ROMANIA

The Romanian Final was held on March 5th at the TVR TV Studios in Bucharest, hosted by Iuliana Tudor & Dan Helciug. Before the final there was a semi-final where the long list of 15 was reduced to 10, which was done by a 5-person jury. However during the final, the winner was solely chosen by televoting. The wiiners were Ilinca and Alex Florea with “Yodel It”

The stage show was rather simple mainly due to a quite minialistic stage. Alex starts off in almost darkness and as the song begins the lights come up then Ilinca appears. The lights flash different colours through the song and there is no reall form to the background. He is in all black - wearing a casual jacket, t-shirt and ripped trousers and has a very small (and annoying) pony tail. During the final Ilinca wore a VERY short bottle green mini dress and had a belt on it which made her look a bit like a leprechaun. The two of them move about the stage quite well but it is all very freestyle and haphazard although they make more of an effort in the chorus.

The song starts off with a military style drumbeat which grabs your attention and s then shouted on top of by the male singer. His parts are not really rap but wouldn’t go so far as to call it singing. There seem to be a lot of singing on the same note! Her yodelling parts show a lot of skill and it seems so effortless when she does it. I almost wish she had a song all by herself The song kind of flip flops between his parts and her parts through the song until the 2 min mark when it turns into a ballad rock number – which by the way shows what a really brilliant singer she is – then into a rather shouty aggressive part - both feel really removed to what has gone before.

I am going to keep this brief.

I can totally understand why people like this – it is light hearted, slightly eccentric and adds and much needed bit of flavour to this year’s contest. However, for me, this is the worst thing I have seen or heard in a long time.  Yes - it is fun, it is different, it is quirky but this just doesn’t work for my eyes and ears. Something about them and the song rubs me up the wrong way. I just don't get the fuss or the hype. One might suggest that the lack of any real contender in the national final made this a very obvious choice all round.

Luckily for them they have a number of friendly countries in their semi plus Switzerland and Austria (they know about yodelling, right?) But one has to ask - what kind of international jury member would vote for this? I can understand televoters being charmed but will this fit the criteria given ot eh experts? His ‘singing’ is not of great quality and although yodelling is a bit of a skill it is a bit of a ‘marmite’ genre. Romania have never DQ’d so momentum is with them but there is always a first time…

ARTIST - Ilinca and Alex Florea

SONG – Yodel It

MUSIC - Mihai Alexandru

LYRICS - Alexandra Niculae

                                       (this video is their winners reprise at the end of the final)