FYR MACEDONIA

The Macedonian entry was unveiled on March 7th via a song presentation live on MRKTV. Back in November they announced that Kaliopi would once again be representing the former Yugoslav republic at Eurovision. The song she will be singing is called “Дона” (Dona)

This is typical Eurovision ballad with slight Balkan and Italian influences. The song is in her mother tongue of Macedonian. It stars off quite blandly, in particular the tune is very unpredictable and isn’t easy to track. The bridge between the verse and chorus though is very pretty and has a lovely lilting quality. The chorus on the other hand is more bombastic and dramatic and leads into a lovely orchestral part. This has a whiff of Pachabel’s Canon about it but then leads back into a dreary verse. The ending is extremely weak and far too sudden for a song of this genre and style.

Kaliopi has been sincing since she was a child having won the Zlatno Slavejče Festival in 1976. Her main break came with the formation of the band “Kaliopi” with Romeo Grill where they released a number of successful albums. She took a break away from music when the duo disbanded and returned in 1996 winning

Skopje Fest and had the chance to represent Macedonia at Eurovision. But during the one and only non-televised audio pre-selection, Macedonia was eliminated from the Contest. After a successful solo career of 15 years MRT invited Kaliopi to represent Macedonia in Eurovision 2012 in Baku, Azerbaijan. Kaliopi performed the song "Crno i belo" qualified from the second semi-final and was placed thirteenth in the final and has become a firm fan favourite.

This was a video presentation so one can only guess at what this might turn into live. The video was a bit amateurish and some of the backgrounds are really badly superimposed. Personally I find this song very boring. It has taken me several listens to get into the structure and even then I still cannot get my head around the verses. I would guess that she would be able to really pack a punch with this song and will go down well in the hall. Looking at the country breakdown of semi-final 2 this could struggle – partially due to the language barrier, partially neighbourly voting, partially due to the ballad heavy make up of the show. As much as Kaliopi is a great personality and great fun during ESC week, I cannot see this qualifying.

ARTIST – Kaliopi

SONG – Dona

MUSIC – Romeo Grill
LYRICS – Kaliopi