Baku 2012?

We might as well set this headline as default for every year we will post a review of Azerbaijan’s Eurovision entry. We just have to remember to push it one year forward. Because we take it for granted that the Azeri’s will deliver a top contender and this year is no exception. We bet Ell & Nikki will have no trouble making the top 10 in the Saturday final, but is it really a good song? That’s an entirely different question.

Running Scared is a beautifully crafted duet, and it’s so easy on the ear it’s hard not to take a liking to it. It sounds modern, and it is by no means picked up from the bottom of the album filler drawer, we can easily picture a couple of superstars topping the charts worldwide with this kind of material. But it hasn’t this instant winning potential written all over it either, something is missing.

The problem lies with the Ell & Nikki combo. They are so wrong for each other. It’s like Chanée & n’evergreen all over again, no chemistry whatsoever. We cringe by the prospect of watching these two on stage in Düsseldorf, snuggling up against each other, trying desperately to convince us how much in love they are. We don’t believe them for a second. Ell looks absolutely adorable, and Nikki is of course strikingly beautiful, but we can’t help noticing that there’s a certain age difference. Perhaps it’s just us, but to be perfectly honest we must admit that she kinda looks like his mother and not his love interest. And yeah we know, she’s not that old, but just think about it, with botox and all that other crap you can inject into your body nowadays, women in their 40s can easily pass as much younger. And have you seen the Azeri President’s wife? Crikey, she looks hotter than her own daughters! That’s some scary shit, you know.

Maybe we’ll be accused of being jealous of Nikki, but we’d say they would be better off without her in the picture. The song would lose the extra dimension that making it a duet adds, but when it’s not working out that well, why bother? We love Ell’s expressive, soft voice and do not care that much for Nikki’s more piercing tone, which quickly starts to bug us. With Ell alone on stage we would not have to worry about the potentially embarrassing chemistry issue and concentrate fully on just enjoying a nice ballad. So sorry Nikki, red card from the GEE jury, you’re out.