NORTH MACEDONIA

The North Macedonian entry was released on March 8^th. The song was to be released on 4 March, but the release date was changed to 8 March 2019 to coincide with International Women's Day. Back in January it was announced that 2008 FYROM representative Tamara Todevska would be singing for the newly renamed nation. The entry is called “Proud”.

The video is shot in colour but a lot of the clothing is black and white and the background is mostly grey, so one might get the impression it was shot in black and white. It shows a number of different women (hence the date change) looking and performing to the camera, including Tamara herself. There is not a lot of narrative to the shots but this could work as an interesting backdrop for the Eurovision shows.

The song is an emotional ballad and has very sparse instrumentation throughout. During the first verse and chorus there is only a piano present and in the second chorus a single violin joins in. After this there is a short interlude where the violin and piano and the tune of the violin starts to have a slight Balkan feel which gives this part some character. There then starts another verse but Tamara’s voice is much more powerful than the first time around and  the piano is much more staccato and has a driving beat. At this point a chorus of backing singers also joins and join in with the tune for the rest of the song. The ending of the song is slightly left in the air and the last ‘girl’ feel a little empty and lacking meaning.

Although this year has many ballads this one really stands out with its stripped-back backing track and its repetitive message gets through to you without being an annoying earworm. If Tamara can sing this with gusto and connect with the camera this could do really well. I think the ending culd do with a bit of tweaking but I hope the rest of the song stays as it it. I guess the biggest issue is staging and this country has quite the reputation of messing up and even failing on staging. I can imagine a pianist and violinist on stage – possibly only lit up when they start playing – joined by some backing singers. It might even be worth having something akin to the sea of faces behind her too. This needs no dancers, no intricate lightning it just needs to be simple to make sure the message comes across

I really like this and think that unlike some of the other ballads of show the simplicity of the music lets the words shine through, If it doesn’t mess up the staging this should easily qualify and I would really like this to do well.

ARTIST –  Tamara Todevska

SONG – Proud

MUSIC -  Darko Dimitrov, Robert Bibliov, Lazar Cvetkoski

LYRICS - Kosta Petrov, Sanja Popovska