Review: Conan Osiris - Telemoveis - Portugal

TellyStats Rating:

1 Day YouTube Views: 78,095
1 Day YouTube Likes: 5,755

Portugal has had quite a ride the past two years at Eurovision, from a record-breaking victory in 2017 to last place in 2018. They return this year with Conan Osiris performing Telemoveis. With a face-mask straight out of Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance", a complex sound and an insane dance routine, there's a lot to unpack here.

There's certainly no shortage of unusual entries in Eurovision this year and Portugal definitely falls into that category. On first listen, I really didn't get this track at all, in such a weak year it's very difficult to work out which mediocre acts will stick at Eurovision and which won't. My opinion is that this routine would actually be more hard-hitting if the wackiness was toned down, the ridiculous dancing is a real distraction.

The song itself has Arabic influences with lots of random sound effects littered throughout, the sound effects in particular are overdone, lots of 'huh!'s and other background noises are seemingly inserted at random. One thing that a foreign-language track must do if it's to be successful at Eurovision is to send the message of the song in a different way. Portugal's track fails in this regard, I've listened multiple times and still have no idea what it's about. While many people online claim this song grows on you - most of Eurovision will only hear this once.

Portugal perform in the second-half of the first semi which is the more open of the two. We need to see more stats come in from the first and second rehearsals before we draw a solid conclusion as to whether or not it qualifies. My personal opinion is that it's a mess masquerading as avant-garde but it may do well with juries. With a second-half draw (alongside Iceland), the two eccentric acts may push other, more generic acts down the memory-hole for the viewing public. Furthermore, Portugal's social media stats have been impressive, with a higher-than-average rate of new followers than most other acts this year. Despite my dislike for the song, I'll call this a qualifier.

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