07/03/12 SLOVAKIA

On 7^th March, Slovakia TV announced that their entry for Eurovision this year would be “Don’t close your eyes” sung by Max Jason Mai. It has been known since Slovakia confirmed its participation in December that their song and entry would be decided internally.

On the plus side this song is very different to anything else that has been put forward this year. It is a song that does catch your ear and the chorus is not too bad. The song is very much hard rock and I expect a performance to match it. The song has lots of rhythm changes and goes from quick to slow very quickly. This on the positive side keeps you on your toes but on the negative side means it is very difficult to get in your head or sing along to.

Of course as this news was released generally, there was no live performance to go on. From what has been written about him, he is an energetic performer so it will be interesting to see what kind of show he comes to Baku with. Also, the song is very OTT and although he seems to reach everything on the recorded version one wonders if he can work the magic live.

Hard rock generally does not do well at Eurovision, although I guess acts such as Lordi and Wig Wam may disagree, that said it is not a genre that is often sent. I don’t think the song will qualify but I don’t think it is a bad song. The style is too narrow and will not appeal to the general ordinary viewers or voter, nay the juries. Will get Eastern Europe and Scandinavian votes though.

SONG – Don’t close your eyes

ARTIST – Max Jason Mai

COMPOSER – Max Jason Mai

LANGUAGE – English

UPDATE 2

A few more odds and sods news stories from the last few days

SWEDEN – the “andre chansen” round of Melodifestivalen seemed to be in the middle of a voting fiasco. Many viewers and internet groups seemed to be a little surprised by the voting outcomes of the second chance round. From further viewing, it appears that not once, not twice but three times during the programme the wrong voting numbers were put up below certain songs. STV have maintained that this did not affect the end result and the result stands. Not all ESC fans will find this acceptable. I think this may run, even past the final on Saturday...


SLOVAKIA - Still no footage of the girls singing live, but they have released their official video. Am starting to wonder if no live performance up to now is suggesting they can’t do one… Still 2 months before they can hide no more!




CROATIA – it looks like the Croatian entry is getting a total overhaul and makeover. It also looks like the strange title “Break a leg” will be no more! Although the melody will be the same, the song will be re-written for the title “Celebrate” Lyricist Boris Djurdjevic has been working with Daria to make a final version of the song in time for the submission date of March 14th. Hopefully a video clip will be on the internet soon.

UPDATE 1

As the songs are selected and time goes on, things change.
In these updates I hope to very briefly add any news (good or bad!!!) about the songs or acts chosen for this year’s Eurovision.


UKRAINE – Just like last year, this year’s national final turned out to be a total fiasco!
It was announced at the time that Mika Newton had won the final with her song “Angel”. After the result many, including some of the other participating singers, protested the results. After some investigating it was discovered that there was a major voting anomaly with the public televote. Although Mika recieved the most SMS and internet votes, those votes came from very few unique phone numbers and IP addresses, inferring block voting and rigged voting.
To try and address the situation NTU announced a “Top three run off” between Mika Jamala and Zlata. However just a few days later Jamala withdrew from this new final – then Zlata did the same. So NTU were back at square one and decided to just go with Mika. Rumours of a new song for Mika to sing were uncovered but both Mike and NTU have decided to keep with the original song.

GEORGIA – just a week after Eldrine won the ticket to Düsseldorf, the lead singer was sacked! Tako Vadachkoria has been replaced by Sopho Toroshelidze, one of the backing singers from last year’s contest. A video featuring the new singer is to be produced.

BELARUS – Firstly, it was decided that the lyrics to their selected song were to be changed, to reflect the new “Belarus” rather than of the nation during Soviet times. Then a video emerged of this song being played in April last year, well before the EBU’s cut off date. No official word yet has been made by Belarusian TV or the EBU about the song or country’s disqualification.

NETHERLANDS - As expected, the Dutch act, 3JS have decided to sing their winning entry in English. The song is now renamed “Never alone” and the song and video are being recorded as we speak. Rumours from the band suggest that the intro of the song will be changed and more guitar-led. In addition they will be doing all the singing themselves without the help of extra backing vocals.

SLOVAKIA – The selected act TWiiNS presented their song at the close of the Miss Slovakia contest on the 5th March. Unfortunately the girls were very much miming and the TV director seemed more interested in getting views of the winning (and losing) ladies f the competition. We are no closer to knowing if they can sing yet or what their presentation will be like.

SLOVAKIA

The Slovakian entrant and song was internally selected and made known a couple of weeks ago. The act named is a relatively unknown band called TWiiNs and it was then made known that the name of their song would be “I’m Still Alive”. Unlike most of the previous unveilings and selections, their song was revealed on March 4th on their MySpace and Facebook pages.

There is no real ‘official’ video yet, as you will discover from the video below, just an audio. Although we can judge the merits of the song and to a point the act, seeing them actually perform a on a stage and/singing it live would be a much better barometer. Something tells me that the song has been revealed in this way for a reason…

The song is a ballad with a slight r’n’b edge. Unusually the song starts with the chorus. The chorus is quite simple with the same couple of line repeated twice before moving on. The chorus is repeated quite a lot during the song, which does reinforce it into your brain. Although you might not like it, you pick parts of it up through repetition.

Right from the start, you realise that there is a lot and I mean I LOT of backing vocal, almost like a dependency on them. At times you do start to wonder who exactly is doing most of the singing on this song! As the girls are obviously twins, their voices sound identical, so you cannot always tell if they are sharing vocals or one is doing the majority, or if one is joining I with the backing vocals. Their voices don’t sound too bad you can never know how much production has been used and if they can replicate this vocal performance live.

What else can be guess? Well they are pretty girls and will wearing something ‘memorable’ shall we say! Also as a ballad I guess there will not be an energetic dance routine. There will need to be backing singers at least 2-4. I can almost see something similar to the set up of Safura last year, with a dancer or dancers interacting between them all.

So, this review is a little muted but not a bad song, but reserve judgment on the singing ability


SINGER – TWiiNs
SONG – I'm Still Aive
MUSIC – Bryan Todd, Sandra Nordstrom, Brano Janich
WORDS – Bryan Todd, Sandra Nordstrom, Brano Janich