SWITZERLAND

The Swiss Final was held on February 4th at the SRF TV Studios in Zürich, hosted by Sven Epiney. The winner was chosen by an international jury (50%) and televoting (50%). The winning song is called “Stones” and is performed by brother-sister duo Zibbz.

The duo is centre stage - Stee on drums/keyboard, Corinne on vocals and single drum - inside neon tetrahedra. He stays with the instruments whilst she staggers around. She reminds me very much of Anouk, in fashion sense and in vocal style. The background has a slightly outer space feel with a black background with the white outline of stones moving around. This is emphasised by the use of an on screen graphic imitating the stones coming through the tv screen at the start of the chorus which is a nice memorable touch.

The song has a quite retro, stripped back minimalistic feel about it at the start but changes as the song progresses. The mood starts off reminiscent of a rocky Paloma Faith then moves more towards modern pop rock singers like Kelly Clarkson. The verses are quite conversational in their tone and cadence whilst the chorus starts off louder, higher and punchier but the title of the song is said right at the end of each line and in a slightly lower tone which could be missed. Her voice is a little all over the place. Her diction is a little croaky and it doesn’t seem to get better when she’s belting it out either. Around the 2 minute mark there is a small bridge where both siblings are drumming, I am sure with better camera angles and willing audience this could be made into something much bigger. The ending is also very nondescript and I think they could scrap the last 5 seconds totally.

In what seems to be becoming a yearly tradition, the Swiss final was a very poor affair. The six songs were not of a terrible quality but very little really stood out as a Eurovision contender. This was more or less the best out of an average bunch. Although the studio used had a great setup it felt very small and intimate, which is no bad thing, but this cannot replicate the conditions of Eurovision itself. This isn’t a bad song but I find it really hard to remember even after 24 hours of watching and listening to it, so I dare say its chances of being remembered after one go in the semi-final very slim indeed.

ARTIST – Zibbz

SONG – Stones

MUSIC - Corinne Gfeller, Stee Gfeller, Laurell Barker

LYRICS - Corinne Gfeller, Stee Gfeller, Laurell Barker