With Georgia’s national selection for Eurovision 2017 due to take place this Friday, the Wiwi Jury — our in-house plane of music unprofessionals — wraps up its look at the competing songs. Finally we turn to Temo Sajaia with “All the Same”, The Mins with “Crime”, Tornike Kipiani & Giorgi Bolotashvili with “You Are My Sunshine” and Trio Mandili with “Me da shen”. Can any of these songs take the grand prize and succeed “Midnight Gold”? Read on to find out!
Temo Sajaia – “All the Same”
https://youtu.be/8HgPhfOdFKw
Antranig: “All the Same” is a fitting song title because that’s how I’d describe this song. It never goes anywhere and when it finally promises to deliver, it falls flat. This is very forgettable and very weak. Temo should try again with a very different song.
Score: 0/10
Chris: Considering some of the terrors that I’ve heard in Georgian NFs before, this isn’t awful. I mean it’s totally unimaginative and obviously would be nothing more than filler at the NF, but it doesn’t annoy me, which I suppose is enough for me.
Score: 2/10
Luis: Temo’s song lacks rhythm. It’s not good or bad, it’s just pointless. I’ve had to listen to this three times because two minutes after it’s finished, I can’t remember a single chord. The beginning is not bad, but the drums in the end are a nightmare.
Score: 1/10
Renske: This is a snooze fest. Although the song has a good message – “we are all the same” – it does not elicit any emotions from me. For non-English speakers it can never be anything but average.
Score: 3.5/10
Robyn: “Love, love, peace, peace, and a Georgian guitar player.” Yeah, songs of this genre were thoroughly destroyed by the 2016 halftime song. To be honest, there’s nothing wrong with peace songs. It’s just that it helps if they’re good songs.
Score: 1.5/10
William: Camembert, Emmental, Gouda, Temo Sajaia — this song takes cheese to another level! Yes, “life is a game you can change” and I will be turning this off in exactly three minutes to get mine back on track. Sweet message, nice voice, dire song.
Score: 1/0
In the Georgian Wiwi Jury we have 12 Jurors, but only space for 6 reviews. The remaining scores are below:
Bernardo: 2/10
Cinan: 4/10
Dayana: 3.5/10
Jordi: 5/10
Josh: 0.5/10
Zakaria: 1/10
The highest and lowest scores are removed before calculating the final score. We have dropped a low of 0 and a high of 5.
Wiwi Jury Score: 2/10
The Mins – “Crime”
https://youtu.be/iQAF989v-fg
Antranig: “Crime” is dark and edgy but the vocals aren’t dark enough to match the song. I would also like the chorus to sound edgier and more rocky, rather than venturing towards mainstream pop. This is an interesting song to listen to but ultimately there are many flaws that need to be ironed out.
Score: 4.5/10
Chris: Clearly The Mins are trying to go for the same audience as “Midnight Gold”. Unfortunately, while that was a diamond in the rough that was eventually polished, I can’t see the same working here. “Crime”, as it stands, tries to do too much and gets pretty painful to listen to by its climax.
Score: 2.5/10
Luis: Sacha Jean-Baptiste and Thomas G:son, pack your bags, you’re flying to Georgia. “Crime” is a raw diamond to be polished, and judging from last year, Georgia could very well repeat the formula. It’s more mainstream than “Midnight Gold”, so if they want to play it safe, here is their song.
Score: 7/10
Renske: “Crime” would be an okay Eurovision song. It has a lot of potential, but it looses points for originality. It sounds like something any other rocker could produce. It would need a lot of stage help to make it a good entry and that would be, considering other songs in the selection, a waste of time and money.
Score: 6.5/10
Robyn: If Georgia want to send another rock track, they wouldn’t go wrong with “Crime”. While the current version of the song is rough around the edges, the usual Georgian polish could see it sweetened up. But then, some of us enjoy the sound of big crashing cymbals.
Score: 7/10
William: The opening lyrics are indecipherable, the transition to the second verse is jarring and the chorus merits a very large container of Ibuprofen. So much cymbal, so much noise — and not even the mellow breaks are enough to balance it out.
Score: 2.5/10
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: 5.5/10
Dayana: 6/10
Jordi: 4/10
Josh: 5/10
Zakaria: 4/10
The highest and lowest scores are removed before calculating the final score. We have dropped a low of 2.5 and a high of 7.
