#divedown | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

sole-cuore-amore-e-droga · 5 years

Text

Tel Aviv 2019: Straight outta Croatia to Eurovision with a confused angel lad and his lowkey over-enthusiastic mentor

youtube

Yeah, well, I definitely have hoped for this nation to finally finally bring back Dora as their national selection, as I myself have never really felt their internal entries since they abandoned it (well maybe except Nina from 2012 but even then by now I grew out of it softly). Not even Nina from 2016 which was tipped as a huge fan fave (though I’m so sorry for it getting completely lambasted in Eurovision, especially because of the poor clothing choice and Nina’s warbly notes here and there).

And they did! After like what, 7 solid years??? After the last Dora ending out with a disastrous end result and spawned a person to (more) stardom who even qualified a couple years back and this year he’s there to be a songwriter for his home country because of the Eurovision 2019 slogan inspiring him???? Well... yeah that happened. With having fought 15 other participants made up of familiar faces, up and coming starlets, the already legendary divas or just some people, he won as a songwriter for this next target of my review - the target that is aptly titled “The Dream” and is performed by a 19 year old up-and-coming pop star, Roko Blažević. Yep, Jacques Houdek won a NF but not with himself singing. Man did his magic game get stronger over the years since Dora 2011.

And interestingly enough, Jacques’s wizardry comes in with him being capable of selling chanceless music as something worth buying into. How can that happen???

Well, to be frank with you all, this song is not that bad, unlike everyone thinks it is. It feels like a low-rent musical ballad, sure, but it's not terribly composed or anything... well, I know I usually hate on those songs that like using mostly not the "verse - chorus - verse - chorus - bridge - chorus", but there are plenty of songs that mess with that structure that usually just omit the last two components (radio pop music) or don’t even need one, and they sound great. Here we have the omission of the last two components that more reminds me of “Grande amore” (I am not saying they’re comparable but still), as in, slow ballad in the F minor (”The Dream” even slaps a keychange on) that tries to sound majestic/dramatic, not very much so to be intense, just something theatrical I s’pose. And has a little too little time for another full verse so they just go to a bridge (and "Grande amore" had two long pre-choruses too?!?). I don’t hate this one, if I had to make a 2019 ranking this instant I’d put this in Top 30 somehow.

So what is there to be found that puts people off? They cannot be hating on Roko’s voice, which is really great for a young man like him. (In fact, God forbid I say one bad word about him, because some specific one on Twitter will have a beatdown with me because I dissed her hubby... so I’ll keep my mouth shut about any qualities of his :X) I guess it consists of several factors: 1) the song sounds dated; 2) the lyrics, especially in that chorus (I DREAM OF LOOOOOOVE, YOU DREAM OF LOOOOOOVE~ lol I actually dream of hatred, hatred will prevail >:) ); 3) the vocal volume is loud at parts; 4) the song is English-Croatian and somehow it should be sung in Croatian just to hide away the hideous understandable lyrics. My personal caveats are: 1) the song is too plodding and it shows a lot in that chorus with Roko holding his long notes (can we get tothe point FASTER?!); 2) the chorus lacks productional depth and maybe with a slight revamp (given Jacques wouldn’t be so stubborn about it!) it could have sounded the right amount of dramatic. If anything, I am GRATEFUL that it sounds more palatable than "My Friend", as THAT one was a joyful of cringey clichés tbh. The cheese became rotten and smelly and the sudden violin lead-in into the bridge still creeps me out. Goddamn it Jaq.

Not to mention Mr. Houdek is soooooo optimistic about his song, he finds everything in it perfect enough to not change it! Not the melody, not the language decisions, not the wings (did I tell you Roko wore wings on his NF performance??) - no! Did someone not tell him that Eurovision is rapidly evolving and his fantasies of coming top 3 with this song just better stay fantasies? Oh wait, it's the same man who once sang "dare to dream and make it real", of course he's stuck to his guns like super glue. Can't blame him, there were worse songs in top 3 over the years. Still though, the wings is a stupid idea. There should be something else involved if Jacques wants a performance to be memorable. Roko can't just stand there and only do what he's told to do by his guardian songwriter - granted he has to behave but still...

In the end, how would I summarize this tl;dr? I am one of a handful of folks who find this alright. There's a bigger minority who outright adores the song but I'm just there that likes this and nothing much more, honestly. Everything's just alright. Guess I'm sometimes soft enough to accept cheese, huh. But seriously, the mentoring behind the scenes... it's creepy to say the least. I'm happy Roko's having a helluva good time at least.

Approval factor: Oh I don't know with this one, statistically we can just go ahead and... try approving this? I’m not a huge fan of Croatian entries this decade, at least Slovenia redeemed themselves in my eyes last minute with “Sebi”, while even in my Croatian faves (they mostly are “Nebo” and “Crazy”, and I maaaaaybe like “Lighthouse” a bit too actually?) I see some negative qualities that completely overwhelm my liking for them. But since I legally find “The Dream” okay, I give this one a bit of a pass.

