This morning, the Wiwi Jury – our in-house panel of music unprofessionals – took a flight to Brasov, Romania and strolled around the beautiful Piata Sfatului in the centre of town. We then decided to get out of the heat and cycled in a convoy of tandems to Constanta at the coast. Once we’d settled down for some tanning time, we brought out the WiwiBloggs Boom Box and put Paula & Ovi’s song for Romania, ‘Miracle’ on. Did we love, love, love or hate, hate, hate? Read on to find out!
Angus: ‘Miracle’ is like divine intervention from above. Amidst the sea of ballads, ‘Miracle’ will provide respite and something to bring us all out of the comas we’ll have slipped into. The stage chemistry between Paula & Ovi is electric and the former’s high note through the middle 8 gives a truly angelic quality to the song. Fun and quality Eurodance ‘Miracle’ is a welcome return for P&O and should continue Romania’s streak of qualifications from the Semi-Finals with an ease some countries in the Contest undouetdly envy.
Score: 9.5/10
Billy: Paula Seling & Ovi are returning this year with a song not as amazing as “Playing With Fire”. It’s still good, though. I like those “Miracle” features, with Paula Seling appearing magically on stage, and their video clip was really nice (although at some times irrelevant to the entry itself). I’m sure their performance on stage will be awesome, and it is, undeniably, the best pop entry this year.
Score: 9.5/10
Bogdan: When I pondered about who could bring Eurovision to Bucharest last year, I didn’t dare to dream that Paula and Ovi would ever be back. “Playing With Fire” was easily the fans’ favourite Romanian entry – until “Miracle”. Yes, “Miracle” is (still) underrated by the bookmakers as I’m writing this review – but so it was ahead of Oslo 2010, when the duo took everyone by surprise with a pitch-perfect performance and finished just 8 points shy of second place. I think the strength of “Miracle” lies in its live show and I have no doubts that Paula and Ovi will steal the spotlight once again. They have stronger competition this year, but I also believe they have a stronger song. As far as I’m concerned, the odds are in their favour.
Score: 10/10
Anthony: Welcome back Paula and Ovi! “Playing with Fire” was a poptastic Eurovision classic in 2010. The “Miracle” Eurodance entry will no doubt spark the chemistry between them, as well as having Paula hitting that high note once again. As returning artists however, part of me fear they do run the risk of falling into the Eurovision version of “second season syndrome”. Ireland’s Jedward and Bulgaria’s Elitsa and Stoyan have experienced it as duos. I really hope it doesn’t happen to Paula and Ovi as they attempt to achieve their first Eurovision title. Romania, you’ve got yourselves another member of the #TeamMiracle fan club!
Score: 9/10
Deban: When ‘Miracle’ hits the bridge, it’s like Benny Benassi on acid. Fierce! The Romanian returnees have done it again. ‘Miracle’ is modern memorable dance anthem sizzled with a thumping techno beat. With the right staging, and production elements, this could create the party atmosphere that Germany failed to bring to Malmö.
Score: 7/10
Katie: YES! The King and Queen of Romanian Eurovision have returned with the danciest, happiest, coolest handful of piano pop since “Playing With Fire”! As soon as Ovi starts singing, I’m feeling it. When Paula sings the first note, a brilliant new dynamic is added to the tune and all of the elements collide to make a bloody good chorus. The chorus is an explosion of lights, high notes and pianos, it has me dancing within seconds and I’m instantly lost in a “Miracle” trance. They have some lungs too! Paula and Ovi work so well together, I couldn’t imagine them collaborating with anyone else. The part after the second chorus is my favourite, Ovi does his little piano riff while Paula belts out a great note, woohoo! Eurovison 2014 doesn’t get much better than this. Go #TeamMiracle!
Score: 10/10
Mike: When I heard the news Paula Seling & Ovi were coming back to Eurovision, I was so happy, I could really start crying of happiness. The performers of one of the sexiest and most amazing song last years at Eurovision were giving the contest another chance! And their new song was so good, even a folklore twist couldn’t ruin it, and that means a lot! Bucharest 2015!
