MOLDOVA

The Moldovan Final was held on February 25th at the TRM TV Studios in Chisinau. The day before the final there was a semi-final which reduced the long list of 14 to a final of 8. The winner was chosen by televoting (50%) and an "expert" jury (50%). The winners were Suntroke Project and “Hey Mamma”

The SunStroke Project is made up of a main singer, a violinist and possibly the most famous man from Moldova – Epic Sax Guy!. They are centre stage dressed extremely smartly in black suits. To their left are three female backing singers, dressed in white flowing slitted dresses, veils and small bouquets – signifying a wedding. Throughout the song dance they do a strange one-legged dance routine. Behind them are flashing blocks of light, followed by of concentric circles growing bigger and smaller. During the chorus, the words “Hey Mamma!” also appear. At the end of the song, the backing dancers join the band on the main stage and participate in a full on “Running Man” dance routine. At the end of the song the backing singers turn around and throw their bouquets into the audience.

There is a strong bassline to the song which repeats throughout. The instrumentation to the song is very minimal and is mainly punctuated by the sax parts after the chorus. The chorus is very repetitive and every memorable but goes on just long enough not to become boring and earwormy. The song repeats itself quite quickly – you get through a verse, chorus and a sax instrumental just under the minute mark, Because there are so few layers to the song’s production, every part of the song can be heard and so the backing singers efforts need to be absolutely on point. If I had one major criticism it would be that the song doesn’t really grow to a big finish but I guess all of the build up is in the visuals.

SunStroke Project represented Moldova, with Olia Tira, back in 2010 with a performance (especially by the sax player) that went viral around the world. Although less spectacular, this is a much better song. ”Run Away” was much more in your face in terms of production and visuals than this. This performance is very understated and just about works. The component parts work altogether, but probably would not work as a stand-alone memory devise. This is a very modern, summery and radio-friendly song and I think if this did well in the contest, they would do good business in the charts around Europe.

This is a breath of fresh air from the female ballads. It has a certain charm and tongue in cheek-ness that will appeal to the voters at home but also have a contemporary feel that will charm the jury. This should easily qualify and might even be a top 10 finish.

ARTIST – SunStroke Project

SONG – Hey Mamma!

MUSIC - Alina Galetskaya, Anton Ragoza, Sergey Stepanov, Sergei Yalovitsky

LYRICS - Alina Galetskaya, Anton Ragoza, Sergey Stepanov, Sergei Yalovitsky