Netherlands – Mia Nicolai & Dion Cooper – Burning Daylight
Last year I pissed off half of The Netherlands by stating that S10 was a bit shit in Dutch. Thankfully I don’t need to make that mistake this year. Although I’m sure I’ll annoy The Dutch by telling them you can’t burn daylight… unless this is a song about Napalm…
It’s not. What it is, though, is a clone of Arcade – not surprising given the creative team – but it feels like we have been here before and, whilst many MANY Eurovision songs can evoke these feelings, this one also feels radio-friendly as well, and that is both a blessing and a curse. It’s not a radio contest, it’s a TV show, and I don’t know how this will come across on the old telly box. If you heard this song on the radio, you’d most likely go, “yeah, that’s OK, that is” – and it is just that… OK. It doesn’t set the world on fire with new ideas (and you can’t do that either, for the record). It’s just a competent piece of songwriting.
That’s the worst kind of song in this contest – a song that means that the voting public is apathetic and thinks that someone else will vote for it because it’s good enough. It often means no bugger votes for it, and it falls through the cracks. That’ll be a shame because the Dutch won’t understand why, but it’s perfectly plausible when your song doesn’t have that much of a hook or a massive “moment” in it.
Duncan has gone to the well and pulled out the same bucket of water he won with in 2019. This year, there are better songs.
Phil’s Score – 5 Points
Jury’s bait written all over this one, and when it was chosen , that would be quite a safe choice. However few days after this has been announced, the EBU turned the semi into a televote only vote and threw the plans into the trash bin.
It’s suppose to be duet but doesn’t feel like a real duet and than the running order has been published and sandwiched this song between 2 better and far more memorable songs.
Conclusion- has no chance whatsoever to do anything meaningful in this contest(and that’s before I even talk about the lack of chemistry between the 2 of them and the fact that, so far, they were singing out of tune)