Cyprus: Eleni Foureira – Fuego

Martin: Several of this year’s entries suffer from having a decent build-up followed by a mysterious absence of an actual chorus, and “Fuego” is possibly the biggest culprit. It’s understandable, though – Eleni is known for not being the best live singer (indeed, the melody line already taxes her vocal capabilities more than I expected it to), and a silly instrumental riff will give her and her backing dancers the chance to show off the main reason(s) they were internally selected for the Cypriot gig this year.

There is, of course, still considerable car crash potential here. Indeed, it’s easy to imagine the early rehearsals being a bit of a mess, and the press centre might end up falling over itself to proclaim Cyprus as a “shock” non-qualifier. The question will be how things sound – and look – after they’ve had a bit of time to tighten things up.

At a personal level, I find the actual song completely uninteresting, but it should qualify and give Europe’s dads something to enjoy on Saturday night. For all there have been exceptions in the past (hello, Triana Park), the producers tend not to put underwhelming entries in this slot in the running order if they can help it, so they may already know that Eleni has something up her sleeve performance-wise. (As if she would wear anything with sleeves.)

Felix: Cyprus! An uplifting, staggering melody, which even my grandparents would have liked? Sung by a beautiful, natural voice? Nope. Nothing. This song is in my bottom 3 in one of my least favourite Eurovision years ever. “Fuego” is everything I hate about contemporary female pop. It’s annoying, harsh, unlikable, repulsive.

Shi: Foureira is a dancer who sometimes sings, and has mimed throughout her entire career. But she commands the stage and the cameras like no other, and can easily make herself come across as a credible superstar in this context. I’m guessing this will be vocally arranged like an Azerbaijani “Miracle” but will look much better. And score better too, even with a lesser song.

video and title image source: eurovision.tv