The Croatian Final was held on February 13th at the Marino Cvetkovic Sports Hall in Opatija, hosted by Daniela Trbovic, Barbara Kolar, Jelena Lešic & Doris Pincic. The winner was chosen by a 50-50 split of televoting & 10 regional juries. The winning song was "Tick-tock" sing by Albina.
Albina spends most of the time centre stage wearing black boots, a black top and black strappy trousers. She is joined on stage by four similarly dressed male dancers who do some very energetic and armography-heavy dancing. Behind them, the stage has a lot of strobing/neon motifs which seems to be lending itself to the current 80s nostalgia feel however I actually feel more of a 90s leaning to parts of the production. She has long blonde hair, that does some great flicking, as well as a neon eyeline which fits in well with the background.
The song starts off with a very light intro with prominent glockenspiel type sounds. This then goes into a verse with the backing staying very much the same. As the verse builds up to the chorus, the backing track builds up too. Once into the chorus the beat drops again and the first part of the chorus is almost just a solitary beat under the singing, sort of underlying the name of the song. We are the treated to a rather awkwardly placed 'middle bit' which feels a bit like a verse but isn't and then another chorus. After a half a verse we go back to the chorus - once in Croatian then once in English to end. Under closer inspection it seems like more of the this song is based around the pre chorus/chorus/post chorus parts with random bits stuck around it.
On a continuing theme already, and to be a much repeated phrase this year, "Tick-tock" fits into the up-tempo electronic 80s retro feel that has been rather popular over the past 18 months. It is very radio friendly and repetitive the the prominence of the beat is very clever. The part in Croatian is a bit odd and stands out slightly as it pricks your ears up at the point where one's mind might wander off. It should also be added at this point that Albina is a very popular artist in Croatia having won "The Voice" and this familiarity of phoning up to vote for her would have been nothing different for her fans, followers and viewers.
On the face of it this is not a bad song, but it is also not a very good one either. Yes, it is really contemporary and radio friendly but nothing about how this song sounds stands out. Nothing screams 'vote for me' during the whole 3 minutes. This retro vibe is going to be big this year and there are already songs in the running that do this schtick better. Nothing about this song or performance is bad it just doesn't come across well. The lyrics are a little banal and simplistic and the backing track needs a point of pizazz for it to stand out from the crowd. In soon to be repeated phrase, the backing vocals are VERY high in the chorus to the point where you think 'is she singing or pretending to sing?' Yes I know that this is allowed this year but just because you can doesn't mean you should take advantage. I am also starting to wonder how many entries of this ilk it is going to take before I start wondering when they will start mushing together as one or cancelling each other out when it comes to voting...
ARTIST - Albina
SONG - Tick-tock
WRITING CREDITS - Tihana Buklijaš Bakić, Max Cinnamon, Branimir Mihaljević
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