After two years of internal selections that made the Slovenian music industry mad, RTVSLO is back to doing EMA. They brought back that stupid format where the main round is based only on jury votes, which pick two songs to go to the superfinal, which is based only on televoting. It worked out in 2011, 2014, 2015 and 2019, so let’s keep an open mind (even though I already know the outcome).
The opening act was Raiven performing Veronika with a live orchestra accompanying her, which really elevated the song. She’s also apparently one of the hosts (together with Štras), which is cool. They quickly introduce the contestants and move to the songs in just 8 minutes, wow. That must be the Austro-Hungarian influence.
This is probably supposed to be fun, but I don’t care about it one bit. It’s nothing more than a generic upbeat pop song with subpar vocals - something we’ve heard about a million times before. Though her vocals got a lot better by the end - mixing issues, maybe? This was the first song, after all, and they’re always mixed worse than the later songs.
This is exactly why I love watching these NFs. It’s like someone combined Doomsday Blue and Shum, but made it completely original too. It’s obviously chanceless at ESC: neither the juries nor the televoters would appreciate this at all. Luckily, I’m neither a juror nor a televoter (ok, I am a televoter, but my tastes rarely align with the rest of televoters), so I can properly appreciate the fuck out of this. Her performance is seriously impressive, considering she’s going from something close to a while voice to very low throat singing. It was also staged very effectively, considering the stage isn’t very big. The way the lights are used really enhances this. I’m not sure it’ll stick on my playlist, but I’ll give it a go anyway.
This is so weird that I don’t even dislike it. It feels like a mix of Chain of Lights, Voices and What They Say performed in a very Disney-ish style, which should make it something I despise, but my brain genuinelt keeps short-circuiting every time I try to write something about this. At the very least, this feels very sincere. I definitely won’t revisit this any time soon though.
This is very mediocre. It’s the kind of entry Ireland would’ve internally selected in 2017 and failed to qualify with. I’ll give it some credit: it isn’t actively hateful, but it’s also not the kind of music I enjoy at all.
With a better live performance, I think I would’ve liked it a lot more. He has good stage presence and the song sounds nice and modern, but his vocals just weren’t there to sell the song. I’ll probably stick to the studio version for this.
While perhaps a little messy, this is also very professional. It starts off by immediately hooking you in with a very eye-catching costume and some extreme close-ups even before the song starts, which can be a positive or a negative depending on the song. Thankfully, the song is good as well. It starts off slow enough to be accessible, but gradually builds up to be more and more hectic. I think this is the first truly Eurovision-ready package of the show. The camera angles are great, the staging is on-point, and the melody is catchy. Of course, as I’m watching this after the fact, I know that this wasn’t selected, which is a shame.
You all know that I don’t like opera most of the time - and I especially don’t like opera performed by women. This is why I expect all of you to be surprised that I actually liked this song. I think this is because it actually bothers to be a good song on its own and not just a vocal showcase. It also has enough parts in a normal register to avoid annoying me. I’m genuinely surprised by this. Well done to Eva for making this work so well.
I already know that this was selected and I think people are really undesertimating this song’s chances at ESC. As we learned last year, the televote doesn’t hate ballads at all and this might end up being the only slow song in the first semi-final. And he definitely feels the song, as it’s about his wife having cancer. I think that a lot of people will connect with it for this reason as well. I know I do, but then I usually enjoy a good ballad.
Why do people love generic girlbops like this? Its not that I think that it’s terrible, but it’s the kind of song that would get totally lost in ESC because other countries will have the same song as well. She doesn’t even perform it that well: she’s way too breathy. I think it’s very clear why Klemen won over her and I’m happy we won’t be seeing her in Basel.
As far as rock songs go, I’ve heard better, but I’ve also heard much worse. This is pleasant and competent, well-performed and likeable. I’m genuinely struggling to come up with a longer review for this, which does happen sometimes.
One more for the “it’s nice” pile. As far as anthemic songs go, this one manages to stay on the likeable side of cheesy. The staging is cute and she has a lot of stage presence needed for this, though I’m not a fan of her vocals. Not bad though, definitely not bad.
I love it when shows end with the best song because it leaves me in a great mood. This is funny, but not in a forced way. Perhaps it leans into the joke a little too much, but I wouldn’t classify it as a joke entry. It’s a funny entry, sure, but not all funny songs are jokes. I think this is a legitimately good song with a strong live performance that would’ve stood out well in Eurovision. It has a great flow and some nice progression, the long notes are solid, the concert vibes are all there. I don’t like the part where he laughs to the music, but it’s over in like two seconds and doesn’t spoil anything for me.
This was better than I expected. There were a couple of good songs, and the bad songs weren’t even that bad. I’m even happy with the outcome, which is rare for me.
I can’t say I’m a huge fan of the EMA format, but it worked out in 2011, 2014, 2015 and 2019, so, clearly, there’s something to it. As a result, I mostly tuned out of the rest of the show, though some of the interval acts were banging. I liked the interval act by one of the hosts - Gregor Štrasbergar - where he performed a song as a part of his band Mrfy. Ravien also sang a song, then there were additional live performances for the superfinal entries and more interval acts. I loved the cover of Tih deževen dan they did, although I definitely prefer the original. Then the winner was simply revealed as there was no way to do any kind of voting sequence in a competition of two acts and 100% televoting.