FRANCE

The French Final was held on January 26th at the Studios de France in Saint-Denis, Paris, hosted by Garou. Before the final there were 2 semi-finals where 4 songs qualified from each. The winner was chosen through a mix of international jury and televoting. Representing France this year is Bilal Hassani with “Roi” (King)

It has to be noted that the performance in the final was different to that of the semi. Re-imagining the show must have been tough in such a small space of time, so although it showed promise, there were many rough edges.

He is dressed in a black suit with heavily fringed silver epaulettes. He is also sporting his trademark glasses and beautiful blond shoulder length hair. He stands in front of a projection box which shows various video reels of Bilal as a child which are particularly cute! Most of the song he walks around the stage but also does a few dance moves after the chorus which works ok but does affect his voice. Halfway through he is joined by two female dancers which he occasionally joins in with. Their dancing is too jerky and seems to emphasise a beat which is not there. To my eyes and ears this makes the whole thing very disjointed and I think it needs something a bit more flowing but still as modern. Also the crown motif is very clever and simple.

The song is a mid tempo ballad which Bilal sings well but on the higher notes in the chorus his voice is a little bit thin. I start to wonder if the song could be taken down a tone/semitone to make the high notes more reachable? That said his voice and tone is easy to recognise. His pronunciation is lovely and it is easy to hear the switches in language from French to English and back again. The chorus has a very catchy repetitive structure and actually sounds great in both English and French. The last 30 seconds though is weak. The long high note isn’t Bilal’s strong point and could easily sound off on a bad day. I also think he needs to stick rigidly to the tune of the song and not go for harmonies, alternate melodies or too many runs and riffs. The song takes a few too many listens to get the gist of the story and meaning which is a shame.

The song was very big in the hall and with good reason, Bilal was on the Voice Kids a number of years ago and is quite a prominent youtuber in France with quite the following within the youth and LGBTQ community. This was further evidenced by his landslide win in the French televote (he got approx 35% of the public vote, second pace got just 15%) This support in the French speaking world is strong but the international vote did not go his way, coming only 5^th and this is worrying. What did the international jury not get? Was it the language barrier, his lesser vocal control, the odd staging or something else…? Basically, Bilal needs to work hard at nailing the vocal and needs a team around him that will nail the visual show. The semi performance didn’t quite work, neither did the final. Pick one and whittle it down until it makes a fine point OR start again from scratch.

This will be a fan fave but I also suspect that without the right advice this will be the fan flop. France should be lucky that they don’t have to qualify because if they did, I think they would struggle. Not a winner.

ARTIST – Bilal Hassani

SONG – Roi (King)

MUSIC - Bilal Hassani, Madame Monsieur, Medeline

LYRICS - Bilal Hassani, Madame Monsieur, Medeline