As the Eurovision season gears up, there’s always a few new songs from ESC artists past that slip under the radar. But never fear – we here at wiwibloggs will do our best to keep you up to date! Here are four singles that we think you’ll want to hear from Eurovision stars Joan Franka, Dina Garipova, Roman Lob and Eva Rivas.

Joan Franka – Nigel

It’s been so long since we’ve heard anything from Joan Franka, who represented the Netherlands in 2012, that we were beginning to wonder what happened to her. Well, it turns out Joan was battling with her record label as to the type of music that she was going to put out. Joan says that her label wanted her to record songs similar to her Eurovision entry “You and Me” and that she had no creative freedom – so she bought herself out of her contract, putting herself in to serious financial woes in the process. But she’s back and releasing her comeback single, “Nigel” to boot. Joan’s haunting voice and the lovely piano accompaniment are indeed a far cry from “You and Me”, instead leaning more towards a sound more familiar with the likes of Regina Spektor. We’re not necessarily crazy about it, but we’ll wait and see what else Joan puts out before we judge this new style too much.

Dina Garipova – Two Steps to Love

She’s been talking about a new album on Twitter recently and it seems that Dina Garipova has given us the first sneak peek at it. Two Steps to Love was first performed live on Russian radio and it’s exactly what you’d expect from a Dina Garipova song, really. There’s no denying that Dina has an incredible voice, but she seems to get lumbered quite often with “soaring” ballads that just serve to highlight her voice and nothing else. It’s got an appeal but for once it would be nice to see Dina really challenge herself with something outside the norm.

Roman Lob – Home

Let’s keep the melancholy train running, shall we, as Roman Lob brings us “Home”. The title track from his second album sees Roman talk about his love always making him feel like he’s…well, at home. Once again it’s a bit of a paint-by-numbers affair with Roman never really testing himself. Both the song and the video are rather one-note, with the only real interesting being the climax of the song with an obligatory key change and extra backing just to push it over the finish line. We pointed out that previous release “All That Matters” was maybe a bit middle of the road and “Home” does nothing to really change the course, other than maybe sending us veering off the cliff with boredom…

Eva Rivas – Veradardz

To steal a .gif from a recent post: BAM. Eva Rivas is back and she is stealing the show with “Veradardz”, her first single in quite some time. Eva looks absolutely stunning throughout the video, slaying it in some killer dresses and even rocking the bad-girl biker chick look at one stage. I mean, sure, the plot of the video is completely lost on us, but we don’t really mind when the looks and song are that good! Eva’s been moonlighting as judge on the Voice of Armenia lately, but let’s hope that this is just the start of even more music to come as well.

Photo: Courtesy of Eva Rivas’ Facebook

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Leon
Leon
9 years ago

Love Eva’s new song. She needs to come back to Eurovision!