Review: Chingiz - Truth - Azerbaijan
1 Day YouTube Views: 204,894
1 Day YouTube Likes: 10,419
Azerbaijan are known to be competitive Eurovision entrants, a few brown envelopes to select jurors has stood them in good stead in the past. Saying that though, they had an 'off' year in 2018 when their entry ("Luna moon me up") by Aisel finished 11th in their semi, only just missed out on a place in the final - likely because of the unexpected success of Lithuania, Albania and Ireland. Azerbaijan don't appear to be taking so many chances this year, the song is "Truth", sung by Chingiz and it is, by any measure, a solid Eurovision track for 2019.
The song starts strong, you immediately 'get' it and start bopping your head to it. The beat starts heavy and gets heavier as the song builds to the "Shut up about it" chorus. You begin to visualise song on the Eurovision stage with powerful staging and you know it's just going to work. "Truth" isn't perfect, the song loses steam going into the second half, the bridge is uninspired and the chorus gets repetitive towards the end. I also think repeating the words "Shut up" to your listeners isn't exactly a nice thing to hear, though I suspect the Eurovision audience won't be quite so affected.
Azerbaijan sing in the tricky second semi-final, luckily though they're in the pimp slot singing last! This is a tactically advantageous place to be as recency bias in the audience almost always means that Azerbaijan will get an increased vote share. To be fair, not that "Truth" might not have qualified without the pimp slot - it is a good song.
"Truth"'s YouTube stats are among the strongest of all countries, as are Chingiz's social media follower stats. Chingiz himself is a good looking chap with decent stage presence, so there's no reason to think that the running order position has changed this track's fortunes.
There has been a little concern regarding the quality of Chingiz's voice but my view is that a song sung in this style should mean that most slip-ups can be concealed under the rest of the music. We'll see what Azerbaijan are planning in terms of staging, but on the basis of the song itself, I'd say a Top 10 finish is a possibility.
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Review: S!sters - Sister - Germany
1 Day YouTube Views: 238,698
1 Day YouTube Likes: 5,042
Germany topped the Big 5 in 2018, can they do the same this year? They return with S!sters singing "Sister", one of the more unique entries this year - where the theme of the song is sibling rivalry.
What struck me immediately about the way the track is performed is that S!sters don't seem to acknowledge the audience and are instead singing to one another, in this respect it feels more like watching a musical ala Wicked's "For Good". This is a novel and untested approach. One concern is that "Sister" relies heavily on the message and vocals over melody - while this works for us in English-speaking countries, we have to view this through the eyes of an audience who may not understand what's going on - in this respect I feel that Germany still manage to convey the emotion well.
As a song, because of it's verbosity and minimal melody, the ladies' vocals absolutely have to be on point, Spain's Amaia and Alfred discovered this to their peril in 2018, both competent singers but in the wide open space of the Eurovision arena, any flaws or timing issues can be exposed quickly. Assuming this doesn't occur, I'd say that Germany have a competent entry in "Sister".
As a member of the 'Big 5', Germany don't need to worry about qualification. While this song is solid and enjoyable, I see it finishing somewhere in the middle of the board, possibly around 15th. The YouTube Views for the official video are among the strongest of all countries, however, switch that measure to YouTube Likes and you see a huge drop, Germany fall to around mid-table on Likes and this is significant, a 2% View/Like ratio is low. Overall though, I wouldn't recommend Germany for Top Big 5 this year as both Spain and Italy's entries are stronger. It's likely to be a decent if unremarkable night for Germany come the Eurovision final.
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Review: Jurij Veklenko - Run With The Lions - Lithuania
1 Day YouTube Views: 87,605
1 Day YouTube Likes: 4,221
After 2018's success in reaching the final, Lithuania return in 2019 with Jurij Veklenko singing "Run With The Lions", a solid, if generic pop song sung.
"Run With The Lions" to me feels very 'paint-by-numbers' in terms of it's construction, it's an inoffensive pop song, a gradual progression, some sort of semi-inspiration message, standard handsome singer doing all the right poses. But something feels missing from the overall package. It isn't a difficult song to listen to all the way through but it never really grabs the attention, it's not a song you want to dance to - it almost reminds me of the kind of song the United Kingdom send - pleasant but utterly uninspired and generic.
