses and soaring melodic choruses most evident in tracks like “Money”. However, Krista maintains her own quirkiness throughout, ensuring that these similarities merely serve to highlight the relevance of the album in today’s market.
The opening and closing tracks “More Is More” and “Stupid Love” owe considerably more to the dance music scene, something which is reflected in both their structure and lyrical content. Krista also manages to adopt a number of characters through her music – the stalker-esque persona of “Marry Me” morphs into a shameless golddiger in “Money” and a full-on badass bitch in “Your Boyfriend”, illustrating her knack for incorporating humour into her lyrics. However, the stand-out track of the album sees Krista abandon all this and perform the honest, heart-wrenching ballad “Can You See Me?” as a tribute to her father, laying her soul bare and creating a truly captivating piece of music in the process.
It’s on this track in particular that I believe Krista’s voice is best showcased, the slight cracks at the top of her range adding to the raw emotion of the song.
For me, the highlights of the album are “Money”, “Under My Skin”, the 80s-infused “Seventeen” and the aforementioned “Can You See Me?”.
*EDIT – adding the YouTube links around a month after I originally wrote this article, and I’d just like to emphasise what an epic track “Under My Skin” really is. Fabulous has a new definition, people. Listen, listen, listen!!
Your Views:
Marco Muntean from Romania – Love Krista album!!! The best song is “Money”!!
Janne Bruzelius from Sweden – Have her physical CD album but have not played it yet
Adriána Filipová from Slovakia – Krista´s album reminds me of Kesha but Krista is a lot better. Her song “Can you see me” is really strong, dedicated to her father, and it´s definitely worth listening. Other than that i think “Marry me” is already a legendary song. Other songs from the album are average.
Sami Luukela from Finland – Love it!
So overall, it would appear that “Ding Dong!” has been fairly positively received amongst Eurovision fans. It could be argued that it’s a fairly predictable collection of generic pop songs, but their catchiness and relevance cannot be dismissed lightly. Krista has demonstrated that she’s clearly aware of her audience and knows exactly what she’s aiming for with this album, and to my mind at least, she’s most certainly succeeded. TEAM DING DONG!
ESC Views 
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