Azerbaijan - Farid Mammadov - Hold me
Farid aka The Body delivers a song that we've heard a zillion times, with rather banal lyrics and nothing new but somehow it works. And it works really well. A little gimmicks in the arrangement (the keyboards), his puppy looks and eagerness and seriousness, and most of all Eurovision orphan Turks spread all over the Europe will guarantee another final place for Azeris, and most likely also a top-10 finish at least, could go also a lot higher, too. Depending on the juries mainly if they buy it or not. And this song came along in the last minute, just when I was wondering what happened to this kind of songs. I like it. I admit. Proudly.
Georgia -
Nodi Tatishvili & Sophie Gelovani - Waterfall
I should have all the reasons to dislike this, and initially I tried to, but I can't. This is the song that touches me the most this year, takes my breath away when I hear it for reasons I don't know myself. The same thing about originality and being heard a billion times before like of the Azeri song can be said about this one but Nodi and Sophie make it work, even better than Pastora Soler last year. They're like magnet together, I can't take my eyes of them, their voices are amazing together and they can pull it out live, too. And it seems the presentation will be a simple work of spotlights and joint choreography. A winner?
Russia - Dina Garipova - What if
Third song in the same formula; a power ballad heard a trillion times before but sung beautifully and presented effectively. When I heard this for the first time it was the first song that made me think of an eventual winner. Now I'm torn between this and Georgia. Both rely on the same voting blocks so it will be interesting to see how they fair and will they eat each other out and the victory slips to Italy or Azerbaijan for example? Dina is sweet, has Adele like dignity and a great voice, and power ballads with peace message always work, don't they?
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