Saturday, 11 March 2023

ISRAEL 2023

The Israeli song was revealed on March 8th via the premiere of the official music video on youtube. Way ack in July  KAN, the Israeli broadcaster, announced that Noa Kirel had been internally selected as their representative. Her song is called "Unicorn".

Noa Kirel is from Ra'anana, Israel, and has two older brothers. In 2015 she performed her first song on YouTube named "Medabrim?". Her second release on line called "Killer" caused a stir due to the provocative video clip (she would have been 13). In 2016, she won the award "Singer of the Year" at the Israeli Kids' Choice Awards. In 2017, Kirel began hosting the "Lipstar" musical program on kidZ, and featured in the movie "Nearly Famous". In 2018 she became cone of the judges on Israel's Got Talent albeit still being a teenager. All in all she has scored four number 1 songs in Israel and numerous film, tv and presenting roles.

The song begins with a classical intro before petering out to a very low key backing track and Noa's voice takes centre stage. The song then progresses to the chorus and becomes quite stark and serious and dramatic which is a bit weird because the words coming out of her mouth really aren't! Verse two comes in and goes back to a more poppier bassline and before going into the chorus we have the repetitive 'phenomenal' refrain. The chorus here is shorter but the full force of beat and the strings fits in better than the first time round. There is another refrain before the song disintegrates once more, this time into shouts about dancing, a long instrumental and a final few chants of the name of the song.

This song, and its video, seems to be a collection of bits. These bits don't 100% flow into each other but sometimes this creates unusual balances and makes you more intrigued. On the whole the song stops and starts and fails to get going. These stops and starts will be interesting to see live as many of these will sound different and have a different energy. If she can do all of this live it is going to sound amazing. In addition the last half a minute being an effective dance break will be interesting live. Also she is rather chameleon-like in her appearance and I think there are a couple of looks she could use live. I would love to see her wearing something athletic, like the dance gear she wears at the end. I suspect there may be some kind of costuming reveal from one thing to another, possibly for the dance break at the end. Choosing a part for the vote recap will also be an interesting decision because different people will like/remember different parts of the song and not all of it can fit in a 20 second recap.
If I had any critque for the potential show it would be that Noa needs to be a little more positive facially. During the video she seems a little emotionless and almost little bit standoffish. Maybe being in front  off a live audience may make her personality shine a bit more I would imagine Noa being right on target for getting the younger generation vote but girls in particular would want something more engaging, fun, personal and relatable. I also think that for older viewers this attitude also might come across negatively. For such a modern song to appeal outside its bracket she will need to butter the public at home up. She may also need to rethink the 'hand to the head' gesture as it might lead to something a little more... vulgar... If she can sing and dance at the same time she will be showing off some epic skills, it would be a shame for a perceived aloofness to cost her votes

ARTIST - Noa Kirel
SONG - Unicorn
WRITING/PRODUCTION CREDITS - Noa Kirel, Doron Medali, May Sfadia, Yinon Yahel

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