Unlike many other NFs this year, Dora has seen a glow-up compared to previous years, almost certainly thanks to Croatia’s best result ever last year and winning the televote. Let’s see if they can continue this momentum.
The production upgrades are immediately obvious. The audio is much better, the stage looks better, and everything is executed better. I hope the production doesn’t take a dip during the songs.
Qualified
French? In a Croatian NF? Sure, why not. I thought it worked really well. She has the sort of raspy voice that works well to sell this song. In general, she had a great, convincing vocal and a very expressive performance. I really enjoyed the song and the live performance.
Qualified
There was maybe something enjoyable here, but I can’t say I liked it too much. Overall, it felt way too plodding for my tastes. Their voices were nice, though.
While this might be a fairly generic pop ballad, I still enjoyed it, especially closer to the end, as she sounded a little too breathy at the start. But as soon as she improved, my enjoyment increased too.
Qualified
Apart from her impressive vocals, this was a nothingburger of a song. I really have nothing to say about this.
Qualified
Qualified
Qualified
Qualified
Qualified
I enjoyed this. I really disliked only one song, and I liked more than half of the songs. I also loved the interval act with Nina Badrić - it took 40 minutes, but it felt more like 15 minutes.
Qualified
Qualified
Qualified
I’ve always found this sort of soft pop rock weirdly appealing. It definitely won’t do much in the contest (and I mean Dora because it’s not going to ESC at all), but I think it was just nice and chill. I’m keeping it on my playlist.
Qualified
There’s nothing more unforgivable than being entirely forgettable and bland as a rock song. It wasn’t actively unpleasant, but it made me feel a whole load of nothing. The performance was just flat and uncharismatic, which didn’t help the already blah backing track and lyrics. Overall, I certainly won’t be returning to this.
I found this to be a total nothingburger and she was oversinging it to try and hide that fact. Still, it wasn’t bad, just not particularly remarkable.
Qualified
I liked her, but I didn’t like the song. It simply lacked any power, even though she tried to make it convincing. I can’t say it did much for me despite that, sadly. But I’d like to see her back again with a song more suited to her.
Qualified
Qualified
Qualified
This was definitely a better semi-final. I also enjoyed the interval acts here. One of them was Alessandra (Norway 2023) singing Mama ŠČ (Croatia 2023). This isn’t a combination I ever thought of, but she made it work, and I enjoyed it immensely. As for the qualifiers, it was sad to lose Gorelo je and kinda sad to lose Lies Lay Cold, but at least Kraj qualified.
I found this song to be a bit of a guilty pleasure in the studio, but the live once again sold me on it. Sure, the lyrics are a bit nonsensical, but the’re was so much energy here that I absolutely couldn’t resist the song. As this was the semi-final closer, I think it could’ve won the whole thing there and I hope it does well in the final too.
Here’s an example of a singer elevating the song a lot. In the studio, it just passed me by. However, she really sold the song to me with her performance, which is what counts most. Her final performance was even better than her semi-final one. I know this doesn’t stand a chance, but I’ll be rooting for it anyway.
In the semi-final, there was some huge technical fault that made it sound weird. It felt like there was some vocal effect on his voice, which made me really dislike the whole package. I think he should’ve been allowed to perform again, but he wasn’t, so whatever.
He did sound a lot better in the final, though, which is great. I don’t think I’ll be returning to this song too often, but I like it a lot better in the final.
This is the most generic self-empowerment anthem from the island of Self-Empoweredness. It’s dull musically, generic lyrically and I don’t like her voice that much (it just doesn’t work for me, she was fine on a technical level). The Croatian bit at the end did elevate it a bit though.
She had to remove her in-ear in the final (more technical issues?) and completely drifted off-key, but I definitely can’t blame her for that. I can blame her for having a song like this, though.
This sounds exactly like the kind of music I grew up listening to. I’m thrilled to have a rap song that doesn’t compromise itself to sound more appealing to the broader audience. I also love the performance: it’s so fun and interesting. It’s basically just a huge mood booster for me, and I’d be so happy to see it in Basel. He struggled a little with breath control at the end, but I’m sure he can work on it before May.
This was surprisingly fun and you know me, I hate fun. But I can’t hate this because it’s just harmless and even a little charming. But the singing was very subpar, sadly, to the point where it ended up heavily annoying my ears.
Eurovision definitely doesn’t have enough electronic music, so I actually wouldn’t mind it if this went to Eurovision, though I wish this was a lot more interesting. The costumes were on point, but the music was quite monotonous. But I enjoyed it anyway.
Bardcore is very popular right now, so I’m absolutely unsurprised that it made its way to Eurovision. To be honest, I really liked it. I think the live performance was fun and energetic, although the vocals weren’t all there. Still, this could do well in Eurovision as we don’t have anything like this this year (and Germany didn’t end up sending Feuerschwanz). Still, this is a definite keeper for me.
Ballads work well when they’re delivered by powerful singers who really sell them. This is exactly what happened in the semi-final. I was really into his performance for the full three minutes. However, he had some major voice cracks in the final, and the whole illusion fell apart, sadly. I still like it, though.
Well, they embraced the weirdness of the song live, which made it work. Will I revisit this ever again? Not really. Did I find it enjoyable? Kinda. He definitely needs to work on his English enunciation.
So many songs in Dora are elevated by their live performances. I already liked this in the studio, but I like this even more live. He’s simply a very likeable performer, even if he isn’t absolutely perfect vocally. I just think he managed to inject enough emotions into this to sway me.
This was a little dated, but in a very lovely and enjoyable way. I just wish the live performance was a bit stronger. The vocals were good, but the rest of the performance was incredibly basic and didn’t sell the song at all. My biggest complaint is those weird CGI children on the backdrop, which will surely give nightmares to the whole Croatian population (and all international viewers). At least they don’t look AI-generated, which is a positive.
There was a lot of everything here, but it never exactly came together. Overall, it was just very cringy. I especially hate the cutesy nursery rhyme-like chorus, which is just so insanely annoying. It reminds me of gaming songs I used to watch on youtube, and I can’t say I love that era of me. I still didn’t mind it too much.
I kinda like this. It isn’t as strong of a ballad as the other ones in the final, but I still though tthis was quite lovely.
This was a very rough experience. In the semi-final, they were all wildly off-key, which is the one thing you can’t be in a song that relies on complex multi-part harmonies. The lyrics were also a little dodgy, but hey, that’s more forgivable in my eyes (or rather ears). Thankfully, they switched a large part of the song to Croatian, which immediately made it sound better. They even harmonised a bit better, though it still sounded like their in-ears were completely off.
Ok, I was super excited for this and he totally delivered. The first couple seconds were very shaky, but he very quickly recovered and delivered a really good performance. The staging was maybe a bit too cluttered, but it succeeded in catching my attention. Perhaps the costuming could be better as well, I’d lose the shirts entirely ahem, sorry.
Well, I actually quite enjoyed this national final. Croatia had a lot of good songs in the running, although the semi-finals eliminated some of my favourites. The production was generally good, the interval acts were picked well, and there were a lot of bangers. Sadly, the voting totally ruined my mood because the juries almost unanimously went for one of my least favourites. Oh well, there’s no point in dwelling on it now.