As we head towards the Georgian national final on 20 January, the Wiwi Jury — our in-house panel of music unprofessionals — continues reviewing the competing songs. Next we’re looking at Elene Mikiashvili with “Fighter”, EOS with “Urban Signs” and Giorgi Chikovani with “Make It Right”. Who do we think deserves the ticket to Kyiv? Read on to find out!
Elene Mikiashvili – “Fighter”
https://youtu.be/tIwDW7MKtm8
Antranig: While this isn’t the best song, it’s the most Eurovision-friendly. I can picture Elene strutting around the Eurovision stage belting this one out. This is a high quality entry and it should definitely be considered as the potential winner.
Score: 8/10
Chris: Somebody saw the reaction to “Cool Me Down” and thought they’d try desperately to copy that. Sadly, “Fighter” is way too cheap and disposable. Elene’s vocal doesn’t sound that great and by the end, I’m ultimately plain bored.
Score: 4.5/10
Luis: She sounds too happy to be a fighter. But hey, give Elene a bit of advice from Nina Sublatti and Sacha Jean-Baptiste, and Georgia, this is your entry. There’s those electronic beats on this song that sound like a high note from a piano which, tbh, are very out of place. That said, they’re very easy to replace with something with more grit and power. It has two of the three elements in the equation: it’s modern and catchy, now it just needs to be powerful.
Score: 6/10
Renske: This sounds so promising, just because it is modern. But in reality, the song is a little bit repetitive and would probably not be able to catch people’s attention during Eurovision. But it’s a good, midtempo song to play in the background.
Score: 7/10
Robyn: After reviewing so many not-good-enough songs in the national final, it’s such a relief to come across a well crafted pop song. It’s not perfect — and could do with having the production punched up — but it’s the first song that sounds like something from 2016. I’d be happy if this made it to Kyiv.
Score: 8/10
William: Just when I thought I was going to drown in a sea of over-the-top power ballads and angry rock, Elene swoops in with a pop number that leans toward the 21st century. And while that’s promising, this lacks the shape to hold my interest and, despite all the electro bells and whistles, still manages to fall flat. It’s a shame. Fighters understand they need to mix it up.
Score: 4/10
In the Georgian Wiwi Jury we have 12 Jurors, but only space for 6 reviews. The remaining scores are below:
Bernardo: 5.5/10
Cinan: 7.5/10
Dayana: 7/10
Jordi: 7.5/10
Josh: 5/10
Zakaria: 5.5/10
The highest and lowest scores are removed before calculating the final score. We have dropped a low of 4 and a high of 8.
Wiwi Jury Score: 6.35/10
EOS – “Urban Signs”
https://youtu.be/AJBML2hSuWc
Antranig: The opening bars of “Urban Signs” are very promising as I love hearing rock at Eurovision. Sadly, it loses all of its power when the vocals come in. I always say “if you are going to do rock, do it properly”. Doing rock and going halfway just doesn’t work.
Score: 1/10
Chris: I didn’t realise that songs like this still existed. Well okay, that’s a lie, because Catalepsia existed last year. In fact, this could be Catalepsia’s “Damnation” and I probably wouldn’t be able to tell you the difference. That genre has its fans, but it doesn’t have one in me.
Score: 1.5/10
Luis: “Urban Signs” is a middle of the road try to create an anthem kind of song. Sadly, middle of the road anthems can be also called “disposable pretentious boring ballads”. While I don’t exactly dislike it, I can’t say there’s anything to it that makes me want to listen to it again.
Score: 4/10
Renske: This is just unsuitable. Urban Signs clearly have no idea with what they are entering and into which competition. Eurovision should have more rock and metal songs, but not this one.
Score: 2/10
Robyn: EOS are obviously influenced by classic era Metallica. But “Urban Signs” sounds a lot like a band trying to do a Metallica ballad but not quite getting it right. It’s like they’re following a formula without putting anything original in the mix.
Score: 4/10
William: From the very first note I could feel the time machine warming up and preparing to deposit me in 1990. Silverchair? Metallica? I can’t tell them apart, but surely EOS is positioning itself as one of their cover acts. Leave it in the dive bar, please.
