Lithuania, Moldova, Poland, San Marino

Lithuania: Stay by Monika Linkytė

Monika’s puffy sleeves in the video are only second to Finland’s amazing green bolero sleeves! And rather than belt ‘cha-cha-cha-cha’ at the top of her lungs, Monika and her backing singers incantate the spell: ‘Čiūto Tūto’ over and over again. But to no avail, the song is repetitive and lacks an energetic built up or any change of pace. And all that even though Monika can and will sing!

Review by Mariella Herberstein

Moldova: Soarele și Luna by Pasha Parfeni

Here is another attempt to enchant us with electro-folklore sounds: heavy davul-drum beats matched with an ethereal flute. There is pagan imagery: stags, planetary constellations, forests and they even threw in a set of twins! Pasha tries hard to create some otherworldly connection with the audience but is himself less than magnetic (despite the intense staring).

Review by Mariella Herberstein

Poland: Solo by Blanka

Blanka is solo, and boy, is she having a great time! She is dancing in a candy shop, hanging by the pool, driving a vintage sports car, DJing in a club, eating capsicum. Life does not get much better and that douchebag person who did Blanka dirty is probably regretting it big time! The song is quite enjoyable too, with a catchy reggae guitar riff, perfect for summer discotheques, but not for Eurovision finales.

Review by Mariella Herberstein

San Marino: Like an Animal by Piqued Jacks

Piqued Jacks have bought up all of San Marino’s terrycloth headbands for their big Eurovision entry! The sporty look is complemented with shorts and sneakers. The song starts with a great guitar riff and high-intensity vocals, but the energy quickly dissipates with the less exciting and somewhat disconnected verses. Possibly the most controversial lyrics of the competition (come on baby, I want to smell you like an animal), which is refreshing!

Review by Mariella Herberstein

United Kingdom, Georgia and Moldova

United Kingdom – Sam Ryder: SPACE MAN

Entirely pleasant to listen to, with a wonderful voice. The lyrics didn’t shout out to me, and I couldn’t detect much depth to them. He looks like a lovely chap, and I wish him all the best. This song however doesn’t have the necessary flamboyance and pizazz to rock Eurovision.

Review by Louis O’Neill

Georgia – Circus Mircus: Lock Me In

DJ Casper meets Run DMC, with cameos from other genres. A very welcome guest appearance from a sesame street puppet added to the experience. It’s a pity that this group didn’t make it in the circus realm, because unfortunately the music realm doesn’t seem to be a good match either. The costumes made up for the weak lyrics. Hoping for some extravagance in their performance on the night, with a nod to their circus past.

Review by Kiara L’Herpiniere

Moldova – Zdob şi Zdub & Advahov Brothers: Trenulețul

Hey Ho! Folklore and Rock’n’Roll!!! This performance is high energy, led by a masterful combination of accordion and violin. When the music is this good, and your feet are tapping this much, you don’t need to worry about the lyrics having a deeper meaning. This certainly makes me want to use the Maldovan train network, for an experience like this, I would pay top dollar. The song was great, the rhythm was catchy, the energy was contagious, and I love the sudden halt when the ticket inspector entered. Very much looking forward to seeing their stage presence, and hoping the carpet makes an appearance. Go Moldova!

Review by Kiara L’Herpiniere & Louis O’Neill

Malta, Moldova, Poland

Malta – Je Me Casse by Destiny

Destiny has no patience for stereotypes, being pushed around and similar shenanigans – she is out of here! Teaming up a huge voice with some attitude and a roaring 20s beat works a treat, top 10 for me! I do fear for that half naked man trapped with Destiny on stage., though.

Review by Mariella Herberstein

Moldova – SUGAR by Natalia Gordienko

Oh sure, I’d dance to this at 3am after plenty of G&Ts….but probably regret it the next morning.

Review by Mariella Herberstein



Poland – The Ride by RAFAŁ

This song is mostly about the sunglasses…. borrowing heavily from 80 pop synths the song is benign and perhaps a bit catchy…apparently everyone in Poland hates it. Maybe Eurovision will love it…maybe not.

Review by Mariella Herberstein

Belgium & Moldova

Belgium

Wake up by Eliot

A baby face, a baby voice, and some massive drums. Add a minimalist choreography and you have an idea of what the performance of ‘Wake up’ by the Belgian Eliot brings to the table. The lyrics say “Don’t want your lies, I need truth”, so here it goes: I am not that impressed. We came to expect great things from the country that invented french fries and Belgian beer, and I must say that the quality of this performance is more in line with Brussel sprouts to be fully honest. Belgium hasn’t been the winner in Eurovision since 1986, 14 years before Eliot was born, and I don’t think he is here to change that tradition.

