EUROVISION 2018 REVIEW: SAN MARINO, MACEDONIA, POLAND, MOLDOVA

 

San Marino - Jessika feat. Jenifer Brening - Who we are

Jessika Muscat (29) has the faith of fellow Maltese Christabelle: several national final attemps and now she gets finally to Eurovision with the worst of them. Or almost. She is joined by German Jenifer Brening (21) who took the original rapper Irol's place when he turned down the song stating it's not his cup of tea. He would have given this at least some Sammarinese touch. Anyways, the innotative Sammarinese national final selection promised a lot but in the end gave us this. I would have chosen differently but what we have is a rather anonymous and heard before anthem against bullying, well sung by Jessika with Jenifer's rap as bonus. Sadly unforgettable and the only thing that might get attention and viewers to remember this are the robots. If they travel to Lisbon, too. What's their deal anyways?! 3/10

Macedonia - Eye Cue - Lost and found

Eye Cue is Bojan Trajkovski and Marija Ivanovska (21), with producer and writer Darko Dimitrov. They have been working together for years and for their entry it sounds like if they have smashd up every their song as there are so many genres and changes of beat in these three minutes you are left wondering WTF was that? Some parts of the song I like, some I don't. The mix is confusing but that's what makes it somewhat interesting. Marija does her job well. One can only wonder what the staging will be about and sadly this will be lost in the 1st semi and not found on the finalist list. 5/10

Gromee feat. Lukas Meijer - Light me up

Andrzej Gromala (39) aka Gromee is DJ, producer and songwriter and Swedish Lukas Meijer (29) is his choseen vocalist for this song. I realized I hadn't really ever listened the full song until now when reviewing it - is that a good sign? You get all there is in the first minute or so. Rather anonymous radio song that isn't great but enjoyable and works well. In the aftermath of Avicii's death this might get all nostalgic ones to vote for this tribute to the final - Gromee has said Avicii has had a huge impact to his music and indeed you can hear it -  and even without that this should make it being in the 2nd semi. Who will remember this come June? But for the moment, 6/10

DoReDos - My lucky day

DoReDos or Marina Djundiet (32), Eugeniu Andrianov (25) and Sergiu Mita (25) were third time lucky winning the national final with a little help from Russian Philip Kirkorov. Last year they won also New Wave festival. My lucky day sounds very oldfashioned in production (and I think it's intentional) and without the addiction of the local elements and sounds would be like any Ralph Siegel track. They perform it with such energy and gusto that you can't but look in amaze. This is rubbish but they make it work and propably will do better than anyone thinks now. Not like Moldova last year but top-10 perhaps? Or... they could bomb big time as well but I don't quite think so. Lucky qualifier from 2nd semi. 6/10