Tag: Croatia

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Albania, Croatia and Germany

Albania – Ronela Hajati: Sekret

Combining traditional Albanian drum and pipes with reggae beats and a very melodious chorus, Ronela is throwing down the musical gauntlet – just not sure anyone will pick it up. As in every year, Albania is testing our patience with this cacophony of sounds: big, bold and relentless. And as in every year, it won’t go well… no further than the semi-finals, I am afraid!

Review by Mariella Herberstein

Croatia – Mia Dimšić: Guilty Pleasure

This stripped back performance of Mia and her guitar is sweet, authentic and speaks of guilty desires. While the sound leans heavily on Taylor Swift, the real risk is that it could just be drowned out by the other big, ostentatious on-stage performances. Still, good enough for the finales!

Review by Mariella Herberstein

Germany – Malik Harris: Rockstars

A strong, emotional and heartfelt start that gives way to an angry, frustrated and lengthy soliloquy (Eminem-esque), rather than the expected high energy crescendo and key-change. While Malik gets an automatic entry into the finales, he won’t be able to break Germany’s Eurovision drought over the last 7 years not ranking above 25 (the exception being a 4th place in 2018).

Review by Mariella Herberstein

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Lithuania, Iceland & Croatia

Lithuania – Discoteque by The Roop

I picked Lithuania to review thanks to their catchy band name – The Roop. Apparently, it means “to shout”, in case you were wondering. I started watching their video, Discoteque, and was pleasantly surprised to hear some cool blues music, so I turned off my Spotify. 

The Roop are clearly students of signalling theory. Their clothes and set feature high contrast and bright colours, so I am pretty sure they are warning me about something, although I couldn’t quite decide what. The video is quietly humorous, I didn’t hear a single voice auto-tuner, and they looked like they were having fun. And just between you and me, they were singing about the only way I will ever dance!

Verdict: this disco doesn’t suck.

Review by Jim McLean

Iceland – 10 years by Daði og Gagnamagnið

Oh my…what a great electro-pop-gem Iceland has in store for us this year! This little ditty has my toes tapping. Dressed in Power Rangers pyjamas, Daði and his daggy crew combine possible the worst choreography with flat hair and keytars. I just love it –douze points from me! And the official video is super sweet!

Review by Mariella Herberstein

Croatia – Tick-Tock by Albina

Albina and her ponytail mean business – frankly she’s had enough…someone has given her bad loving and now she’s in a war zone!  All this anger is delivered in staccato, floating on a heavy base. The verse of Croatian thrown in at the end is a bonus! Still, no further than the semi-finales, I should think.

Review by Mariella Herberstein

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Azerbaijan, Croatia & Estonia

Azerbaijan

Truth by Chingiz

I am not sure Azerbaijan is doing Eurovision right. Chingiz delivers a surprisingly entertaining and danceable pop number that could be enjoyed twice, perhaps even three times. No wailing, no ethno-sounds and no key-change. I might even forgive the chest rug – definitely in the top 10!

Review by Mariella Herberstein

Croatia

The Dream by Roko

Roko had a dream – he found the cast off scores from the Phantom of the Opera, turned them into a shouty and overly dramatic yet soppy ballad with which he bombed out of the Eurovision semis. Someone send Andrew Lloyd Webber a shredder!

Review by Mariella Herberstein

Estonia

Storm by Victor Crone

Hobby meteorologist Victor has a simple message: a modest song with inane lyrics that will be over in 3’02” and forgotten by 3’23”. Thank you Victor.

Review by Mariella Herberstein

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Azerbaijan and Croatia

AzerbaijanAisel: X My Heart

Before I begin, I’ll say this review comes from a genuine Eurovision newbie. I didn’t know what it was, didn’t understand the purpose, or the fuzz around it, now I know … people are singing.

So Azerbaijan has a song that does mention the word “nation”, so I guess that’s good for an international contest, no? This way they might be able to recycle the song if they host an international sports event. The songs for those things are never the greatest, but a couple of lines can stick to your mind … “I’ll never sto o o o op, luna moon me up”

I think that’s my way of saying that there was a bit of “catchy” in the song but nothing more. On second thought,  I think it might be because it sort of resembles a mixture of all Kapy Terry (avoiding any copyright infringements here) songs.

From the video, I enjoy the park or maybe botanical garden where it was filmed. Something to be careful about is that even though the dancers seem to be improvising most of their movements -no very impressively- the jump on minute 2:14 was a real hazard to my physical integrity when I tried to test its apparent low complexity.

Good luck Azerbaijan, thanks for being my first Eurovision experience and “never sto o o op, Luna moon me up” … I guess?

Review by Alfonso Aveces-Aparicio

CroatiaFranka: Crazy

Not even 11 seconds into the video and all of the classic clichés have been shown!! Underwater scene, backlit smoke and sand drawing! Oh, wait there’s more on second 13, there appears a bunch of humans as stairs!