To compound the issue, Lithuania are sandwiched between Malta and Russia, who are then followed by Albania, Norway and The Netherlands - all of whom (in my opinion) have strong entries. Lithuania will have to pull something significant out of the bag to elevate this track and make it memorable.
The odds currently have Lithuania with very a low likelihood of qualifying from it's semi, unfortunately it's justified. While their YouTube views do veer towards the higher end of the table, I'm not sure they'll be able to overcome these overwhelming odds and progress beyond them. No qualifier for me.
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Review: Kate Miller-Heidke - Zero Gravity - Australia
1 Day YouTube Views: 86,853
1 Day YouTube Likes: 4,256
Everybody's favourite European nation, Australia return in 2019 with classicly-trained singer Kate Miller-Heidke performing "Zero Gravity". 'Perform' really is the word to describe this, I feel that this song is as much, if not more, about the performance than the song itself.
Australia, as the newbies to the competition, have arguably received a helping hand from the Eurovision powers-that-be. Last year's entry by Jessica Mauboy received the lowest televote score of all nations, but a respectable mid-table jury score. My feeling with Australia this year though, is that they may have bitten off more than they can chew. "Zero Gravity" is really just all over the place, the beat doesn't match the pace of the vocals, there doesn't appear to be any consistency in the style of singing and the different sections of the song are difficult to discern.
There are a couple of reasons that Australia haven't been immediately thrown into the trash as it would had any other nation submitted this song. First - as mentioned above, it's Australia. Secondly, the staging is what really makes it. Kate is wearing a colossal oversized dress with some kind of ice-queen style upper-half. Behind her is an acrobat standing on a bendy pole contraption. Australia are relying almost entirely on the 'WTF' aspect of this to see it through.
Australia perform in the second-half of the first-semi which for most entrants would be a huge positive, however, crucially, they perform just before Iceland who are by far the most memorable act of the night. The 'WTF'-ness of Austraia is outranked by that of Iceland. This isn't to say that Australia don't qualify, they are still in contention but with far less merit than Iceland for example, the song is pretty rubbish.
Next to Russia, Australia has received the highest number of Dislikes to their music video, which is significant. Much of their mid-table YouTube views can likely be put down to the visual spectacle rather than the auditory one. While Kate's social media follower stats aren't too bad, she hasn't charted on the iTunes charts in any country and I think that's rather telling. Overall, I hope this entry doesn't qualify but we'll make a call on it's qualification chances later this week.
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Review: Darude feat. Sebastian Rejman - Look Away - Finland
1 Day YouTube Views: 83,937
1 Day YouTube Likes: 2,629
Bringing out the big guns, Finland have one of their best-known names to represent them this year, the man who launched a thousand memes. Darude is well known for his hit "Sandstorm" and he's partnered with Sebastian Rejman to perform "Look Away" at this year's Eurovision, so is it any good?
The answer...is difficult to say, "Look Away" is firmly in the mid-tier of the competition, definitely not among the trash like Georgia and Montenegro but nowhere near the top either. An EDM track (as you might expect) with Sebastian singing and Darude doing the typical nonsensical DJ poses, there is a political message in there but I feel it will be largely lost on the audience. "Look Away" has an air of the Polish 2018 entry which also sounded good but ultimately failed to qualify. It too had the DJ on-stage with the singer doing most of the work.
A staging concept has already been created which isn't bad, but hardly anything new. Sebastian also appears to have difficulty hitting notes in the lower register. The chorus has received some criticism for being repetitive and lacking lyrical complexity but then again, it's a dance track - and I believe it does succeed as a dance track.
I'm still on the fence as to whether or not Finland will qualify though, Finland sing early in the first-half of the first semi-final. They come on immediately after Montenegro so the Eurovision audience will definitely need a pick-me-up after that. However, Finland is then followed by Poland, Slovenia and the Czech Republic, all of these songs are vastly different from one another and as such, Finland lacks the ability to break any monotony and stand out.
In terms of stats, Finland has a significant disparity between the number of Views of it's YouTube video against the number of Likes it received which is a concern. The song has charted at No. 3 in Finland on the iTunes chart which is at least encouraging when you consider the likes of Portugal and Belgium couldn't reach the Top 40 in their home countries. We'll make a call on whether we think Finland will qualify after seeing the rehearsals but for now, keep your stakes low and look out for information.
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