AZERBAIJAN 2022

The Azeri song was revealed on March 21st. On February 16th, İctimai Television revealed that Nadir Rustamli had been internally selected as their singer. His song is called "Fade to black" 

Nadir Rustamli studied piano at the Gulu Asgarov Music School for 7 years. As a singer he has particiaped in a number of different singing/song festivals such as the National Song Festival (runner up in 2017 and winner in 2019) and  the Youthvision International Song Contest (runner up 2019). Nadir then entered into the 2021 series of" Voice of Azerbaijan " and joined former ESC winner Eldar Qasımov's team. He got all the way to the final and won the series with over 42% of the vote.

The first verse is very fragmented with lots of short lines that seem to be more about the rhythm rather than the meaning. The pre-chorus is much stronger with additional strings and a much clearer, stirring vocal. However instead of carrying this trend on, the chorus comes in and this drops back to just piano backing before rising again for the 'I'm numb' finish. This goes straight into verse two and pre-chorus with a slightly more invigorated pace but again peters out for the chorus. This time the post-chorus leads into a bridge section which is possibly the most memorable part of the whole song. It has a proper tune, driving lyrics and gives Nadir a sense of direction with his vocals. The final few seconds are taken up by a shortened chorus -  this time with slightly different tune and the last line of the song being the title.

This song feels very weak to me. On first listen I totally missed the chorus because there was no build-up or hook to tell me it was there. I only discovered it was the chorus when it got repeated. There is no build up, no tension, no drama and by the end of it you start to have questions! This feels like a random collection of song parts that are not cohesive enough to make a memorable song. Although Nadir has a nice enough voice the lyrics are not 100% clear which also muddles the meaning of song. Being Azerbaijan, one has to wonder what intricate staging setup they have in store. The video is rather odd, including some extremely individual sartorial choices, none of which really helps us get a sense of who Nadir is or let's you know what kind of artist or person he is. I think this has the bare bones of a good idea but all the meatiness is totally missing.

ARTIST - Nadir Rustamli 

SONG - Fade to black

WRITING/PRODUCTION CREDITS - Andreas Stone Johansson, Sebastian Schub, Thomas Stengaard, Anderz Wrethov