Wiwi Jury: Spain’s Salvador Beltrán with “Días de Alegría”

Earlier today, the Wiwi Jury— our in-house panel of music unprofessionals — headed South to have a good paella and some sangría on a sunny terrace. During the table talk, we reviewed the contestants of Objetivo Eurovisión, Spain’s national final for Stockholm. Today we are discussing Salvador Beltrán‘s “Días de alegría” (Days of happiness). Did Salvador make our life happy or did we want to cry at home with a big bowl of ice cream? Read on to find out…

SALVADOR BELTRÁN – DÍAS DE ALEGRÍA

“DÍAS DE ALEGRÍA” REVIEWS

Angus: It’s a bad sign that every time I forget this song is even competing in the competition. When the harmonising and backing vocals actually kick in from a minute in it picks up, but at the end of the day this is just filler that will get overlooked on the night by its flashier rivals.

Score: 2/10

Antranig: Salvador delivers an interesting song that is certainly not lacking the Latin flavour. Unfortunately it sounds a bit cheap and three minutes seems to take forever to pass. The biggest problem is that after listening to all six songs, it’s a struggle to distinguish between Salvador and Maverick.

Score: 4/10

Deban: Snooze-fest with unsubtle key changes at different points. Varied textures are to be found here: the melody is driven by speech rhythms, and this makes a lively interplay with the driving percussion. That said, when the tune stops blaring, you realise that you haven’t really gone anywhere.

Score: 5/10

Diego: This is the type of song you’d be glad to listen to in Spain if you just got in your car after a long day at work, turned on the radio, and a random music radio station showed up with nothing better to play but pure Mediterranean sound that makes you wiggle a little bit on your way back home. For any other purpose, I’d stay out of it, especially if you’re supposed to send out something that appeals to the rest of Europe (and Australia).

Score: 2.5/10

Josh: “Días de alegría” – a quintessential Spanish track that literally sounds like every other stereotypical Spanish track ever. I’m all for countries at Eurovision showing national pride in their music but artists need to put their own spin on it otherwise it gets very monotonous and dull. I’d rather listen to this from a busker on the backstreets of Girona than in a Eurovision national final. Meh.

Score: 3/10

Luis: I do like the chorus of this song, in fact I’ve always enjoyed these kind of guitar sounds, but all the rest leave me cold. It’s bland, and a bit dated, as we had been having a summer hit in this same style every summer in the last decade (and no longer in the ’10s, by the way). For me, the attempt of bringing something traditionally considered Spanish is fulfilled, but precisely, as a Spaniard, I’m tired of that. We need something anti-normative for Spain, y’all!

Score: 5/10

Mario: I like songs that are delivered a form of storytelling, and I could feel that in pre-chorus part of the song. But as soon as the chorus kicks in, it just leaves me dissapointed and wanting it to be more commercially driven this time. It calls for festive summer nights in Latin America, but it’s far away from bringing sun rays in cold Stockholm.

Score: 5/10

Mikhail: Actually, I pretty much enjoyed it. The melody is great, it’s very danceable, and it has everything it needs for its genre, even though it is quite generic. However, there is one but. And this but is the voice of Salva. From time to time, while listening to this song, it gets annoying. Some moments make me wanna cover my ears and that will definitely affect my score.

Score: 6/10

Robyn: The first verse of this song is quite meandering and old-fashioned sounding (despite the modern folk-pop flourishes). It’s not until the chorus hits that the heat arrives. The songs gets better as it goes on, and does indeed bring the sunshine. Salvador seems like a great performer, so this should be even better live.

Score: 6.5/10

William: The opening bars sound like they could be on the soundtrack to the Spanish-language version of Tarzan. I’m loving the hope and optimism — and then Salvador goes all fiesta on us one minute in and suddenly I’m at a “Spanish-themed night” on a cruise ship. It’s cheesy and monotonous and I struggle to get past the second minute. Don’t send this to Eurovision: Put it in a Taco Bell commercial.

Score: 4/10

In the Spanish Wiwi Jury we have 22 jurors, but only have room for 10 reviews. The remaining 12 scores are below!

Bernardo: 6.5/10

Bogdan: 5/10

Cristian: 10/10

Denise: 7/10

Edd: 7/10

Judit: 7/10

Max: 6.5/10

Patrick: 5/10

Rezo: 1/10

Sami: 5/10

Sinan: 9/10

Zakaria: 6/10

The highest and lowest scores are dropped prior to calculating the average score. This is to remove outliers and reduce potential bias. We have removed a low of 1 and a high of 10.

WIWI JURY AVERAGE SCORE: 5.35/10

FOR OUR LIST OF SPAIN 2016 RANKINGS, CLICK HERE

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