Austria: Cesár Sampson – Nobody But You

Shi: Austria’s “Nobody But You” is basically the alter ego of the Bulgarian entry. Cesár Sampson actually was a backing singer for the two last Bulgarian entries, and while it’s Austria that has given him the chance to go solo this year, the Bulgarians have donated him the co-writer of their last two entries – who, coincidentally, is also jointly responsible for this year’s Bulgarian entry. Indeed, in terms of genre and sound production, the similarity is very clear.

But where Bulgaria is dark and depressing, Austria is positive and uplifting. Where Bulgaria has too many performers, all of them slightly scary, Austria has just the one and he’s quite lovely to look at. Where we still don’t really know how the Bulgarians will sound, we do know how Austria will sound, because Cesár actually bothered to sing live in London and it was freaking excellent. The only thing where Cesár suffers from a serious deficit compared with Bulgaria is the PR team, which he apparently didn’t get to keep after crossing back into his home nation. After hearing him singing live I have no doubt that the juries will be his friends, and I can only hope the televote will follow, because he deserves it.

Martin: I think Cesár has another deficit, and that’s on-stage charisma. He seems lovely and he sings well, but I’ve yet to see a performance where he was especially engaging, and that could turn this into a very long and sludgy three minutes.

Felix: A song can indeed be better than its inspirations. At first, I thought Austria just sounded like Nano (and hence Rag’n’Bone Man). But then I realised “Nobody But You” is better than both of those. Epic backing vocals in the chorus, I hope they can reproduce them live. Like it a lot.

video and title image source: eurovision.tv