Armenia off the beaten track

OMG, did you know Kevin from Backstreet Boys moved to Armenia and is now the lead singer of a popular softrock band?

Neither did we. We had no idea he’s followed in Al Gore’s footsteps either and is now raising awareness on environmental issues. Is he aiming at a Nobel Peace Prize nomination? Or perhaps he’s only trying to win the Eurovision Song Contest, but that’s not gonna happen, like ever, with a song so unbelievably bland as this one.

It’s with songs like this we listen in disbelief and wonder how on earth it got to compete in ESC. Which douchebags gathered around a table, flipped through a pile of demos and reached the conclusion that, hell yeah, here’s a winner!

Suppose this is what often happens when an artist or a band popular on the domestic market is being internally selected and get to choose a handful of songs which people can vote on. The selected act is bound to be worried they’ll compromise their precious integrity and the voting public in the NF would probably vote massively for a three minute long recitation from the phone book, solely because they are already fans of the band and loved their first big selling record. It’s easy to lose sight of what will actually work with an international audience who has no idea who you are or of your previous merits. Besides the fact that the front man looks like the spitting image of a 90s boyband star, there’s not much to go on.

It has this certain whiff of hubris about it, waltzing out on that stage in Malmö with a pretentious song about saving the planet, written by a real celebrity from the UK, mind you. Not that these big and important issues haven’t been brought up before in ESC, Norway and Finland did it with great success, back in 1988 and 2011 respectively. But in a much more down to earth way, so to speak. It just felt more genuine and heartfelt than how Gor Sujyan and his band Dorians come across.

Armenia has lost its way during the past few years, maybe bummed out by their arch enemy’s growing success. We’re this close to suggesting they might want to use a certain travel guide book to find their way back, but that would be too lame, even for us. Of all the acts in the second semi final this is the only one we are absolutely sure will fail to qualify. Now there’s a sentence we’d never thought we’d utter about Armenia. Let’s hope the upcoming punch on the nose will motivate the Armenians to come back with a vengeance next year.

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