Finally Azerbaijan actually deserves to win. Here’s Dilara Kazimova for ya:
Since their eurovisional debut in 2008, The Land of Fire has provided the grand audiences of the world with predictable, yet thorough and pretty high quality performances. They have no doubt been aiming for victory every single year, and for that we salute them while we try to forget about all those countries that don’t seem to give a shit, our own well included.
Still, we have not quite approved and it’s not due to politics. After all our country’s oil money is a little too well invested over there for us to be on our high horses. It’s just that former entries have seemed a bit too polished and prefabricated. Calculation will only get you this far (by our standards anyway, they did actually manage to win by something we’ve already forgotten, mind you).
That’s why we’re so pleasantly surprised by this year’s entry. Start a Fire feels very genuine indeed and has a beautiful, well composed melody. Dilara Kazimova presents us with one of the best voices this year and will be a serious challenge to our very own Carl Espen in the most serious and troubled artist contest, which is generally a good thing when delivering a melodramatic ballad that’s not about your mother.
We are also big fans of the flute thing they’ve got going. We hope it’s a traditional instrument. At least it reminds us of Azer’s roots by the warm Caspian sea instead of them trying to convince us they all grew up next to Santa Monica Beach. We ALWAYS prefer the former when musical influence is to be distributed. Good thing the composers also figured out that elements is what’s hot this year, and we suppose they will share the responsibility for B&W Hallerne’s camp fire with Malta. We expect nothing more than fabulousness from Azer’s crowd funded stage show either, which might just get them all the way to the well deserved top this year.
Guess there’s nothing to risk in a victory when you have a country full of people that would gladly give up their home and living in order for their country to host yet another international event. Or how did that story go again? Let’s find out in Baku 2015.
Everyone seems to love this and it will have no problem in qualifying but I think this is actually Azerbaijan’s WEAKEST entry since 2011! I think it will still be a solid top 10 but this is nowhere near as good as Farid’s entry last year…I don’t think we will be going back to Baku anytime soon
We’re not particularly keen on heading back to Baku anytime soon either. In fact it would probably be a good thing for the competition’s sake if some other country than Azerbaijan or the Nordics win. But we think it’s a good song that deserves to do well!