Review: Anna Odobescu - Stay - Moldova

TellyStats Rating:

1 Day YouTube Views: 43,958
1 Day YouTube Likes: 1,740

On the back of two top-10 finishes in the past two years, Moldova brings us Stay sung by Anna Odobescu. A classic power ballad reminiscent of any Celine Dion song you can think of. What's clear is that unlike years past, Moldova won't be troubling the left-hand side of the results table come the day of the final. Despite that though, I feel I'm a lone voice in thinking this track is actually quite enjoyable.

Perhaps I'm simply showing my age, and of course solo-female power ballads with the final key change are ten-a-penny in Eurovision, but I found "Stay" to hold decent potential. The lyrics and melodic structure are simple as can be and the chorus is easily something that the Eurovision stadium audience can get involved in with gusto. Anna has shown herself to be a competent singer and I'm sure she'll deliver a decent recreation of the track live in May.

Moldova do also have form when it comes to mediocre songs, I poo-pooed last year's entry by DoReDos as fairly cheap pop, but they absolutely smashed it with an inventive staging concept that elevated the entire performance. While Anna and her power ballad will almost certainly not get the same level of treatment due to the nature of the song, it'd be interesting to see if the Moldovan delegation come up with something to differentiate it from other tracks.

To make the task more difficult, Moldova perform in the first half of their semi-final, a semi-final that includes Russia, Sweden, Switzerland and The Netherlands, all of whom have strong stats across multiple platforms. With that in mind, it's looking like a very big ask indeed to get Moldova past their semi - as such, despite quite liking it, I'll have to put Moldova's 2019 entry down as a no-qualifier. The YouTube stats back this up, among the lowest views and likes on the 1 day stats of any track yet released.

Should Moldova "Stay" past the semi-finals? Let us know what you think in the comments below.