The quality of Azerbaijan’s Eurovision entries has deteriorated proportionally with the plummeting oil prizes over the past couple of years. A mere coincidence perhaps, but we assume hiring the best Swedish songwriters doesn’t come cheap. Besides, with the current state of the country’s economy the Azeris seem not in a hurry to host the contest again anytime soon.
The shift from the “in it to win it” approach to the “we’ll cough up a mediocre song just in time for the EBU submission deadline and hope it scrapes through to the Grand Final” is rather remarkable. Some might argue that the events leading up to Azerbaijan’s impressive Eurovision track record are of a dubious nature, but there’s no getting around the fact that they’ve served us quite a few killer tracks which undoubtedly deserved to finish on the left-hand side of the scoreboard. We miss those days when the Land of Fire was on top of their game and went all in for a win.
Listening to this year’s entry it becomes all too obvious that the Azeris should consider themselves lucky if they manage to keep their perfect qualification rate after May 10. Miracle is formulaic pop at its most unimaginative. It’s so vanilla we can’t even be bothered to disliking it.
Samra is sweet and pretty, but judging by a couple of her appearances in the pre-contest fan events she’s vocally challenged, to put it nicely. We figure a major improvement in the form of a miracle must take place before the rehearsals start in Stockholm, or else she will be completely slashed by the juries.
So dear Azerbaijan, who are you and what have you done with the real Azerbaijan? The way things are going right now we have a hard time recognizing you. Let us know if you want to talk about it over a bottle of whiskey we trust you to provide us with in Stockholm. After all you can’t be THAT broke.
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