What about those Magyars?

Hungary is back! Have we missed them? Hm, not really, they have been notoriously unfaithful to the contest since their debut back in 1994, and we are not overly keen on the promotion of blues as a musical genre in Eurovision, to put it mildly. We did find Zoli Ádok’s accomplishment of outgaying the rest of Europe during the 2009 contest in Moscow rather impressive though.

So when we heard that the Hungarian broadcaster announced their comeback for 2011, it didn’t raise our expectations for a real contender. Perhaps that’s why we are so flabbergasted by what they have managed to cough up, cause this song is actually nothing less but brilliant! It’s all so nicely crafted together, far from sounding sterile and overproduced. It has a touch of the 80s, like the jaunty Whitney Houston riff which is done with both sophistication and reverence, making it feel like it’s not a rip-off but a tribute to the former Queen of Pop. Add a dash of the 90s and mix it up with a state of the art contemporary pop sound and you’ll end up with a front runner in snatching the ESC trophy out of Lena’s hands come May.

Kati Wolf’s soulful voice gives the song a perfect edge and she resists going OTT in expressing the “I am hurt, but still standing strong” theme of the song. We love the whole driving alone in my car thing going on in the video, and the understated and subtle display of a few of Budapest’s major tourist attractions fits into the story and does not look out of place.

We seriously can’t think of anything that can go wrong here. A minor reservation must be that we really don’t know much about Kati’s ability to translate this slick studio version into a convincing live performance in Düsseldorf. But somehow we’re not that worried. She seems too confident to mess it up. So we’d say go for it, and we wouldn’t be surprised if this is the winner in Semi-final 1. And as long as she doesn’t pip our own Stella out of the top 10 that’s perfectly fine by us!

One comment

  1. I only discovered this gem today… Drama! Running mascara! Groovy dancemoves!
    What about my life?
    What about my dreams?
    What about how I feel?
    What about my needs?
    I cant hold back, I cant go back, I must be free!
    What about how I feel?
    What about my life ?

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