CAMEROON V CROATIA
Guest referee:
Sam Wolfson — Executive Editor, Noisey
'Coin Coin Coin' (Stars 2 Demain)
“I’m quite confused by Stars 2 Demain, the biggest talent show in Cameroon. On the one had, it seems to follow a Western X Factor style format, with judges sniggering at mentally handicapped people (although their derision is somewhat undermined by being forced to wear name badges and matching t‑shirts bearing the show’s sponsor. It doesn’t help their judges table has been decorated with some sparkly leftovers from a primary school art cupboard either). But I think Stars 2 Demain are also the winning act, which suggests more of a K‑Pop-style Girls Generation model where the winners join an already existing revolving-door pop thing. I hope it’s the latter because that would explain why everyone in the video for 'Coin Coin Coin' looks so at uneasy with one another. Would it have killed them to get these strangers to play a few trust games to loosen the mood before they chucked them up in front of a green screen and shouted “dance sassy”? Musically, things aren’t so bad. The beat is a sort of makossa-dancehall hybrid and there’s quite a nice vocal turn in the second verse from the Cameroonian Mario Winans. Basically, a lot better than 'That’s My Goal' but a lot worse than 'Bad Boys'.”
Patrick Jurdic — ‘Cry Me A River’ (New Wave)
“New Wave is one of the strangest singing competitions in the world. Some kind of pop aftershock from the Cold War, it’s a Russian TV show in which the USA competes with various former-USSR states. It’s unclear whether it’s supposed to be a demonstration of unity or of unresolved tensions, but either way it makes no sense. Unlike Eurovision, where there is at least a vague brief of light-hearted pop, there seem to be no guidelines for how to win New Wave. In 2010, for example, US winner Jayden Felder romped to victory with a smooth R&B cover of 'Long Train Running'. But one year earlier the Armenian winner, Sona Shahgeldyan, won out with a sort of one-woman musical-theatre number in which the oft-asked question “what if P'!'nk was Armenian?” was almost answered. Anyway, back in 2006 Croatia’s plucky New Wave hopeful was Patrick Jurdic, the sort blonde-hair and blue-eyes boy that you’d imagine Britney selecting as a video extra had she come up with this idea first. The general amazingness of 'Cry Me A River' has led most of us to forget how annoying Justin Timberlake was around this time, but here Jurdic has picked up on all of his most loathsome ticks — randomly telling no one for the track to “stop” and thrusting legs akimbo with a sadface as if to say "you don't know how painful it is to be this good looking". Most bizarrely, I’m pretty sure the track they’re using either still has quite a lot of Timberlake’s vocal on. So all Jurdic can really do is whine in falsetto until it’s over. And it's a pleasure when it is."
Sam's full time score:
Cameroon 1 — Croatia 0
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