Score: 9.5/10
Vebooboo: Perhaps the biggest “miracle” of all this year is to see at least one good duet. Now, don’t get me wrong, from an aesthetic point of view, Paula and Ovi go together about as well as Chanee and N’Evergreen did. Totes mismatch on stage, and with about as much chemistry between them as two 85 year-old grannies. But acoustically this is pure perfection. I mean, who wouldn’t love an 18 second (yes, 18 second!) shriek-a-thon?? The song is a bit generic, but the duo’s last entry wasn’t exactly a masterpiece either. If this doesn’t do well, I will be shocked.
Score: 8/10
Padraig: The curse of the returning Eurovision artist is fiction. Dima Bilan, Helena Paparizou, Zeljko Joksimovic and many more have made multiple appearances at Eurovision unscathed. Give a performer a good song and the original magic will reappear. Unfortunately for Paula and Ovi “Miracle” is not up to scratch. Peel away the male-female duet and you essentially have a Cascada tribute. And look how the real thing did last year. For 2 artists of this calibre I was expecting much more than some cheap euro-pop about an unspecified miracle. My only positive, and quite a large one at that, is Paula’s stunning vocals, in particular her Miraaaaaaaaaaaaacle towards the end. Wow!
Score: 5/10
All 19 jurors review each song, but we only have room to share 9 written reviews. Here are the remaining 10 scores.
James L: 9/10
Mario: 5.5/10
Maxim Montana: 6/10
Francheska: 4.5/10
Zach: 7.5/10
Patrick: 9/10
Ramadan: 7.5/10
Sami: 10/10
William C: 7.6/10
Wiwi: 7.5/10
The highest and lowest scores are dropped before calculating the average. We have dropped a low of 4.5 and a high of 10.
Wiwi Jury verdict: 8.06/10
You can check out our latest Eurovision 2014 reviews and rankings on the Wiwi Jury page. You can keep up-to-date on the latest Eurovision news and gossip by following the team on Twitter @wiwibloggs and by liking our Facebook page.
I hate this song ! It coppy-paste Cascada – Glourious !!!
@Chesco: you are so right! Couldn’t have said it better meself
He has a beautiful voice, she doesn’t. The song’s style is very dated. The lyrics are rubbish. The vocal pyrotechnics are completely unnecessary. Frankly, this is a “meh” song…pity, it could have been so much more…
The duo works and it’s a good song to show what they can do. It will be a miracle is they reach the top 5. 6/10
Listen this!
Alexander Rybak & Paula Seling – I’ll show you
‘Andra OR Vunk’… Geez!
Since the notion of ‘good duo’ came up, I can’t help it: this is what I call a great (Romanian) duo, but I doubt we will ever see Andra of Vunk at ESC… Anyway, I hope you’ll like their song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1faPNV7Acc&feature=youtube_gdata_player
lovely song i love them good luck from Azerbaijan
Really good pop-song! Just love it!
AMAZING VOTE PLEASE FOR ROMANIA ESC BUCHAREST #Team Miracle
the true winners
Not a unique song!
Geez people, if you don’t have anything good to say why even say it???? I don’t mind good criticism but being plain mean, harsh and hateful is so cheap. Hopefully those cheap people would be the ones to not want to spend their money to vote for any of the entries. That would do a good service to this contest. This might not be a song for everyone’s taste, but let’s face it, this is Eurovision and the song and the artists are pretty much in line with this type of competition that can be enjoyed by people from Iceland… Read more »
Can’t believe that you’d give 10/10 to some eurotrash song with tacky lyrics. I mean c’mon, “Miracle”, “Beautiful”, “Dream” .. their practically abusing the meaning of these words by puttin’ them in this shallow type of song.
It’s obviously a huge fanwank regarding Ovi and Paula.
I think this might do well but come on guys – what’s with the high scores? A soulless, mediocre dance tune, specially crafted for ESC, to be forgotten the next day. Next time Paola, come alone and bring along a real song.
Am I missing something? I find this song formulaic and ordinary, and a bad one at that. WiWi Jury, you have disappointed me once more.
The best mark so farr!! oh my godd, i love you wiwibloggs!
“Finaly a good duo…” What about the Common Linnets? :O
Anyway, I like this song so I wouldn´t mind if they would win.
