North Macedonia: Tamara Todevska – Proud

Felix: If I had the job of giving awards in this Eurovision year of 2019, the first prize for “female ballad of the year” would go to North Macedonia. Talking about the role it occupies this year in relation to the line-up as a whole, it follows on from Sanna Nielsen’s “Undo“, Polina Gagarina’s “A Million Voices“, and more recently “La Forza“.

And the great news about North Macedonia 2019 is it does sound like its own thing. The bad news? Some people don’t see it as a strong candidate to the same extent as me – just ask my teammate Martin. But I say even North Macedonia can do well eventually.

Sure, it’s not a country with a particularly lucky Eurovision history so far, including legendary car crashes like XXL, or crimes against taste like “Make My Day” or “Let Me Love You”, in which Tamara Todevska herself was involved back in 2008. And even when they did have good songs in the running, North Macedonia often failed to stage them well enough.

This makes predictions quite difficult indeed, but I think qualification and the right-hand half of the scoreboard should be within the possibilities for “Proud”. Maybe even more, if things go well for the freshly renamed country.

Martin: New name, same old story? Felix is right insofar as I’ve even bet against North Macedonia qualifying, simply because they’ve messed things up on stage so many times before that I don’t trust them to get it right. But that’s a “safety bet” and one I would be delighted to lose.

Shi: The Macedonians did screw up several great songs with their staging, but a straightforward female ballad should save them from themselves. It’s also very difficult to have an old school pretty ballad sung prettily by a pretty girl and not qualify, especially from that area of the draw, as history would show.

video and title image source: eurovision.tv