Follow-up factor: Sadly this kind of choice feels to me as a steady divedown in overall quality of what Croatia usually offers us. Well the decline was always on since “My Friend” followed up “Lighthouse” I suppose, or it's just so happens that Croatia sent the duds on this decade only in odd years ("Celebrate" was fun but tragic trash, "Mižerja" was pleasant I guess but everything here was miserable from the beginning and everyone still doesn’t get why “My Friend” qualified and “Crazy” didn’t). I like it though.

Qualification factor: I’d like to believe that this one can borderline sneak the fuck in to the finals for no reason other than Jacques knowing how to work things in his favour. Yes, I’m not writing this off completely. Although I still see some parts where this wouldn’t work out, it’s actually not 100% doomed... if anything, I at least don’t see it coming last in semi easily! It’s not as LAME as Iceland last year was. And it too was a basic love-peace-dreams message inserted into an older-timey-sounding singalong ballad and was given for a young singer that has a helluva lot of potential later ASIDE Eurovision. That is if they don't pretend Eurovision "ruined [their] careers, njeh!", of course. At least Roko can SANG live and maybe it will happen again that a singer's voice will make this surprisngly qualify over the song? We'll see. For now Jacques should just stay focused on how to make Roko's angel wings (sigh...) more memorable on stage in case the voice is not qualifying but the gimmicks are.

NATIONAL FINAL BONUS

EMA 2019 at least had positive surprises all over for a NF this non-cared-about-by-me. Dora just... did not. Really. This NF did not interest me all that much song-quality-wise, and it even had SIX MORE SONGS than EMA!!! Crazy, huh?? But it’s okay, I can talk about the show to you if you want me to:

• From the Dora participants list announcement I was mostly excited to hear like two entries, and I'll mention both of them right away separately. And it's by two artists I've heard of before a lot! Though this first one kind of made me feel like I've been somewhat betrayed... enter Luka Nižetić who has got a nice vast catalogue of songs now - soft song(s), upbeat summer songs, and so on. And I kinda liked some of those songs of his I heard (if you're looking for recommendations, give "Vječno" a listen!), but “Brutalero”, his actual Dora 2019 entry was... on a whole different level. Dude, when was ripping off “Mi gente” ever useful?? It’s the year people were chasing after “Fuego” as the Latinesque bop to copy, not this! I hate it when people rehash annoying (but catchy) songs, and it’s certainly worse when they do it as their Eurovision NF entry. Brutal. And I actually remember hyping him before hearing the song, which is a bigger facepalm-worthy moment of mine. When will I ever learn?! ;( Thank God for the juries who served this song right. IDC if the revamp version of this made it any better, I’ll be fuming over this not being an inspired song. Oh and the comic book cartoon style made this brutally laughable to me, I said what I said. It might have entertained some kids though. So to summarise, Luka’s capable of having bops out, but “Brutalero” ain’t it, sis.

youtube

• Well guess what - Friendship ended with LUKA, Now MANNTRA is my best friend! Hell yeah lol. Did I tell you I like rock music so much? So I really foresaw kind of liking Manntra's song “In the Shadows” and rooting for them based on me knowing their name (just like Luka but oop), and in fact I really did root for them in the end! I wish I supported them more than Luka instead. They’re bangin’. They’re blazin’. They’re pure awesomeness. Their costumes. THAT BREAKDOWN. Magic. Should’ve won, and if them winning were any forbidden because Croatia is just refusing to accept stuff I’d stan for, at least come second. Screw Luka, screw Lorena. Bring the rock music back. ^^

youtube

• oh yeah and the others I guess. Well, if I had to recommend a few entries, here goes: if you’re nostalgic for old-timey early 2000′s bops (in the style of “Everyway That I Can”), you go and listen to the aforementioned Lorena Bućan‘s entry, “Tower of Babylon”. If you dreamed of one of the Femminem singers becoming a 60s retro artiste (actually you did not, that sounds very utter random), go check her project’s (Gelato Sisters) entry, “Back to That Swing”. If you’re here for THE QUEEN DOMENICA, go ahead, check out “Indigo”, the ultimate shopping mall background music anthem. My actual other favourite together with Manntra was Beta Sudar though, as “Don’t Give Up” as some really nice pop I guess. You see what I mean when I said that Dora this year did not interest me all that much song-quality-wise? Well ofc some songs were nice but that's all and too much 'just niceness' is slowly breaking me honestly. I would have gladly cancelled the NF and put Manntra through internally instead. Epic boys deserve an epic platform to showcase themselves, I don’t make the rules here.

Thankfully that's that out of the way, now I'm just going to wish this sweet little angel man all the best in Tel Aviv and not to be too upset if he flops. I know Jacques would be upset, but for that he shouldn't put Roko through a similar mind process also...

#eurovision 2019 #tel aviv 2019 reviews #croatia 2019 #roko blažević #the dream #croatia

4 notes · View notes