Romania: Ester Peony – On A Sunday

Martin: In line with Romanian competition rules, I’ll be handing over to another fan website to write two-sevenths of this review.

Only kidding! Even I can’t persuade my spell-checker to accept the phrase “GURL SLAY” with a straight face. But it is one of the unfortunate ironies of the season that Ester Peony’s ESC entry will now forever be overshadowed by the curious happenings at the national final, which essentially amounted to little more than a televised internal selection.

Granted, that would be less true if “On A Sunday” were a better song in the first place. It’s not that it’s bad – the mood it sets makes it quite different in the ESC 2019 field, Ester herself has a certain bite to her performance that could make it work in Tel Aviv, and the time signature and structure are interesting choices – but it’s all a bit meandering and directionless. Weirdly, it puts me in mind of Kelly Clarkson’s departure into gothy misery on the “My December” album: there’s no doubting the inherent quality, but you can’t help but wish she’d cheer up a bit and give us a straightforward pop banger instead..

Felix: When I heard the first four beats of Romania’s first verse, I thought, oh, this could turn out to be a very good one. Obviously, certain people in charge only listened to these first beats. And as a result, we get an even more boring successor to The Humans..

Shi: I like her more than I like the song, but I think liking her sometimes makes me believe that I like the song more than I really do.Then it comes on shuffle and I don’t feel like listening to it. It should still do better than last year, as at least it’s possible to remember how this one sounds.

video and title image source: eurovision.tv