Hungary has always been a hit or miss for me - Once in a while they come up with something brilliant, but most of the time they seem to create fodder to feed the garbage can. This time they share with us, the handsome bloke named Freddie, what can he do to make some damage to the game?
Pioneer is really just a generic overblown pop-ballad, but it has some strong qualities to it and that mostly has to do with the singer itself rather than the song.
Freddie is neither a Mercury, nor is he a Pioneer, yet, his voice is interesting. He has a raspy, cackled, yet vulnerability to it that is appealing. When he goes for the higher register he sounds like a strained Michael Bolton, but it's rather helping the song in this case. The production is both a strength and a weakness; Freddie's voice stands out in a sea of genericness, but at the same time, the overproduced modern production decreases the value and doesn't clash well with his voice - It sounds dated and rushed. It's as if he tries to break free from the fundamental base of the production layers. Can someone handle this guy a guitar?
The lyrics are quite good. Borbála Csarnai has done it well, although English not being his first language. Despite resorting to that ham-fisted bombastic "You can do anything you want to do!-sort of message, they are delivered very well by the singer. "A million lies in a million temples It’s only fear, become a pioneer" suggests the writers offense at religions where "temples" is also a metaphor for artists trapped away in dark studios, stowed away from reality, forced to dish out generic songs to feed the masses, hence the line "become a pioneer". That part is interesting.
The song starts with a egg clock'ish ticking, soon fades out in a piano while we're introduced to the Main Attraction - The raspy voice of Mr. Freddie. The lyrics are delivered in a hopeful way, then takes off for real, where he goes full-force duet with the background chants ("oooh-aaaoou! oooh-aaaaoooouu!"). During the bridge, the song gets a bit choppy, then turns east into a exaggerated climatic ending where Freddie delivers an absolutely amazing vocal performance, reaching some high octaves, followed by the ending in which we can hear some of the low-mixed chanting vocals in the background followed by some emotional ad-lib's. This is the highlight of the song.
While the production is zappy and generic, Freddie delivers with every part of his soul attached, THIS is the main reason to give the song a second listen. It might not be the greatest piece of melody you ever heard, but Freddie is an interesting vocalist and it will be a pleasure to follow his way through this event.