Well, that was it, after those first exciting clichés, the song goes flat. After reading the lyrics, I could find the chorus; I believe Ga Ga would be a bit disappointed. Around 2010 I started to think that all pop songs sounded the same, then I took it back when 2-years ago all radio hits seriously begun to sound the same. But now c’mon I’m pretty sure I heard this before somewhere.

I might be doing this thing wrong, I read comments about the video, and everyone seems so excited, I couldn’t even watch it more than three times. After all, this is just my second review ever for Eurovision. So I will add that: Franka does seem to have a nice voice. So good luck Croatia, maybe one day I’ll understand what this is really about.

Review by Alfonso Aveces-Aparicio

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Azerbaijan, Croatia, Serbia

AzerbaijanSkeleton by Dihaj

Azerbaijan has a short but successful history at Eurovision, winning in 2011 and controversially coming 2nd in 2013, perhaps due to an inability to seduce the pivotal Scandinavian bloc. Since then they have been on a bit of a slide and I’m not sure that Diana Hajiyeva, aka Dihaj, can rectify that. That is unless the Datsun 120Y from the video appears on stage, then who knows? Perhaps the nostalgia vote? Or even the sympathy vote? Buy a decent car Dihaj, you can pick up a 180B on Gumtree for $895 (negotiable), last driven in 1995.

Review by Matt Bruce

 

CroatiaMy friend by Jacques Houdek

This one is great value, two songs in one, part light opera (even sung in Italian) and part soppy pop song, with bonus inspirational talking at the start. Jacques Houdek isn’t called “Mr Voice” (perhaps the subject of the Johnny Farnham hit or did Johnny just predict his existence?) for nothing, he has impressive vocal range. It will be interesting to see if he can pull it off on stage, worth watching for the prospect of a car crash. Otherwise, nothing to see here move on.

Review by Matt Bruce

 

SerbiaIn too deep by Tijana Bogićević

If inane lyrics are your thing, look no further than Tijana Bogićević’s In Too Deep. Actually, you probably wouldn’t be reading this if you cared too much about such things. Anyway, Tijana spends much of the song attempting to rhyme “deep” with “deep”, I dunno about this – I reckon using the same word doesn’t count and it isn’t as if there aren’t heaps of options; peep, creep, Meryl Streep. Apparently, this is Tijana’s second crack at Eurovision, she was a backing vocalist in 2011, that song finished a respectable 14th, In Too Deep will be lucky to do so well.

Review by Matt Bruce

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Czech Republic, Croatia, Belgium and Cyrpus

Czech Republic
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I stand by Gabriela Gunčíková

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The Czech Republic easily has one of the best videos in this year’s Eurovision round. Some cool stop-go motion, LED shenanigans and in the end, Gabrielle’s head pokes out of a sea of flowers. Not just any flowers, but flowers you’d give your mum for mother’s day – pink and purple daisies!

The song is less impressive, admittedly, it is well sung, but it has the ‘out of the can’ feel to it. The lyrics don’t help either…here is a taste: I’ve worn the path – I’ve hit the wall – I’m the one who rose and fall.

Would a key change have helped – no doubt!

Review by Mariella Herberstein

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Croatia
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Lighthouse by Nina Kraljić

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Nina is the Croatian equivalent of Bjork and I like it! She is clearly an extraterrestrial, marvelling at humanity, getting rained on and looking up time on a pocket watch. And I think the relationship with her hairdresser is not the best. So what if the song sounds a bit very much like the Cranberry’s ‘Linger’? It has a key change and all is forgiven! Definitely the finales for me!

 

Review by Mariella Herberstein

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Belgium
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What’s The Pressure by Laura Tesoro

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Disco is back – booyah!!! Laura’s  ‘What’s the pressure’ splices samplers from every great danceable song into a 3 minute sequence, starting with the baseline from ‘Another one bites the dust’. But never mind the plagiarism – I think this could actually work and stand out from a rather vanilla Eurovision field this year.

There are sequin sweatshirts, torn blue jeans and excellent curls! I am predicting the finals for Laura and her gang of disco larcenists!

Review by Mariella Herberstein

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Cyprus
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Alter Ego by Minus One

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Look, I am trying to love Cyprus, but every year they are making it more and more difficult for me! Bearded men in black-hooded coats, howling with coyotes under high voltage electricity towers. I’d be surprised if anyone could fit more cliches into a single song:

  • Ill advised chin hair – check
  • Mysterious lady in a black dress – check
  • Cool car (Mustang) – check
  • Overly enthusiastic drummer – check
  • Non-sensical lyrics – check

Despite my misgivings, I have a sinking feeling that this one might slip through to the finales, mostly because the rest of the entries are so utterly boring….

Review by Mariella Herberstein