CYPRUS

The Cypriot song was revealed on March 6th via the release of the song's music video. Way back in November last year Cyprus' broadcaster, CyBC, announced that the singer Sandro had been internally selected to represent them. His song is called "Running"

The video for the song is very Sandro-centric with no-one else in the video at all. Sandro is seen in a number of different poses from being knelt down on the floor to being in silhouette with projections on top or under coloured sheets. Although this gives him plenty of scope for emoting the overall effect is rather frenzied and lacking in narrative. The shot selections seem rather random and the changes and frequency of shot doesn't match the song's pace either. It all seems rather haphazard.

We start with a synthesised intro before starting on the first verse which is sung very low and stays low into in the pre-chorus. There is short lull before the chorus proper starts. This part of the song grows melodically, instrumentally and vocally throughout so that he is almost shouting by the end of it. There is then a longer instrumental break with some ooh-oooh-oooh-ing before the sequence starts again. His delivery is similar but her sings the pre-chorus in his 'normal' voice rather than low and breathy. After another instrumental there is fast sung/rapping bridge before repeating the last lines of the chorus is his fierce voice. The song is very fragmented and the fact that the verses are very short, almost non-existent and there are so many different parts of the chorus it almost feel like some parts seem superfluous to the song and that it's more like repetitions of a chorus with instrumental in between.

All the signs for this song should be pointing towards the top but actually I feel rather confused, almost like I am missing something. The whole thing just doesn't work as a cohesive 3 minute song and I am starting to wonder if they've took too much away from a longer song or have tried to pad out the scraps they've got to make it long enough. Although there is a definite message in the lyrics it is lost amongst the mess.There is also a lot of vocal range in this song and it will be interesting to see if he can perform this well enough under pressure. I also have no idea what this is going to look like on stage, all I can hope if that it's not quite as detached as the video.
After a run of good entries, it doesn't look like Cyprus will be returning to the final this year on the basis of the song. To make things worse, neither Greece nor Germany (his actual nationality) can vote in this semi although that will not stop the Greek diaspora around the world shoving a vote this way. It's good but it's just not right.

Artist - Sandro
Song - Running
Composers -  Alfie Arcuri, Teo DK, Sebastian Metzner Rickards, Sandro Nicolas, Octavian Rasinariu
Lyricists - Alfie Arcuri, Sebastian Metzner Rickards, Sandro Nicolas, Octavian Rasinariu