GERMANY

The German Final was held on February 25th at the Brainpool TV-Studio in Cologne, hosted by Barbara Schöneberger. Initially, Xavier Naidoo was internally selected, but a day later, due to a fan backlash over this decision, the broadcaster 'de-selected' him. It was then announced that there would be a straight forward 10 song final. The winner was chosen in two rounds of televoting - the first to select a top 3 and the second to select the winner. Going to Sweden will be Jamie-Lee Kriewitz with the song “Ghost”.

The song is a mid-tempo ballad with a dark backing truck. The easiest way to describe the song is to say it is that it has more than a passing resemblance to Rihanna’s “Umberella”. Jamie-Lee has a nice enough voice but it’s not really the song or her voice that people will be talking about. The song stars off dark with Jamie-Lee back lit by the projection of a full moon, as the lights come up you see her dressed a la Harajuku girl (think mid 2000s Gwen Stefani).  You also see the 4 backing singers and the laser tipped trees. The song progresses well although the second part of the chorus doesn’t seem to sit well with her voice, she seems more at home being in her higher range.

“The Voice” is becoming a very common story for Eurovision performance and Jamie-Lee is another alumnus of this programme having won the German version in 2015. In fact this song, which was released in December 2015, was actually her winner’s single and was therefore eligible to be part of the Eurovision selection. She is also known for her love of Japanese and Korean culture which has very much influenced her unique sense of style.

I am seriously on the fence on this performance. First of all I really don’t think very much of the song. For my general taste, it is too slow and plodding and for that reasons it seems to drag. Also, the visuals and the setup do not fit at all with the narrative of the song. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great that Jamie-Lee has the confidence to wear what she does but I think she needs to have soothing designed especially to be high on impact but less incongruous- but keep the headwear!. She does have something of the ‘Lena version 2’ about her which may also work in her favour. As this is in the big 5 Germany need not worry qualifying from the semis. I suspect this will do well enough and will probably be around the 10-15 place mark.

ARTIST – Jamie-Lee Kriewitz

SONG - Ghost

MUSIC - Thomas Burchia , Conrad Hensel, Anna Leyne

LYRICS – Thomas Burchia , Conrad Hensel, Anna Leyne