Serbia is returning to this year’s contest after being absent last year, and after failing to make the final in 2013, they seem to be eager to not make it happen again.
They’re selection Odbrojavanje za Beč, consisted of 3 performers, all of which performed songs written by Vladimir Graić, who wrote Serbia’s 2007 winning entry ‘Molitva‘.
Finising 3rd, was the male counterpart of the competition Aleksa Jelić. His song ‘Vodi me’, was a mixture of Serbian sounding cheap pop and some Swedish schlager all from the early 2000s. The performance wasn’t that bad, the choreography seemed like it was stolen from Magnus Carlsson, and the whole package was just too dated and ridiculous to be taken seriously.
Runner-up was Danica Krstić, she was an unknown singer, and had to go through a preliminary round, where she competed against 9 other unknown artists for the right to participate in the selection. She performed the song ‘Suze za kraj’, and while she can definitiley sing those high notes, the song was just a bit boring, and sounded like another not so distant cousin of ‘Molitva’, hence not being so original.
The winner of the selection was Bojana Stamenov, she is only knows for taking part in Serbia’s Got Talent, where she finished 4th. Bojana is a big singer, she has a great voice, and she just belts out the song. Her appearance may resemble that of a young Esma Redžepova, with her traditional outfit styles and image she has going for her.
As for the song itself, it starts as a typical Serbian-Graić Balkan typical Eurovision song, powerful build up to a great hook in the chorus. However, during the last minute of the song, the song transformers into a dated sounding dance track. I don’t know if this is such a wise decision, as the song sounds great until that part where it kind of loses its structure and goes all over the place. Maybe with a new production to that part it can work better, as Bojana is comfortable with it and gives her best on this song.
Regardless of this, with a little work this song can bring Serbia a qualification and a nice result in the final, it’s nothing ground-breaking or innovating, but it’s still good for what it is in it’s genre and the Eurovision Song Contest context.
Eurovision Israel 