Score: 2/10
In the Georgian Wiwi Jury we have 12 Jurors, but only space for 6 reviews. The remaining scores are below:
Bernardo: 1/10
Cinan: 3.5/10
Dayana: 1/10
Jordi: 4/10
Josh: /10
Zakaria: 0/10
The highest and lowest scores are removed before calculating the final score. We have dropped a low of 0 and a high of 4.
Wiwi Jury Score: 2.4/10
Giorgi Chikovani – “Make It Right”
https://youtu.be/SK0rWZBHrn0
Antranig: Back in 2014, Elaiza asked “Is It Right?” If they were talking about “Making It Right”, then the answer is no. This song is completely forgettable with nothing to help it stand out from the competition. I find myself losing interest about 30 seconds in and it doesn’t get better.
Score: 0/10
Chris: To give Giorgi credit, he sure does give this bad Nickelback reject song some kind of life. He’s not a bad singer, but it’s all just so obviously dated. Songs like this make it clear that Georgia just wanted to have a big national final, regardless of overall quality.
Score: 3.5/10
Luis: Giorgi made it anything but right with this song. You can throw several guitars into a lame song, but it will remain a lame song. I wanted to stop it after the first minute. The only use I could see for this is being the soundtrack of a B-rated American serial of the early ’90s.
Score: 0/10
Renske: This song is a slow starter, but there is something sincere in it. But nobody can deny that it is very dated and just would not fit into Eurovision 2017. There are simply better songs in this competition.
Score: 3/10
Robyn: This is the only song in the Georgian national selection that I have had to force myself to listen to. It’s offensively bland. Music like this had a moment in the early 1990s, but even then that didn’t last for long. I have no time for this.
Score: 0/10
William: White rice and lettuce may lack flavour, but they make up for it with texture. This song lacks both. In order to make it right he’d need to recast the melody, instrumentation and production — essentially deleting it all and starting over. One of the few songs with ZERO redeeming qualities.
Score: 1/10
In the Georgian Wiwi Jury we have 12 Jurors, but only space for 6 reviews. The remaining scores are below:
Bernardo: 2/10
Cinan: 2.5/10
Dayana: 2.5/10
Jordi: 5/10
Josh: 0/10
Zakaria: 3/10
The highest and lowest scores are removed before calculating the final score. We have dropped a low of 0 and a high of 5.
Dear EOS,
TUNE IT OR DIE!
Thank you.
Ok, “Fighter” is the best for me among the three songs. As for EOS, I’m not a fan of rock music, but Georgia surprisingly made it to the final in 2016 with a similar song, which means that even different genres of music can do well. I didn’t like last year’s song, but compared to this, I prefer 2016. Finally, “Make it right” is a ballad, but not a strong one. It’s flat. I would pick “Fighter” here.
* Of course I mean 2-3 out of 10
None of these songs are really good. I only quite like EOS, “Urban Signs” is the most interensting choice out of these three. Elene is way too overrated (comparing to other songs in georgian selection, there’s no way she’s better than Asea Sool). Although I agree that Giorgi’s song is not good I think he deserve to receive at least 2-3 score in jury
I disagree with the panel. EOS is brilliant. We need more rock in esc. Last year Georgia was great
Make it Right and Urban Signs are both in my bottom 9 for the Georgian NF. But I have fighter at number 2. It makes me smile and I can bob my head to it. The opening seconds of Urban Signs are GREAT, but everything after that is garbage. And Make it Right is an absolute dirge.
Urban Signs sounds like a metallica song.
If Metallica was drunk, shot full of tranquilizers, and had both influenza and pneumonia superstrains.
Ylva & Linda always do it. I just hope “Fighter” won’t go the way of the amazing and underrated “Empty Hearted” from last year’s MESC.
None of these three would get a single point from a country biased in favor of Georgia, let’s face it.
Having a song called Fighter is up there in the ESC ultimate cliché words/song titles along with Warrior/stars/made of stars/”We are
Elene is definitely one of the better songs which issurprising for Ylva and Linda whose songs I’m generally not a fan of (but Iceland’s Karlotta is one of my faves). But: something about it screams shock non-qualifier for me.
Elene Mikiashvili with ”Fighter” tries to be like Nina Sublatti with ”Warrior”, and the other 2 like Young Georgian Lolitaz, but is good that Georgia goes ahead with what worked for them, after all they were in the final.
Elene is the best – in general. Very good, catchy, modern and accessible song and great voice.