RUSSIA

The internally selected Russian song was presented to the public on  February 24th on Russian Channel One during the news programme Vremja. The song "What if" is sung by Dina Garipova.

The song was presented in the form of a documentary style music video, so no live performance. The song is a ballad with modern sound but a very old fashioned ending. The lyrics are a little bit on the twee side and the name of the song is actually not very prominent in the song's structure. In the video Dina does not do very much apart from stand and sing so it gives us little clue as to what she might have in store in Malmo.

The song, which is performed in English, starts off very quietly but grows as the song progresses. The song is nice to listen to but the words are hard to pick up after just one listen - you need a few bites at the cherry to sing along. About 2 minutes in there is a very awkward key change which could sound awful if out of time or out of tune.

However as soon as the song was previewed, music aficionados made accusations of plagiarism. In the most bizarre turn possible, people pointed towards a Hear'say album track called "Carried Away". Who would have thought the words Hear'say , plagiarism and Eurovision would ever be in the same sentence? Having listened to the track in question, the two choruses do share a lot in common although the verses are completely different.

This is a very safe choice by Russia - a little too safe. There seem to be far too many ballads being sent and I fear that many of them are going to mash up into one and not get very many votes at all. It would've been nice to take something a bit more ethnic and Eastern European sound to it. Being Russia, this will almost definitely qualify with ease (although it really shouldn't) but it is nowhere near a winner.

Artist - Dina Garipova

Song - What if
Music - Gabriel Alares, Joakim Björnberg, Leonid Gutkin
Lyrics - Gabriel Alares, Joakim Björnberg, Leonid Gutkin