Some National Finals are a single-day affair, while others slowly curate their list of finalists over sets of semis and heats.  France, however, in their first public selection since 2007, decided to go a bit unorthodox.  Three entries were performed on the show Les chansons d’abord, hosted by 2001 Eurovision 4th-place finisher Natasha St-Pier, and the phone lines were opened. And they were kept open for nearly a month. Finally, on March 2nd, five weeks after viewers first heard Destan’s “Sans toi“, Joanna’s “Ma liberté“, and Twin Twin’s “Moustache”, the winner was casually announced on another episode of Les chansons d’abord.  No major fanfare, no overly dramatic music…just a winner. And what a winner it was!  Nothing quite like a hit of brightly-colored, bouncy electropop to shake up an ESC, is there?  Here’s Twin Twin‘s “Moustache“.

Believe it or not, this isn’t just an ode to facial hair.  A deeper look into the lyrics actually tell the story of a privileged young man who has everything he wants…a great body, awesome car, a wardrobe to die for, a penthouse apartment…but he’s still left wanting more. The poor guy just can’t grow a ‘stache if his life depended on it.  It just goes to show you that you can’t have it all, and that even the so-called lucky ones among us are never quite satisfied.

Musically, I can’t help but think of the tongue-in-cheek qualities of 2007’s entrants Les Fatals Picards, but mixed with the manic bounce of Jedward (ok, maybe not that manic).  It’s got an instant hook, and you can bet that the PR folks for France 3 are coming up with some cute Moustachey memorabilia for the Press Centre.

One of the things that I appreciate about France in Eurovision is that they never seem to stick to a formula, but they rather jump around from genre to genre.  In the past handful of participants, we’ve had synthpop, chanson, zouk, opera, and blues-rock…and now Twin Twin.  Will this continued bounce around the musical spectrum yield a stronger result than in the recent past?  Let’s see what the Final will bring.