The Bulgarians decided to send Sofi Marinova on to the Eurovision stage this year, and it looks like we have a real warhorse on our hands here. With a fierceness not seen since Malena Ernman’s fright fest in Moscow, Sofi charges at us with full force from the first techno beat. She scares the crap out of us, which is quite ironic really since she sings about the all embracing power of love. In a number of different languages as well, mind you, the oldest trick in the Eurovision rule book used to wheedle your way into a few extra votes.
We’re not sure what to make of this anachronism of a song. We guess we would have thought it was wicked back in 1994, when just about the coolest thing we could think of was hanging out at illegal rave parties wearing Doc Martens and waving glow sticks. Maybe that sort of thing is still hip and happening in Bulgaria, we dunno. We get the feeling that it will appear as quite dated in Baku, and that there won’t be enough thirty somethings who in an attack of 90s nostalgia will spend a few pennies to cast a couple of votes. We would have perhaps done just that after a substantial number of G&T’s under our belts, but lets face it, who can be bothered getting wasted in front of the telly on a regular Thursday night at our age.
On a positive note we clearly appreciate Sofi’s ESC Diva potential. As the official Youtube clip only contains a studio recorded voice over and since she didn’t even sing live in the Bulgarian national final, we have no idea how she will sound like in Baku. But supposedly she is famed for her extreme five-octave vocal range. Good grief, we cannot even begin to imagine how potentially terrific or terrible that can be. And yay to introducing Romani language in ESC, that will have to be for the first time, right? ESC geeks, please feel free to correct us if we’re wrong.
I can see why you’re not a fan of this song, but I have unlimited love (see what I did there??) for it!! Sure, Sofi’s a little screechy, but I can live with that. I like it better than “Na Inat” personally. Each to their own.
We fell for Poli Genova’s spite last year, shame she didn’t make it to the final. Sofi’s unlimited love we don’t care much for. But we’re happy to see that she has some support though!
I am in awe of your witty and informative site, but still; the Czech Republic sent a character (Radoslav “gipsy” Banga) three years ago, parts of the lyrics are supposedly in Romani. Wisely, the Czechs have so far failed to return to the contest, albeit any entry might leave a better impression than that infamous Aven Romale. I am in moral agony when posting this, because the honour of introducing a new language to ESC should befall a more worthy candidate.
Ah, we knew it, of course it had been done by someone else already! Many thanks for pointing this out to us. We are very proud to have such knowledgeable readers! And we quite agree with regards to the last Czech entry to date, that was pure horror on wheels.