Review by Bruno Buzatto

Moldova

Stay by Anna Odobescu

The performance by Anna Odobescu starts with her playing a white piano inside a large white house, but that only lasts exactly 9 seconds, after which the drama starts building up. She argues with her lover, he drives away in the rain and throws a tantrum over it. The melody is ok, and Anna’s voice is beautiful and powerful, but I can’t say the story told by the lyrics and the performance is original: it’s basically all about couple dramas where nobody knows how the argument started in the first place, but they are still trying to be “togetheeeeeer, foreveeeeeer”. Well, I guess this next level cliche might become trendy as a new ‘vintage’ theme? 

Review by Bruno Buzatto

Slovenia and Moldova

SloveniaLea Sirk: Hvala, ne!

Hi, my name is Scott. I’m a former member of the behavioural ecology lab before my career took a left turn and I went to medical school. Now, as a first-year medical student, I’m going to try and apply my brand new medical knowledge to diagnosing Eurovision contestants! Ok, let’s start with Slovenia.

Upon first observation of the patient, I notice she has a very unusual style of staccato movements with rigidity and tremor. Parkinson’s perhaps, but she lacks the hallmark slow-movement bradykinesia. Or maybe she’s just trying to dance with a bad case of ataxia.

Actually her movements seem very frenetic… hmm, perhaps a psych consult may be needed? The ever-shifting patterns of the floor beneath her mirror the typical hallucination patterns of an LSD trip. Later, she starts rap-battling with what appear to be homunculi representing facets of her personality. Either she’s tripping balls or I need to read more Freud and Jung!

That said, it’s always protocol to rule out organic brain disease before diagnosing psych conditions. The flashing lights are a classic epilepsy trigger, but maybe her flapping arms are really a case of asterixis, a common sign of hepatic encephalopathy wherein liver damage harms the brain. I can’t be sure about her, but this song is driving at least one of us to drink.

One thing that stands out is the pseudobulbar vaguely-lyrical noises emanating from her vocal cords. Laryngeal edema perhaps, or polyps? Hmm, I may need to draw some blood tests.

But wait! Something I overlooked! Her hair has a strange miscoloured streak going through it. That’s called poliosis. Usually it’s just a benign quirk of hair, but maybe, just maybe… I’ve got it! She has Vogt–Koyanagi–Harada Disease. It all makes sense! The disease also causes nerve palsies, which explains her dancing, hearing loss and tinnitus, which explains her singing, and eye damage, which explains her fashion choices. Sadly, the prognosis isn’t very good. Luckily, she’s already wearing a body bag.

Review by Scott Fabricant

 

MoldovaDoReDoS: My Lucky Day

Hello again, Scott here. So I’ve been told that I’m not allowed to diagnose people at a distance, some ethics thing called the Goldwater Rule (which is actually why no one has yet given an ICD-10 code to President Trump), so I guess I’m going to have to brush off my behavioural ecology skills and return to my roots. Ok let’s go!

Here we see the rare and endangered Moldovan Cool Ranch Doritos… sorry, that’s DoReDos, in their natural habitat of the coastal cliffs. How these delicate diurnal creatures will adapt to being in the artificial environment of the Eurovision stage, with a photoperiod of 12 hours of dark and 12 hours of strobe lights and disco balls remains to be seen.

Given that it is in fact the female who is large and colorful, I deduce that DoReDos are likely some type of arthropod. It is of note that the female is red and yellow, so I assume she is poisonous. Her large frilled hat she deploys seems very effective at startling predators. She also has slices of citrus fruit in her hair; are these food rewards to potential mates, or is she using the citric acid to defend her eggs?

Multiple male suitors sing and chirp to get her attention. This is what we refer to as lekking behaviour. The males compete with each other, trying to best woo the female with rhythmic droning vocalizations. While its known that talk is cheap, we assume this singing behaviour is costly and therefore an honest signal because… reasons?

However, further natural history observations reveal that the males appear to be cooperative breeders. They’re helping each other into the finals! The only other known species that engages in cooperative lekking is the Long-Tailed Manakin. Are Manakins and Doritos sister taxa? Or is this a case of convergent evolution? As always, more research is needed (but not by me, I have to get back to studying).

