Review: PAENDA - Limits - Austria

TellyStats Rating:

1 Day YouTube Views: 94,229
1 Day YouTube Likes: 2,599

After last year's surprise success with Cezar Sampson topping the Jury votes and finishing in 3rd place, you may expect Austria to come back with their eyes on the prize. However, after listening to 2019's entry, "Limits" by Paenda, it's clear they Austrian delegation are biding their time.

Sung in a high-pitched Ellie Goulding/Janet Devlin-style whisper, Limits is a simple, emotional ballad (so emotional in fact, the singer wipes a tear from her eye in the music video in a definitely non-contrived way). I personally can't stand these kinds of breathy songs, as I wrote about Portugal last year - songs sung in this style are generally done so as to maximise the emotional appeal of a track whilst displaying the minimum of singing ability. Portugal's Claudia Pascoal sung a song in a similar style in 2018 and placed last.

I feel any debate as to whether "Limits" can qualify is immediately crushed by the fact that Austria are singing in the second semi-final where perhaps 3-4 places are realistically up for grabs outside the top-tier competitors. Even compared to many of the tracks in the 'Maybe' pile, Austria still fall short, "Limits" might work in the charts, or in the soundtrack to a movie - but perhaps not Eurovision.

Like Belarus, Austria's YouTube Likes/Views ratio is very low indeed. The social media followers stats are some of the lowest of any of this year's competitors and there's been no iTunes activity. Once again, a fairly easy-to-call no qualifier.

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