ZENA - "Like it"
A pretty bad draw for Belarus, especially now that Ukraine has withdrawn. Belarus only has one friendly country in the SF in Poland and, more poignantly, has never qualified from the first half before, ever! "Like it" is a nice song though with a cute energy spike that should receive a few votes from both televoters and juries, but Zena's lack of experience / good, original song will catch up with her quickly, locking her out of the Grand Final.
Verdict:
NQ
Lake Malawi - "Friend of a friend"
Opinions appear divided on Lake Malawi where half appear to enjoy their earworm britpop and the rest find them unbearably irritating. However, despite coming from a pretty unfortunate country, Lake Malawi manage to fill a niche in the semi nobody else does with their cheerful, upbeat sound, which should yield televotes. The problem is juries though. While "Friend of a friend" is radio-friendly, it's doesn't have any exceptional qualities and likely will have very simple (or downright annoying) staging. Personally I think they advance, but if other borderline qualifiers step up their A-game, Czechia may find themselves narrowly missing out on finals.
Verdict:
BL+
Tamta - "Replay"
A very credible, if transparent attempt from Cyprus to capitalize on Eleni's success. Shoving my personal qualms about Replay aside, I think what we're looking at is a very fun high energy ride that will appeal to all ages. The one hurdle Tamta really faces is that she is
The One That Came After Eleni and therefore always will have the Foureira Wannabe Label attached to her, regardless of whether she deserves it or not (Personally, I
don't think it's fair to compare her to Eleni). Tamta will need to work on establishing herself as
Tamta, as opposed to the
ageing Eleni Clone Europe will perceive her as, or she might choke on her wheels. Still, all signs point towards Tamta being really good live, so qualification itself should not be a problem either way.
Verdict:
QF
Darude ft Sebastian Rejman - "Look away"
Of course once Finland announced their participant as ~DARUDE, SANDSTORM~ the entire ESC community went ablaze because the meme power is real, y'all!! ....aaand then Finland revealed three underwhelming, dated EDM songs that could become their entry and the interest instantly evaporated! "Look away'" is the best of the three though, because it has a descernible melody and a Woke Message (which will make an impact of approximately zero but w/e), but things will greatly depend on Sebastian's live vocals and these vocals are, as established by UMK, rather Bad. Finland are definitely on the bubble for qualification as they're looking more like Gromee & Lukas 2.0. A decent draw that pits them between NQ fodder such as Belarus and Montenegro could save them, but right now things are looking very dicey indeed.
Verdict:
BL-
Joci Pápai - "Az én apám"
An interesting choice for Hungary, because everyone simply assumes it will qualify, which triggers my PTSD for other Guaranteed Qualifiers which *whoops* NQ'd spectacularly (see: Greta, Verona, Sennek, Jüri, etc). Having said that, while I think "Az én apám" is a much weaker effort than "Origo", Joci should still make it into the final? The basic framework (big name, good voice, pleasant melody) is all there, all Joci really needs is effective staging that takes away most of the song's monotony. If Hungary can get that rolling, Finals will be all but guaranteed.
Verdict:
QF
D-Moll - "Heaven"
Oh come on, don't be ridiculous.
Verdict:
NQ
Tulia - "Fire of Love"
A huge question mark for me. One of the few acts that could really go either way, either just barely scraping by or bombing out entirely. Poland is one of the few countries with a relevant diasporia vote, but such a vote only really matters in cases where the live performance is already
strong enough to draw in non-diasporia votes (as painfully demonstrated by all of last year's NQs). One of my friends pointed out that the closest analogy to Tulia is actually
Neiokoso (Estonia2004), and I foresee a similar end where they narrowly miss out on finals, possibly after ranking third last with every jury (Montenegro and Serhat will be the B2 with every jury, bank on it).
Verdict:
BL-
Nevena Božović - "Kruna"
Serbia is an interesting ESC country from a qualification perspective because they always seem to float between the 9th-11th place range in any semifinal they participate in and this year will be no exception. They have a strong singer in Nevena and loyals allies in Slovenia and Montenegro. Problem is that their entry this year is a Boring Balkan Ballad, at a time where they're no longer popular with the general viewer, as well as the absense of Switzerland and Austria from their Semi, which have a very loyal Serb diasporia. Serbia will have to put in a lot of work into making their song connect with the non-Yugo audience. If they can, they will advance. If they can't (by for instance keeping the Beovizija staging), they will Terzi themselves out of the Grand Final.
