AUSTRIA

The Austrian song was unveiled on March 9^th on the radio station Hitradio Ö3 where the song had its premiere play then the music video was unveiled. Back in December ORT, the Austrian broadcaster, announced that Cesár Sampson had been internally selected to represent Austria at Eurovision but his song would not be revealed for several months. The song is called “Nobody but you”

The accompanying video is in almost all in black and white and is full of projections, optical illusions and shadows - there is also a lot of snow! There are also views (I assume) of Austria focusing on the architectural lines, statues and trams. He spends a lot of time in slow motion, usually running, The video is very clever and needs several watches to uncover the tricks involved. I quite like the use of overlayed projections and superimposed videos but I am not quite sure if this would take too much focus from Cesár and the song if done on the stage. There are backing singers and he will probably need all 5 he is allowed to recreate the power and oomph for the track.

The song has a kind of Rag’n’Bone Man/Aloe Blacc feel to it which puts it in the radio friendly pile. The song begins atmospherically, with an almost a cappela beginning which focuses your attention on his soulful voice. There is a slight uplift in the backing track as the first chorus starts up but doesn’t quite go full out. After this there is some gospel-tinged oh-ohing and the start of a progressive hand clap beat into the next verse. After the next chorus, mirrored in the use of colour in the video clip, the bridge into the final chorus is preceded by another gospel segment. This one seems much more outward and I could imagine him really singing to and interacting with the crowd at this stage.

The song is a grower. The first time I heard his I was really disappointed because I felt that the chorus was really weak compared to the driving verses but after a few listens it started becoming familiar quickly. If I had any real critique I would have loved to have heard more of the gospel stuff or had a bigger chunk after the second chorus. Cesár is not a newcomer to Eurovision he has provided backing vocals for the last 2 Bulgarian entries – both of which ended up top 4 – and the composers of these two entries is also behind Cesár’s solo song. If I had written this straight after the first listen it would have been a big fat no. Now, it’s very much a yes but this scares me very much.

ARTIST –  Cesár Sampson

SONG – Nobody but you

MUSIC - Boris Milanov, Sebastian Arman, Joacim Persson, Johan Alkenäs

LYRICS - Boris Milanov, Sebastian Arman, Joacim Persson, Johan Alkenäs