BELGIUM

The Belgian song was unveiled on February 28th with its premier play on radio station MNM and its simultaneous release on spotify and youtube. Back in January, the Wallonian broadcaster RTBF announced that another former "The Voice Belgique" contestant, Eliot Vassamillet, had been internally selected. His song is called “Wake up”

In the accompanying music video, Eliot is dimply lit with various types of light usually striping and strobing across his face. As the song progresses more and more people come out of the darkness, they are all dressed in white and are lip synching along with teh track. Not very much actually happens in the video, there is not much narrative but I guess this leaves more to the imagination as to what they could bring to the live staging. It must also be said that Eliot has been given a very Loic-esque look in the video and he certainly does moody very well!

The song is an electronic ballad with a slight ‘80s tinge to it. The beginning is rather echoey and atmospheric and Eliot’s voice comes across and quite smooth and soft. The verses are also suite sparse when it comes to words and there is quite a lot of lengthening of notes to fill the space. The chorus however has a very punchy beginning which is echoed in the backing track. There is a lot of repetition and a slight pick up of the pace which at first listen is a little jarring. But at the end of the chorus the beat, although still quite quiet, is double time and the second chorus starts up which is very intriguing but once again the chorus messes up the flow. The bridge before the last chorus works much better and sets up the end of the song nicely but once again the staccato chorus is too much of a change although this time is gets quieter into its finish.

Eliot’s voice comes across really well in this song and shows off the texture of his voice, rather than the range and/or vocal dexterity. It will be interesting to see how/if he can sing the song live. In the video he certainly seems to have a presence down the camera. As I’ve already stated the video and performance is rather open and gives few clues as to what the performance could be. I could see some kind of light show to fit in with the beat or possibly some dancers although as the song is similar in places to Blanche they might keep it very, very simple.

This is a really good song and the writing cues towards “City Lights” are quite clear although more commercial. In my opinion the verses and much more interesting that the chorus and I think a trick has been missed by not keeping the beat of the verses threading through each chorus, especially during the final rendition. From a song formulation point of view this is one of the best of the year but the lack of information about the context of the song makes it hard to judge its trajectory. In a semi with quite a few electronic entries this will need to be solid to progress and progress well.

ARTIST –  Eliot Vassamillet

SONG – Wake up

MUSIC -  Pierre Dumoulin

LYRICS - Pierre Dumoulin