Nadir Rüstəmli – Fade to black
Well stop me backwards – if it isn’t a non-woman singing for Azerbaijan. Chingiz Can’t was the last one, and he only ended up in eighth place!
They waited until the last possible moment in order to let Europe listen to this, and Nadir is from the now-traditional background of being a winner of The Voice of Azerbaijan which should, in theory, mean he can carry a tune!
He’s decided, or more accurately his songwriters have, to listen to ‘Arcade’ and repackage it for the home audience, with this song about the end of his love and how it makes him feel – literally real men do cry.
It does, as an upside, have the second recorded use of the word “reverie” in a Eurovision song after this:
Remember kiddies, the contest is older than you are, but back to the modern day.
This song is supposed to move me and it doesn’t. I mean Nadir sings it nicely in the video, and is all expressive and the like. I just think it’s another in an ever-growing list of ballads swimming in the same barrel, and something about one or more of them needs to stand out. This doesn’t have a hook to hang on, and if it doesn’t have that then I don’t know what is going to differentiate it from everything else fighting to get out of its semi-final.
Nice it may be but, as we know, nice doesn’t get you very far.
Phil’s Score – 4 Points
Azerbaijan were the very last country to reveal their song and decided that what Eurovision needed this year was another ballad. And here was me thinking that there would be a plethora of rock songs this year.
Another one of those ballads that this year is full of them. It really doesn’t matter if it is a male ballad or a female ballad, but if you are singing a ballad make sure it’s engaging and draw me as a listener inside the song. This is not doing it for me. Just an average and forgettable song. Finished hearing it a few seconds ago and can’t even remember how it goes. Not a good sign by any means.