Verdict:
BL?
Zala Kralj & Gašper Šantl - "Sebi"
The main thing holding Slovenia back is the flag. '
Sebi' has already established itself as a massive grower with a solid fanbase, both here and elsewhere on the internet (yours truly's arm reaches quite far), but the question remains: will Zala & Gašper have sufficient on-stage chemistry to ensnare enough televotes at the first listen? It will largely depend on how effective the camerawork is at capturing their body language (which as evidenced by their album cover art and video clip is one of their strengths). Normally, I'd say the song is strong enough to merit qualification, but if anyone in this semi is the
Blackbird, it's them.
Verdict:
BL+
Kate Miller-Heidke - "Zero gravity"
Australia is another difficult to gauge because their success will depend entirely on having an ironclad staging concept, and we know very little about it! It's good that they're doing away with the (at this point very uncreative) Growth Dress gimmick, the song should sell itself. Still, I'm cautiously assigning them to the Borderline group; while staging Zero Gravity correctly is easy enough (especially with a rich broadcaster such as SBS), it's just as easy to fuck it up entirely. Aus WILL advance if they close the semi though. (which I expect them to)
Verdict:
BL+
Eliot - "Wake up"
This should be an effortless qualification for Belgium, unless Eliot manages to be really bad live. However, being Belgian myself, I can confirm that he
isn't and has displayed a very engaging personality in his interviews. RTBF always put a lot of thought into their entries (unlike VRT :-/) and this won't be an exception.
Verdict:
QF
Victor Crone - "Storm"
Normally I'd say that Victor
would qualify simply based on Swedish White Male Mediocrity, but if last year taught us anything is that nobody is safe if you're not good. Victor has two massive problems: 1) his song is generic crud and 2)
he is a limp noodle with Lisa Rinna hair who also
cannot sing well. Estonia do have a trump card in their CGI Gimmick, but I still think they'll bomb in the televote, even if they are Christerrigged into a late slot (#15-17). They will be top half with juries though and I think this could be good enough to barely skate by in 10th place if they're feeling generous.
Verdict:
BL?
Oto Nemsadze - "Sul tsin iare"
Oto's only advantage is that he has a really powerful voice, but the song...
Incoherent in-tune yelling does not make a song, but a very long, pain-staking vocal exercise (TAKE NOTES CROATIA) It's hard to me to judge fairly based on a low-budget performance in what was a low-budget national final, but it all just comes off as
weird and not of the Good variety. It's defo staying in the semi based on what we know.
Verdict:
NQ
Katerine Duska - "Better love"
Greece are pretty much good at
everything, without necessarily excelling at
anything, but with a guaranteed 24 points from Cyprus plus a bunch from other countries, including Belgium and Australia, their position should be quite safe. "Better love" screams Midcarder for me, as in 10th-15th place if the finale, if they get there. I've seen enough signals that Katerine will be good live, so I am going to grant them tentative Qualifier status, but with a caveat: pastel pinks are
A Choice as far as aesthetics go and if Greece really intend to go down that route and make their staging look like a John Waters cult classic, I will be forced to revoke their QF status :-/
Verdict:
QF
Hatari - "Hatrið mun sigra"
Hatred shall prevail, all the way into the final. Lmao, what is there even to analyze? They rule, Europe will love them, as well as the jury btw. If a Eurovision Jury can love Midnight Gold, then can certainly love this one as well.
ÁSTIN DEYJA!!
Verdict:
QF
Conan Osíris - "Telemóveis"
Conan is just so show-stoppingly weird that there's absolutely no way he won't be getting at least top five with the audience, if not top three. If well done, he should be getting a ton of jury votes as well (though not as much. I expect around 7th place with juries). I can also guarantee you he will be getting Belgium's and France's televoting 12s, due to the combination of Being Good + Diasporiae.
Verdict:
QF
Serhat - "Say Na Na Na"
Lol, Serhat will do his usual spiel where he'll scrape together enough points to earn 9th in the televote, while scoring 9 points
total in the jury vote. It would be hilarious if he qualified, especially if at the expense of Estonia or Serbia, but let us not kid ourselves. At least he won't substract from anyone's experience
Verdict:
NQ
