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I’m usually the first to champion a strong female-sung pop banger in this Contest and this, on paper, is what Georgia delivers. It’s an upbeat dance song, with a good rhythmic beat and a built-in opportunity for an impressive dance break.
Nutsa has built a career out of taking part in competitions, from Dancing With The Stars at home in Georgia to the New Wave festival when it was still held outside of Russia. She’s also courted audiences in Russia and Turkey, as well as getting to duet with Kylie (yes, that one) when she competed on American Idol, although none of those countries are going to be of much help to her in Eurovision this year.
Taken on its own Firefighter is a competent song. Taking the title literally she manages to hold back on it ever straying into the hackneyed fire-desire rhyming territory, but it does liberally pepper ashes and rising phoenixes throughout, steering it dangerously close to being lyrically trite.
But the song isn’t to be taken on its own. It’s literally up there to be judged against initially 15 others, then against another 25 if she’s lucky enough to get to the final. She could; it has all the moving parts to qualify but for me it’s in a rather broad sub-bracket I’m titling “could go either way”. It feels like we need to see this on stage to know.
Photo: Kikala Studio/EBU