It’s time for my country to make the choice. While other countries making the wrong choice is, ultimately, fine (hey, less competition for us), my country making the wrong choice always sucks - and there’s a chance of us making a terrible choice. At least I can vote here, so I’ll be complaining a lot if the worst outcome comes true. Also, this is four hours long, so yeah. It’s our chance to have some fun, and it’s not like this is actually made for foreigners.
There was a lovely opening act with our former representatives singing - no, not their songs - but rather the song <INSERT SONG WHOSE TITLE I FORGOT>. The hosts then talked (of course), did some potshots at Sweden and San Marino, and the songs finally started. I won’t bore you with the details.
While the song is rather average, I thought it was very cute and he was cute as well. It certainly has no chance at Eurovision, but it had a place in this selection. I do think his vocals could’ve been better, but Serhiy was right, it could’ve just been nerves from opening.
This is a very strong song that isn’t afraid of making a statement. She’s singing about a very difficult topic - sexual assault. I think that’s a very important topic to cover, so I’m glad she does this so tactfully. It’s a little vague on purpose, as she can’t sing about it directly, but it has great lyrics. I’ve been trying to translate it in some way, but I don’t think I can accurately convey the metaphors lyrics as they heavily lean into cultural references. TODO: come back
I think this is a lovely song with a really good message. These guys are from Mariupol and the song is about how nobody can take away their sea. While I think the vocals were a little weak (perhaps undermixed), the song was nice. It doesn’t rise above “nice” for me, sadly, even though I love the message. I think I’d love it more fully in Ukrainian.
I’d waste my time with them. This is a solid vibe. While it’s a little repetitive, that’s kind of the point as it’s a soul/funk hybrid. There’s very little to analyse here musically, as the result. Still, a vibe is a vibe and this has a place here.
The song has a very powerful message about growing up (or maybe moving on, depending on your interpretation). This is also one of those rare songs that have stronger choruses than verses (I usually complain about the inverse), though the verses aren’t too bad. She makes me not care about anything, though - she’s an exceptionally strong performer. Since I know some of her other songs, I didn’t expect something as serious as this, but I’m glad it isn’t a jokey song. I also didn’t really like the dolls in the staging, but they’re gone very quickly, so they don’t bother me too much.
I don’t like this at all. The lyrics are just straight-up nonsense (“total destroyal” is a phrase for the ages), and the song is one of those typical “Eurovision format” songs that was lost on its way to the Moldovan auditions in 2017.
I don’t think it should go to Eurovision. Why? Well, it feels a little tacky. It leans way too much into cultural stereotypes, but not in a smooth and fun way. It really is too messy, and I don’t think there’s a way to clean it up. But I don’t dislike it either - I think the lyrics are very clever, and I like that she uses a lot of dialectal words in the song. I liked her 2023 attempt more.
I like the fast parts in Ukrainian a lot more than the slow parts in English. In general, I think it would’ve worked a lot better fully in Ukrainian (same as all other songs this year). But I do like her voice - she sells the song really well. And the interpretive dancers actually added something to the performance. But I really wish she had a better song (funnily enough, Kateryna Pavlenko - who’s on the jury panel this year - said the same thing).
I came into this thinking that this would be my favourite, but it ended up not being this way. I still have it very high as it’s one of the clear standouts to me, so it’s still clearly good. My biggest problem is that it’s fairly messy. The song just doesn’t come together as a song, although the performance elevates it a lot. If I knew that they’d clean it up a little for Eurovision, I’d feel a lot safer voting for this, but as it stands now, I’m a little shaky. But at least the staging was on point - it felt very cute and fresh.
This is the clear standout of the selection to me. First of all, their performance was flawless. There wasn’t a single missed note. Then, the staging was really appropriate for this kind of song. They gave it all, served, slayed and did everything right. This is my clear favourite of the selection, the clear standout of the night and the song we should obviously send to Eurovision this year. It has great lyrics as well. My favourite line is, “Life isn’t sugar, and in this lies the salt”. The phrase “in this lies the salt” means “in a nutshell”, but they’re also using it more literally as well. It’s really clever, though maybe I’m not conveying it super well.
Hot take: this lineup was better than last year. I know people will disagree, but there were only three songs I really liked from Vidbir last year, while this time there were six. I won’t bore you with the interval acts as describing them would take ages, but I think they were picked really well.
As for the results, I’m quite happy with them. I almost got a heart attack when Honor won the juries, but at least Bird of Pray won overall. That’s a decent outcome and I’m happy with this, even though Ziferblat have much better songs in their discography.
I love my winner, my 2nd to 6th are very good too and even my 7th to 9th are nice as well. I only dislike my last place.