RUSSIA 2021

The Russian Final was held on March 8th at the Channel One TV Studios in Moscow, hosted by Yana Churikova. The winner was chosen by SMS voting. The winner was Manizha with "Russian Woman".

At the start of the song Maneza is wearing a large coat which is grey and has what looks like ethnic patterns on it. Part way through which she takes this off  revealing a red jumpsuit with the words 'Russian Woman' in Cyrillic on the back. She is also sporting a very lovely head scarf which gives her an air of Rosie The Riveter. She is joined on stage by  backing singers who surround her like a box. There are occasional fire blasts from the side while the backdrop changes between patterns, signs of nature and words from the text.

The track starts with an unusual chirping beat which definately already has that Eastern European quality. Manizha  starts the singing over this in a slightly low talky tone. The backing track then oomphs up a bit with brass tones and the choral singing. From here the verse goes a bit free form and you start to wonder what is going on. The backing track then changes into a different breakbeat with a Slavic tone which ushers in the English based chorus. This then goes straight into another verse which again is a bit freeform - although he body language is very entertaining! We then have a rather grand orchestral/anthemic bridge which has a choral Russian feel to it. After this comes a slightly elongated English chorus before another rendition of the choral part. The song ends with an energetic dance break over the instrumental

Manizha was born in Dushanbe, Tajakstan but the family fled to live in Moscow in due to the Tajikistani Civil War, subsequently settling in Moscow. As a teenager, Manizha took part in singing competitions such as Rainbow Stars, the Ray of Hope festival and the Five Stars music competition. She has joined a number of musical groups over the years such as Ru.Kola, Assai and Krip De Shin. When she finally decided to do solo projects, Manizha began studying gospel music in both London and New York City. She has two albums to her name, released in 2017 and 2018.

From what we know, this national final was produced in a very short amount of time and for her and the team to create such a good show is impressive - with an extra 2 months what else could she come up with? Manizha has great stage presence and moves well on the stage. We already know that she is planning to rewrite parts with a bit more English to get over the meaning of the song a bit more. At times I feel like there are too many 'bits' and that a little more flow and connection between them is needed, especially as the chorus is so different. Maybe by keeping those bits in a tidier order might help. That said the overall beat and the instrumentation is absolutely gorgeous and is a bop in itself. I wonder if the title of ‘Russian Woman” is going to put people off voting, just like finding a song called a song called “I love Belarus” a bit of a push to vote for. I am not sure this this is going to be troubling the top of the leader board but is certainly a different genre to make this years mix a lot more interesting.

ARTIST - Manizha
SONG - Russian Woman
WRITING CREDITS - Ori Avni, Ori Kaplan, Manizha

07/03/12 RUSSIA

The Russian Final was held on March 7th at the Akademicheskiy Concert Hall in Moscow, hosted by Olga Shelest & Vladimir Zelenskiy. The winner, after a 50-50 combination of televoting and jury vote, was Buranovskiye Babushki with “Party for Everybody”

“The grannies” are not exactly the most energetic of performers – ‘old school’ doesn’t even describe it at they’ve probably been alive so long they remember a time there was no such thing as school.

Enough of the bitching and onto the facts. The group itself is its own gimmick, its own advertisement its own publicity machine and no matter what the ladies do they will get the press. People will find the group intriguing and will get a lot of ‘sympathy votes’ although I’m not quite sure why they should get any sympathy.

The song is basically structured around the chorus which is in English. The rest of the song is their regional tongue of Udmurt. The fact that they stand there going “boom boom boom boom” quite hilarious. Because of the sound of the song it will get a lot of Eastern European votes as well as that of Scandinavia. They will also get votes from the mad quarter too.

The song and performance are incredibly indulgent almost to the point of a saccharine overdose. Yes they are rather cute and old and cuddly and make you go “awwwww”. Yes they are dressed in a very old fashioned ethnic way (nothing like it has been seen since Mattis Hætta in 1980) and are singing a song you wouldn’t expect. But behind the rose tinted façade I’m not quite sure what is left of any substance. It is quite a catchy song however I find myself laughing at it more that wanting to join in.

Only the ‘granny’ on the left seems to conscious of what she is doing and one of them seems totally bemused at to what she is doing. I am also concerned to see what looks like a smouldering piece of Chernobyl rotating and smoking away behind them. It is almost a shame there are 6 of them as a couple of Cossack dancers either side would have polished the look off to a tee.

So, will it qualify? Yes.    Will it do well ? Yes.    Will it win? Probably.    Do I like it? NO

This year’s Eric Saade.

SONG – Party for everybody

ARTIST – Buranovskiye Babushki

COMPOSERS – Vikton Drobych, Olga Tuktaryova

LANGUAGE – Udmurt & English

UPDATE 7

ISRAEL – Dana International has released a revamped version of her song “Ding Dong” The song is now a bit more modern sounding than previously and now includes many more electronic influences. I still don’t think this cuts it though.





RUSSIA – Alex Sparrow has revealed the promotional video for his song “Get you”. The video sees Alex taking on lots of different characters and shows him in lots of different situations – however he seems to be miming to a different song. Weird.





NORWAY – a revamped version of “Haba Haba” has surfaced. The backing track is different and the song sems to be sing in a slightly higher key than before. This still does not disguise the fact that singing is not this girl’s finest talent. If the rumours are to be believed, this is the track that will be sung to at Eurovision. In my opinion, it is not as good as the original.

RUSSIA

The Russian song was revealed on the 12th March. The Russians decided on an internal selection and chose the song “Get You”. This is sung by Alexey Vorobyov, also known as Alex Sparrow.

Alexey is dressed very casually in black. He is joined of stage by male dancers dressed in white shirt, black trousers and black waistcoats. It all looks a bit formal for the style of song. Alexey also moves around the stage well and does join in with some choreography. He interacts with the crowd well, but saying that the crowd are really enjoying his performance.

The song has been written by prolific Swedish producer RedOne and has a distinct international-pop feel to it. In this respect I feel it will feel and look very familiar to viewers which will gain it more votes, but in the same breath it also feels a bit samey and not new, which may lose it votes.
It has to be said that his voice is not bad. Considering he is singing live and moving around his voice maintains its level throughout the song. If I had one very small criticism I would say that at time (especially the first verse) he has a very strong accent and is not particularly attractive.

Something will have to change for the ESC performance. Firstly, he will need some backing singers, possibly two or three. It would possibly be beneficial for him to find a couple of backing dancers who can also sing as the visual of this song worked really well in this performance. Alexey also had a tendency to focus on the crowd and spent most of the performance with his head down. He will need to learn to focus a little bit more on the cameras and emote a bit more to the voting public.

This is not a bad song for Russia, but also in the current music scene a very up-to-date song. It will get a lot of votes but I am not sure this deserves to be a winner.


SINGER – Alex Sparrow
SONG – Get You
MUSIC – RedOne
WORDS – RedOne