HUNGARY

The Hungarian Final was held on February 27th at the MTV Studios in Budapest, hosted by Csilla Tatár & Levente Harsányi. Before the final there were 3 quarter finals and 2 semi finals to whittle down the long list of 30 down to a final of 8. The winner was chosen through two rounds of voting. In the first round the jury’s top 4 were chosen, whilst in the second round televoters would chose which of the 4 would go to Sweden. The winning song was “Pioneer” sung by Freddie.

The song is effectively a power ballad but has a very drum filled backing track, emphasised by the drummer/dancer with him on stage.  The verses are quite bland and they flow into a whistling infused bridge which finally leads into a very strong and powerful chorus. Freddie, along with the dancer, is joined on stage by 3 backing singers who have light up sticks – possibly to mirror what the dancer has. Freddie certainly hasn’t dressed up for the occasion – or attempted to brush his hair – and it doesn’t give of the best of first impressions.

Freddie (real name Gábor Alfréd Fehérvári ) took part in “Risng Star”,the Hungarian version of Israel’s “HaKokhav HaBa” which took place in 2014/15. Freddie came a respectable 4th which was enough for him to get a record deal and start releasing his own music. His first song “Mary Joe” was a domestic summer hit in 2015 and his winning song Pioneer is only his second single release.

This is really quite bland. The chorus is very strong and has a good melody and I also understand that the song is trying to tell a story but there are too many parts that just don’t work. The whistling part in the middle is so affected and fake it sounds awful and certainly doesn’t fit in with the storytelling aspect of the song. Freddie’s voice is too scratchy for this song- I want to hear the words and most of the time I can’t. Although I understand that the drummer is trying to emphasise the drum beat of the song, he is quite off-putting, especially when he doesn’t drum half the time! This will struggle as it is in the first half of semi 1 and as there are already some strong songs in the second half, I don’t see this qualifying at all.

ARTIST - Freddie

SONG - Pioneer

MUSIC - Borbála Csarnai

LYRICS - Borbála Csarnai