Review by Scott Fabricant

France, Moldova, Spain and Latvia

FranceRequiem by Alma

This years’ French entry is surely scandalous in France – its clear there has been far too much focus on this year’s election and they have sorely neglected their responsibilities as ambassadors of Europe. The song frankly suffers from confused cultural identity. Of all the nations, this is somewhat shocking as the French nation are so proud of their culture and yet this song has not a sliver of romance nor the welcomed gypsy chaos of a raging accordion in fact this song is a mile-long baguette from any beret. To be honest if I had not known this a French number before listening to it, I would have mistaken it as poor verson of a Gloria Estefan pop number. And to make things even more confusing Alma throws in three English words in the chorus! When asked about that Alma replied: “We decided to add English to the original version in order to reach a larger audience, I hope that if people can understand a part of the song they are more likely to like it!” Since when does France care about the rest of the world!! Don’t get me wrong Alma is very kind on the eye but I found my thoughts continually drifting off as the song is pretty dull and seemingly very long for Eurovision song. I do hope though Alma brings her shimmering jeans and they manage to have tango dancers dancing along the walls that would certainly increase the interest.

 Verdict = I’ve already forgotten the song…

Review by Matt Bulbert

 

MoldovaHey Mamma by Sunstroke Project

What do you get when you put youtube sensations ‘Epic sax guy’ and ‘Epic violin guy’ in the same room as a deadringer for Justin Timberlake? You end up with the band Sunstroke project with a pretty catchy little ditty about erotic baking. Well that’s what I gleamed from the film clip – the egg breaking sequence is priceless. It’s a real toe tapper and it has some classic elements such as Alexander Rybak inspired violin but with neon edges and a night wearing sunglasses sax player that Corey hart would have died for. My only real disappointment is that there is not an epic sax/violin solo off in the middle – it is surely a missed opportunity given the epicness of the band members. When asked what is one of the most interesting aspects of their entry they replied ‘Our performance looks like a small wedding on stage’. Small weddings are genuinely associated with Vegas and apparently, what happens in Vegas is meant to stay in Vegas so not sure who let them out nonetheless their offspring are bound to be epic.

 Verdict = Epic upon layers of Epicness

Review by Matt Bulbert

SpainDo it for your lover by Manuel Navarro

I will put it out there right now. This is just not Eurovision. This Jack Johnson inspired number is too mainstream for this competition. I just spent a field trip in North Queensland where every second song on the radio was Ed Sheeran and between those songs were announcers mentioning Ed Sheeran. I feel this song is commercial radios attempt to further promote Ed Sheeran. Oh by the way this song is not sung by Ed Sheeran but Manuel Navarro whose key inspiration is apparently – yes you guessed it – Ed Sheeran. His other apparent inspiration is Bob Dylan this is not is not so evident. The chorus is far too repetitive and frankly is pretty frustrating. He just states Do it for your lover over and over without actually tell us what IT is? Unless it turns out Manuel Navarro is actually Ed Sheeran I cannot see this one getting too far up the charts.

 Verdict = Ed Sheeran will sell another million records on his way to total world domination…oh and this song will tank badly at the Eurovision song contest

Review by Matt Bulbert

 

LativaLine by Triana Park

Well Triana Park have truly brought it to Eurovision this year for Lativa. This Kate Bush-Bjork-esque inspired pop number is sophisticated and musically intriguing for an electronica-drum-guitar combination. It’s not a toe-tapper that will bring the house down but it is surprisingly intellectually engaging. And as a result, they have not a hope in hell of winning Eurovision. Although according to their profile they love banana pancakes with Nutella and we all know I loathe bananas and consider them to be the devil’s fruit which means their direct connection to the devil potentially gives them some hope even in hell.

 Verdict = Quirky, intriguing and cool so not a chance of winning

Review by Matt Bulbert

Moldova, Montenegro and Sweden

Moldova
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Falling Stars by Lidia Isac

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So, I love anything astronomical, and Lidia serves up swirling galaxies on a bed of Balkan disco beat. I predict this will be on rotation at Club Med all around the Black Sea this summer (sadly Moldova has geographically been denied access to the Black Sea). Just a word of warning: listening to this more than three times will open a black hole in your heart!

Review by Mariella Herberstein

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Montenegro
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The Real Thing by Highway

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Is this the real thing? Oh….that is quite disappointing then. The best thing about this performance is the dancer: a resolute, if not slightly angry young woman who, like I, seems to be quite disappointed with this entry from Montenegro.

Review by Mariella Herberstein

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Sweden
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If I were sorry by Frans

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Where was the Swedish Tourist Board when this video was made? Sweden has never looked so derelict.  Frans will attempt to win Eurovision glory back to back for Sweden, but I don’t know if teenage emo with a bit of ‘meh’ will win over the voting grandmothers of Eurovisionland.  Even if Frans is not sorry,  I surely am!

Review by Mariella Herberstein