f you want ethnic, come to Armenia – or at least listen to this song. To the untrained ear of the Eurovision viewer, this will sound like a Bollywood song (Without the dancing) crossed with a healthy dose of the Middle East, and they’d probably be more right than the internet would have you believe.
The preview video is engaging but it has one glaring negative. Using the timing from the preview video, the lyrics start at 33 seconds into the song and end at 1:16. It’s less a song rather than instrumental, something is going against the very concept of a songwriter contest. The remaining time which is just under 2 minutes because it’s only 2:35 in total, is based on, and is going to be based on, the performance. But what are you performing? – You’ve got a dance break with a few words chucked into start with and Ladaniva dancing around the preview video giving it some heavy shoulder with her flute playing guy giving it heavy shoulder action.
It does take me back to that big Bollywood number which would need, or not need depending on your viewpoint, about 100 extras to carry off, this is going to have 5 and some graphics. And yes, I know the lyrics talk about her dancing and she’s going to “get up and dance” and yes I know “La La La” was a winner of this contest (and believe me, at least that had two decent verses!) – I just feel that it’s lazy.
An engaging video and a song that sounds familiar do not make for a good contest song. Nice idea, shame about the lack of storytelling.
