The Dutch song was revealed on March 3rd via a youtube premiere of the music video. Back in December it was revealed that S10 (pronounced steen) had been internally selected as their representative. The song she is singing is called " De Diepte" (The Depths)
S10 (real name Stien den Hollander) and her twin brother were born in Abbekerk a small town north of Amsterdam in 2000. Her first mini-album, which was self-recorded, was uploaded to SoundCloud in 2016. From here she was signed to the record label Noah's Ark and released a second mini-album, In 2019, her debut album "Snowsniper" was released and this was awarded an Edison - a Dutch Music Award The following year she released her second studio album "Vlinders", She has suffered from mental health issues, including hallucinations, depression and a diagnosis of bipolar disorder and much of her work is influenced by this. Her work is a mixture of pop, rap and Nederhop (hip hop songs recorded in the Dutch language)
The song starts with a short guitar intro this backing continues under the first verse and into the pre-chorus. As it progresses into the chorus, the beat comes in and the song has a much fuller sound and almost seems slightly echoey. Verse two begins in a similar way to verse one although this time the guitar is joined by a very low but noticeable beat. After the pre-chorus and chorus proper the fuller instrumental continues with a bit of a freestyle bridge. It then drops out with 30 seconds to go as the pre-chorus comes in however where you might expect the final chorus to come in with a bang the chorus actually continues the quite tone to an almost whispery end.
This song shows off her more subdued and melancholic side. The oooohhh-ing pre-chorus creates a kind of buffer between the parts of the and gives those non-Dutch speakers something earwormy to hang onto. I feel like the once-a-year Eurovision watchers may well see links between this and "Arcade" although this has a slight country twang about it. It too is highly emotional and the backing track grows as the song progresses. Obviously this is a music video and it might have been more beneficial to see S10 sing this live. By the looks of it this is something that will happen soon, which is good to hear. It will be interesting to see how the live acoustics changes the mood and feel of the song. The music video does help to explain and visualise some of the feelings in the song but I wonder how they will translate all of this to a stage show. I fear that if they make the show too small and too intimate the wider meaning will get lost. Although this song has some great strengths part of me has to wonder who will vote for this? Unless the staging has some great direction and narrative I am not quite sure what reason anyone would have to vote for it, which is a shame.
ARTIST - S10
SONG - De Diepte
WRITING/PRODUCTION CREDITS - S10, Arno Krabman
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