If you’re still a little confused about the Sammarinese entry, thinking that was really two separate songs merged into one big fanwank, here’s another one for you:
Not the fanwank part obviously.
Cause what runs in the almighty Eurovision wizard Ralph Ziegel’s blood, the Macedonian crew behind “Pred da se razdeni” hasn’t got a clue about. Mr. Ziegel gets the fact that if he pleases both the ballad loving nostalgic as well as the schlager loving fanboys craving for keychanges and a hands in the air disco stomper, he’s secured his legend status and unreserved praise for yet another year.
The Macedonians are kinda trying to pull off the same thing here, sucking up to different taste-buds, but it’s not nearly as well executed and we’re left with the feeling that someone’s getting their jaw stuck, trying to bite over a wee bit too much. The Eurovision back catalogue is packed with odd couples, and Esma & Lozano fits nicely into this category. We like the idea of the two of them doing something together, but instead of doing a duet it turns out to be something more similar to an art installation. It tickles our curiosity and we’re intrigued by it, but at the end of the day it’s nothing more than a WTF moment.
There’s just something inhibited here. The song never takes off and we’re sorry to say that it’s probably Lozano who’s holding it down. Esma is a fabulous diva and it’s a fantastic idea to bring her to Eurovision. We just wish she didn’t have to share the stage with someone who’s barely out of kindergarden and who’d probably won’t be able to match her track record if he’d lived to be over 100 years old.
Perhaps the Macedonians are being modest and worry they’ll piss off their neighbors by being too brash. Perhaps that’s why they ditched the, in our opinion, much stronger tune “Imperija”. But we’d say they should strut their stuff more. Take advantage of Esma’s radiant stage presence and go all in by making her the center of attention and letting her present a genuine Roma music entry. No nonsense and no compromises made.
We could have loved this entry, if different choices were made at the drawing board. Pleasing everybody is a tricky game. Very often you end up pleasing no one.
This is so bad. The original song called “Imperija” was soooooooooooooooo much better!!!! What’s wrong with them? They should have kept that one for Malmo!
Yep, this is far from as good as it could have been. Apparently they were all over the place in the rehearsal today. The days where FYR Macedonia was a dead cert for the final are definitely gone.