The Dutch song was revealed on March 1st during the BNNVARA show "Khalid & Sophie," as well as simultaneous premier of the official music video on youtube. Way back in November, the Dutch broadcaster announced that the duo of Mia Nicolai and Dion Cooper had been internally selected as their act. Their song is called "Burning Daylight".
Mia Nicolaï was born in Amsterdam and is half-Dutch, half-Russian. As a child, she started taking drama and ballet classes which led to an interest in music and began piano and violin lessons. In 2018 she released "At Last" her first single, and has released 5 songs in total. She has recorded around the world including New York and Melbourne. Dion Cuiper, known professionally as Dion Cooper, came to prominence as a contestant on of The Voice of Holland in 2015 but was eliminated in the battle rounds. In 2021, he supported Duncan Laurence during his Dutch tour, and then released his debut EP ‘Too Young, Too Dumb’ which and is almost at 2 million streams. Although Mia and Dion are performing as a duo, they were put together especially for the contest - a suggestion by Laurence's husband Jordan Garfield.
The music video sees the duo in different stressful and emotional situations and at the end they escape those environments and sing the song together. The song starts with an atmospheric piano intro. Dion sings first verse and starts with a croaky whispery soulful tone. This progresses though the pre-chorus and then has a much more powerful feel during the chorus. Mia then takes up verse 2 and again in the pre chorus. She reaches much higher notes during this part but her voice doesn't seem to alter much in terms of power but this might be more to do with the mix rather than lack of power. For the next chorus they sing together and they sing the same tune together rather than in harmony. Their voices work ok together although this may need to change when singing live. Finally there is the repetitive outro which starts off bombastic and almost angry then peters out to a finish.
This act is a little different to their Dutch predecessors as it is slightly untested and neither are that well known. As the song was previewed as a video it is hard to say how this will translate to the stage. Part of me hopes that their voices will pop much more on stage and that they have the chemistry with the audience and with themselves to boot. Because the song is not a classical duet - they are not singing to or about each other - the song needs a setting, a narrative and a memorable visual hook which it doesn't have right now. I like the sound of Dion's voice and once I got into the song I almost wished this wasn't a duet. This is not to diss Mia's voice, more that I don't really know what her - or any other voice - adds to the sound.
The song is rather mid-tempo. Although there are gentle peaks and troughs in the song, on first listen it feels samey. On repeat listen the music becomes more memorable and pronounced. This is definitely a ball in the jury's court which may make things tricky when getting out of a 100% televote semi-final. If it does reach the final its chances of going up the leader board therein are much greater. Once you realise that this is a Duncan Laurence vehicle you can definitely hear echoes of "Arcade" in its production. This is not a bad thing as this is as ESC winning song, not so good for me because I never have been the biggest fan of "Arcade". After a few tentative listens, this song is a grower and would not sound out of place on adult contemporary radio stations and playlists. It took me several listens to get the song, mainly because I found parts of the music video rather in your face and I am not sure it actually compliments the song. I don't think it has enough character to be a winner but does has status in terms of its technical acumen.
ARTIST - Mia Nicolai and Dion Cooper
SONG - Burning Daylight
WRITING/PRODUCTION CREDITS - D Cooper, Jordan Garfield, Duncan Laurence, LUKAZ, Sean Myer, M Nicolai
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