Review: Saara Aalto - Monsters - Finland
7 Day YouTube Views: 134,289
7 Day YouTube Likes: 4,208
We'll admit to having a soft-spot for Saara Aalto, openly ambitious and treated shamefully by the X Factor UK ("Zara from Denmark"), she's gone on to bigger and better things, currently a judge on Finland's version of the X Factor and now performing at Eurovision. Fair play to you, Zara from Denmark.
Gay herself, Saara has attempted to fashion herself as a gay icon, the sound and look for Monsters plays heavily to that audience, the hand of Brian Friedman is clearly visible in the production. Listening to the song, I mentally compared it to Cascada, or a similar cheesy kind of dance track you might find in an Ibiza nightclub or a Soho gay bar (not that we've been to either, honest). Based on her X Factor performances, Saara isn't scared to put on a show and it's likely that a decent portion of the votes this track gets in Eurovision will come from the performer selling the track, rather than the track itself.
Musically, it's as cheap as dance tracks come, plastic to the core. The way the progression of the music ramps up does work, but don't you feel like you've heard this song 100 times before? This is old-school Europop, my personal feeling is that the Eurovision audience is tiring of these sorts of tracks. Saara is capable of singing songs with a little more substance but her live performances of Monsters (and the other 2 proposed tracks) also received a poor reception, hopefully she fixes her pitching problems come the semis. Speaking of the semis, Finland does have a favourable position in the second-half of the ultra-competitive first semi but we're debating whether she'll even qualify, might be a shock result in 11th place, the YouTube stats also suggest this may be a possibility.
Considering the intense build-up for the release of this song, Finland's YouTube stats are remarkably low. Just 134,000 Views in the first 7 days of release and 4,200 Likes, those numbers are lower than Portugal, the United Kingdom, Belarus and others. If you're placing a bet, laying Finland to qualify from their semi may be one to examine. Saara currently sits at 16th favourite in the betting market, we can only assume this position is bourne of hype because the track doesn't merit such a high position. In conclusion, don't be surprised to see Finland absent from the Eurovision grand final, if they do make it through, a poor result surely awaits..