Day: May 8, 2018

Posted on

Ukraine and Sweden

UkraineMelovin: Under the Ladder

The live-rehearsal version of Melovin’s “Under the Ladder” is the story of man’s desperate search for a key, which doesn’t bode well for this X-Factor Ukraine alumnus come crunch time. The moody (and shaky) verse builds to a punchy chorus that admittedly has some pick-up and an appropriate number of “woah oh oh uh”s, but it’s too little too late for my money.

Review by Tom White

SwedenBenjamin Ingrosso: Dance You Off

The pressures of Eurovision are well known to select for mimetic extremes, yet the fidelity of Benjamin Ingrosso still took me by surprise. In a direct channelling of Justin Bieber & The Weekend, with a dash of Daft Punk underneath, the 20 year old Swedish national delivers the electro-pop banger “Dance You Off” (a threat? a promise?). The vocal style isn’t for everyone, such as me, but the rolling funk-bass is worth the price of admission, and there’s no denying the piece is on trend. I predict another strong finish for Sweden this year, but not enough to really stand out from the crowd.

Review by Tom White

Posted on

FYR Macedonia and Portugal

FYR Macedonia

Well where should I start? The video amazed me: well studied dance moves, a guitarist who definitly had some kind of model career (how else would he manage to be that natural in front of a camera) and a beautiful pink latex dress worn by the lead singer lying on a yellow bed showing us impressivly why one should never ever use those coulors for a powerpoint presentation.

The song caught me with his energetic reggae beat right from the beginning. The lyrics tell the story of a deep, emotional relationship with her soulmate…obviously in other, slightly sexualised words. The end of the song (we’ll be lost and we’ll be..) leaves the audience full of questions how this sentence and the love story might end and keeps you thinking about the song for much longer.

It has all it needs, now lets see how far they make it.

Review by Macelo Christian

Portugal

The position of the host is always a difficult one. The expectations are high and everybody keeps an eye on you… Well, at least if you are not song writer and composer Isaura, who wrote this song. If you saw the video you might have noticed the person in the background that is literally hiding by turning here back to the audience and has like 20 seconds to sing, before she turns her back again. Even in the picture she is in the background, like it is part of the contract, that she has to appear on the profile photo, so at least keep her blurry.

I mean its understandable if you’re on stage with superstar Claudia Pascoal, who has participated (!) at two national music contest and plays guitar since she turned 15.

Well despite these equality issues we’ll see if a very emotional song combined with advanced gardening skills will be enough for Portugal in their home game.

Review Marcelo Christian