I truly only think people like it because it’s sung by Paula Seling & Ovi. Take away them and throw in any other singers, even with identical voices and I don’t think people would like it as much. It’s nowhere near the quality of “Playing With Fire” and sounds like bland uninspiring dance pop that was written by force. Since it’s Romania, it’ll qualify and probably place well, but it doesn’t deserve that at all in my opinion. 1/10
It’s not a bad song, i liked Playing With Fire better.
I’ll be not surprised if Romania will reach Top 10.
Paula can hit that note, I think in these concerts she does that with her note voluntary otherwise I can’t explain how in our national final she hasn’t got any problem, and in the first rehearsal she hitted that not perfectly 3 times…….
Miracle is ok. It’s not a winner, playing with fire was much better. I’ve loved some Romanian entries, such as let me try, tornero, Mandinga etc. this one fails to light my fire (no pun intended). It’s tryin to hard I reckon. However, I think It will definitely qualify and on the night it will score very well with the televote but not with the juries I think. I would reckon top 10 for sure. Musically it’s not my taste, but I appreciate a lot of people do, and Romanians are proud of it, but I cannot see it any… Read more »
This song is just double negative.
No matter how much I try to understand why everyone enjoys this song so much — I fail. It is a HUGE YAWN
Every time I read “ESC europop” I feel like rushing to the toilet and taking a sanitising shower. Please understand it is my very personal taste. Nothing-against-these-wonderful-singers. As has been said, this is an extremely generic song. There is nothing wrong in it, save the meh feeling it gives many of us. On the other hand, they are wonderfully blended on stage and that will surely help them qualify. Both, not only Paula, sing very very well. And about the long high note, it impresses me more as acrobatics than as singing. She needs to prove no point about her… Read more »
Paula and Ovi will bring color to this year’s Eurovision Song Contest..
Vote nr 15 Romania ..may 8
For those who say she cannot hit that note live… Just look at the end of this video… she hits a more difficult one… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sS0SecoNzBw#t=301
‘waiting FOR this review” 🙂
I’ve been waiting this review with bated breath, and now that it’s here, I can finally breathe normally :)). Since, obviously, I cannot be objective with my own country’s entry, I will refrain from making any comments, good or bad, but I would like to say 2 things: 1. ‘Miracle’ was by far the best entry at our NF, so their presence in Copenhagen is well deserved; 2. No matter what the outcome will be in terms of qualification / placing, I certainly won’t be embarrased like last year (and to be clear: last year I was not embarrased by… Read more »
Paula has a fantastic voice but this song is not for the win ,like i said it would end up for sure in top ten or even 5…My favourite this year is Molly children of the univers and she will get votes from the whole Europe.
Bucharest 2015 xD
Come on, this is trash and you all know it. And it’s not even cute trash. La La Love was adorable, even Balcan Girls had it’s charm. Not to mention Tornerò, which the was the creme of the genre. But this is so generic, dated, schemed and soulless it’s not even funny. And that man is very untelegenic. Here’s Romania doing what everybody expects them to do. Apathetic.
Haha WiWi and their horrible taste again
As others have pointed already, this one is terribly generic, there’s nothing in it I haven’t heard before… ok maybe except for that 18 seconds long note from Paula near the end, now THAT is impressive, but other than that, just average. For me is another of those songs which aren’t bad, just not that great either, if you add that this is certainly not better than Playing with Fire and with a few stronger contenders, I doubt they’ll manage to equate their placing from Oslo, maybe they’ll end up in the top 10, but I doubt they’ll reach 3rd… Read more »
Romania will end up for sure in top 10 or maybe highiyer 🙂
Oh God… Really? A 0 would be too much points for this song. Very outdated and too Eurovision. People want real music!
Good review. Romania will end up as high as Paula’s note. 🙂
Actually the lowest score is 4.5!
The song is terribly generic and slightly boring. How it got 8.06 from the Wiwi Jury is in fact a Miracle. It’ll qualify, but it’s not a great song.
She will hit that high note pretty well ,thats for sure 🙂
The lowest score is a 5 not a 6!
These scores are ridiculously high. This song couldn’t be more generic and she never hits the note.