The selection process to find the Slovenian song and singer "EMA" was held on February 19th at the RTVSLO TV Studios in Ljubljana, hosted by Melani Mekicar & Bojan Cvjeticanin. Before the final there were two semi-finals where the competing 20 songs were reduced to 12. The winner , chosen by combining the votes of 5 regional juries with public televoting was LPS and their song "Disko" (Disco)
The 5-piece band LPS (short for Last Pizza Slice) formed in 2018 at their school in the town of Celje. Over the past four years they have entered a number of domestic music contests such as Špil Liga, Šourock, Stresi Oder and won Centrovizija with their first original song. They were invited to appear in EMA Freš, the new music section of EMA and from there they were voted into the final, which they then won. Their music is a suave and stylised mix of soul, pop, funk and jazz.
After a short staccato intro the band starts of with two short verses followed by a chorus. This is followed by a slightly odd instrumental which goes back into another chorus. Another verse comes in but right at the end it slows down into a very lowkey and slightly sad bridge. Luckily it picks up again for a final - and slightly extended - rendition of the chorus. The band is well spaced out on stage with mirror ball projection behind. They are all dressed in a natty way in their suits and ties and all kind of fits in wit the energy of the song.
I did not really pay much attention to this national selection this year but it is fair to say that out of the finalists this was the one that stood out for me. It has that kind of laid back vibe one may have expected from a Czech Republic entry. The song is completely in Slovenian and the song actually sounds really nice in this style. From a song construction point, I feel that the instrumental break after the first chorus has a very unusual structure and doesn't quite go where you think it should. A similar thing could be said of the slowed down bridge. Although they don't need to tinker with the song to make it shorter I would think about how these parts are performed and/or presented. I would say that with a more stylised visual back drop and more refined camera angles (a la Lake Malawi) this might elevate the whole thing. This is a lovely little number although I am not sure this is going to be setting Eurovision alight this year.
ARTIST - LPS
SONG -Disko (Disco)
WRITING/PRODUCTION CREDITS - Gašper Hlupič, Jakob Korošec, Mark Semeja, Zala Velenšek, Filip Vidušin, Žiga Žvižej
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