A lot of jokes were made the day that Isabel Díaz Ayuso created the , but yesterday, when “again and again, I felt that I would give those 75,000 euros per year that Toni Cantó was going to pocket as well invested if they were spent on protecting the deaf dental occlusive identity of the letter t, of which many singers try to strip it; Marta Sánchez, I’m looking at you too chito transform it into ch, a voiceless postalveolar affricate consonant. Greetings from here to my phonetics and phonology teacher at the faculty.
I know that there are already too many just causes to give up, but we cannot abandon the twenty-first letter of the Spanish alphabet to its fate. I was going to appeal to the letter T of the RAE to be its champion, but I just found out that it is Arturo Pérez-Reverte, so it’s better for me to keep quiet for a while.
The last gala before the final was a festival to the greater glory of the program itself, something that has happened too many times in this edition and began with a very elegant and very emotional Chenoa, the first is sometimes surprising, but the second almost never, and two hours ahead whose only intrigue was to find out if who would reach the final would be Tinho or Guillo Rist.
Rist performed Say My Name by David Guetta, Bebe Rexha and J Balvin dressed like someone who wants to have a lot of luck on New Year’s Eve and, as always, with energy and professionalism. He gave exactly what was expected of him. Tinho, for his part, chose forbidden word of Samurai because he is already clear that that is where he wants to take his career. The Galician showed signs of his evolution and will still be able to evolve for another week, since he placed in the final by a fairly comfortable margin, sixty percent of the votes. Guillo didn’t seem too disappointed; He knows that his place is in musicals and we are in a sweet moment for them. In fact, since , another musical about Guillo wouldn’t be a bad idea. I leave my idea for TVE here, selflessly.
Olivia and Claudia Arenas got into the shoes of Baccara, their greatest success with Sorry, I’m A Lady and the Do you speak French? with which Mayte Mateos and María Mendiola—which was their real name, but the exoticism sold as much as it does now—represented Luxembourg in the 1977 Eurovision Song Contest.
I introduce this data a bit randomly to link to one of the few moments in which the organization allowed . And the person in charge of giving the scoop was Inés Hernand, who as presenter of the Benidorm Fest informed the contestants that in 2026 Spain would not participate in Eurovision. It is not essential news, since now the contest is not linked to TVE and does not imply participating in the festival, but perhaps they were trying to look for reactions, controversy, headlines. There was little beyond “I think it’s magnificent. I guess it’s because of Israel’s move,” from Tinho. “Israel’s move”, let’s see how it best summarizes a conflict that has been perpetuated since the end of the Ottoman empire. The Galician and Cristina were the ones who most applauded TVE’s decision, but if anyone expected great reflections, they will have been disappointed; This is not the edition of Alba Reche, Natalia Lacunza and María Escarmiento. And I take advantage of this window to the world to suggest to TVE that, since there is no Eurovision, it would do well to recover that OTI in which we had great successes and better songs like Bravo Samurai o Latino.
In a renovated OTI I see Guille Toledano triumphing, who in crooner Latino gave one of his best performances thanks to I have everything except you by Luis Miguel. Toledano is reliability, but does it excite? He is a fair finalist, I don’t dispute it, but does anyone see him as a winner? As an OTI winner; yes, of course. More dynamic was the performance of , the first and last favorite of the contest, which she sang like someone touching the winner’s title with her little fingers. If no one doubted that Cristina was going to be in the final, it is surprising that Claudia, who played yesterday, is there. There are contestants expelled weeks ago who are far superior vocally, but she has something that hooks a good part of the public and that’s what this business is about.
They gave Olivia a winning song again, which was in turn a poisoned candy because, one of those songs that they sing to you looking into your eyes and you go to look for the birth certificate to get married at the nearest town hall, it’s like Excalibur or Thor’s Mjölnir, not just anyone can get their hands on it, it asks for something more than a good voice, it asks for something that right now only Amaia has.
The Navarrese and Aitana visited the Academy this week, they exuded charisma and reminded us that we cried for the 2017 edition for a reason. Since they are incapable of not providing content, they talked about the mutual envy they felt because one was cool and the other a product, and since today I can’t stop creating, while listening to them, I imagined a series for Prime Video, a kind of put yourself in my place in which they exchanged their lives. Ok, it’s not very original, but neither The summer I fell in love and there it is enriching the platform. The visit promised and delivered.
If I had to choose my 10 favorite moments from this edition, one would be Aitana singing Superstar with Amaia on the piano. And since this week OT sang to OT, in addition to listening to the Butterfliesby Aitana and Sangiovanni, which Guille and Cristina performed, the guest star was another ex-OT, in this case Edurne, who sang Santa Claus came to town. A hit that since 1932 has seduced Bing Crosby and BTS alike. Very much in favor of kicking off the Christmas festivities during the December long weekend and not falling into the savagery of bringing it forward almost to October. There is a time for everything and this week it is time to choose the winner of this edition that is as irregular and decaffeinated as it is unpredictable. Who will win the final victory?
