AUSTRALIA

The Australian Final was held on February 8th at the Gold Coast Convention and Exhibition Centre, hosted by Myf Warhurst & Joel Creasey. The winner was chosen via a 50/50 mix of televoting and jury votes. The winner was Montaigne with "Don't break me"

The national final performance is very television friendly, not so much one for those watching in the hall - but hey it is a television show, right...? Monatine is joined on stage by 5 female dancers and all 6 of them participate in quite an involved routine seen through the eyes of a steadycam. One might say it was more like a theatre arts piece or an interlude from an avant-garde musical theatre show. They are all dressed in dark tops and leggings but Montaine is embellished by her light blue hair. large, blue layered neck ruff and topped off with some 'Una Stubbs as Aunt Sally' facial make up. The staging is rather simplistic with rather generic colours and flashes on the backdrop . I get the feeling that so much is happening on stage that an involved backdrop would make the space too busy as well as being missed by the television viewers.

The song has a very easy to follow structure with a verse-chorus-verse-chorus flow which gets us to the 2.10 mark there is then a mini bridge leading to a final chorus. Throughout the song there are several moments when the song ramps up in power and back down again. This is quite a clever technique as it allows her to repeat the tune and words in many cases but just changes the tone and energy that it is performed with which makes it sound familiar and new at the same time. Her voice is quite distinctive, with a nice earthy quality to it, and for the most part her diction is quite clear. Her voice also emits a lot of emotion and although this means she is not 100% pitch perfect, you get the feeling that she very invested in the song and performance and kind of adds to the power of the song.

The show itself is quite involved. In some ways is is reminiscent of Loreen's stage show for 'Euphoria' or fellow Australian Sia's music videos with Maddie Ziegler. Montaigne is stood on stage with the dancers sat down around her feet by the time the first chorus some they are now at the edges of the stage dancing around her. There is a lot of toing and froing and she uses the dancers to create a lot of movement which works really well when you have the intimacy of the steadicam. At one point the dancers pick Montaigne which she does not seem to like at all! I feel that the dancers also keep the audience in the hall entertained whilst the singer is emoting to the camera which sometimes requires her to have her back to the audience.When Montaigne sings the last chorus which stats off very quietly she is alone on stage only to rejoin when the last drop comes in.

The team behind this entry has form, as DNA wrote the 2016, 2017 and 2018 Australian entries. In some ways it does have a similar feel to Dami Im's "Sound of silence" but this much more visual and personal than that. The song is very much fits into the slightly angsty Eurovision sound that has been popular as well as having a very repetitive structure that lends itself to the competition. I think the show overall could be replicated quite easily on the Eurovision stage although with it being bigger it might make the staging look quite sparse. On this point it must also be noted that the song relies quite heavily on backing vocals Either she will need to get rid of some/all her backing dancers OR find some backing singers who can dance as well. Also her stage outfit could be misconstrued as quite jokey and gimmicky and personally I could do without the OTT make-up.
Overall I think this is quite a safe entry and I feel that unlike some entries we've already had this does have the reach to compel people to vote for it. It's not the greatest song and she's not the best singer but it there will be numerous viewers that this will connect with. Although it won the jury vote and came second in the public vote, the amount of votes it got from each was pretty similar so I think support will come from all angles.

Artist - Montaigne

Song - Don't break me

Composers - Jessica Cerro, Anthony Egizii, David Musumeci

Lyricists - Jessica Cerro, Anthony Egizii, David Musumeci