Wiwi Jury Score: 5.05
Tornike Kipiani & Giorgi Bolotashvili – “You Are My Sunshine”
https://youtu.be/06RM2zxoAyM
Antranig: “You Are My Sunshine” is not what I expected from the song title. It is clearly a lyrical masterpiece, especially when he sings “yooooouuuuuuaaaaaaareeeemyyyyyyyyyy” over and over again. All jokes aside, I love the music but that is quite simply not enough.
Score: 2/10
Chris: There are cheap European sex clubs that play better music than this. I spent the entire song waiting for something else to happen. But it just doesn’t and I completely fail to see the point in its inclusion here. Bad. Just plain bad.
Score: 0.5/10
Luis: I’m pleased to see that mákina hardcore is still a thing in Georgia in 2017. As someone coming from land of Chimo Bayo, I love that they’ve entered the Eurovision with something my parents would dance to when they were young and probably on drugs in the early 90s.
Score: 5/10
Renske: This song is more confusing than all of the Young Georgian Lolitaz’ NF songs last year combined. And that says a lot in this case. People do like strange songs from time to time, but this song is a disaster.
Score: 1/10
Robyn: This song is like a wormhole to the mid 1990s. I can see this working as a random track played at a rave, but realistically, it’s not a Eurovision entry. I mean, it’s just not practical to get the audience at the International Exhibition Centre all E’d up.
Score: 4/10
William: We start off at a filthy club in Berlin, move to one under the rail arches in London, and end up in ER after the lead singer pops a vein in his forehead — caused, no doubt, by the excessive shouting. I give him three points — one for the experimental sound, one for the rather nice long notes he holds toward the end and one for bringing this to a close. If she’s his sunshine, I really pity the chick who is his moon.
Score: 3/10
In the Georgian Wiwi Jury we have 12 Jurors, but only space for 6 reviews. The remaining scores are below:
Bernardo: 2/10
Cinan: 3.5/10
Dayana: 0.5/10
Jordi: 2/10
Josh: 2/10
Zakaria: 0.5/10
The highest and lowest scores are removed before calculating the final score. We have dropped a low of 0.5 and a high of 5.
Wiwi Jury Score: 2.05/10
Trio Mandili – “Me da shen”
https://youtu.be/VaR_xEuVC8Y
Antranig: As I listened to this the first time, I was screaming “YAS” for three minutes. I love the traditional music, I love the mood it sets and I would love dancing to it. This is definitely in my top three of the Georgian selection and I think Eurovision needs some good folk-pop. These ladies slay the pack.
Score: 9/10
Chris: Georgian folk music sure sounds like a pirate shanty, huh? I appreciate Mandili’s presence here amongst some of the other songs in the NF. That being said, I wouldn’t want to see them at Eurovision: there’s just too much happening here for me. Strip it back a level and maybe I’d be sold.
Score: 4.5/10
Luis: Props to Mandili for bringing Georgian traditional music into the game. It’s something we’ve heard before at Eurovision, that’s for sure. Sadly, “Me da shen” pigs me out musically. I could use this for a beer night at a Oktoberfest, though.
Score: 5/10
Renske: This song is one huge folky mess and I love it. It’s like Alexander Rybak’s 2015 dream to bring a girl band which sings folk songs. Eurovision needs more songs which represent their culture and “Me da shen” can definitely be one of them.
Score: 9.5/10
Robyn: When the song starts, it’s so energetic and thrilling, with the trio’s harmonies delivering life and colour. But it never pauses. By the end of the song, it feels like a Georgian folk music hurricane has ripped up my wheat fields. I like it “Me da shen”, but I just need it to calm down a little.
Score: 5.5/10
William: There are at least three sheep in Georgia who want their wool back. But surely even they could set their anger aside to dance to this dizzying ethnic song that serves high-octane Caucuses realness. Harking back to the anything-goes, pre-jury Eurovision, this is the kind of song that would make voters in the UK, France and beyond stop in their tracks to pick up their mouths which will inevitably hit the floor. It’s fun, it’s bananas, it’s a breathe of fresh air in this very long national selection.
Score: 8/10
In the Georgian Wiwi Jury we have 12 Jurors, but only space for 6 reviews. The remaining scores are below:
Bernardo: 6/10
Cinan: 7.5/10
Dayana: 5.5/10
Jordi: 7/10
Josh: 6/10
Zakaria: 7/10
The highest and lowest scores are removed before calculating the final score. We have dropped a low of 4.5 and a high of 9.5.
Sometimes I think Georgia’s music scene was created solely for the purpose of dividing opinion. Talk about getting every kind of influence imaginable! Makes it more interesting though. I know there is a serious point to be made here though – using folk music from another country and then having it inaccurately representing your own country could be very confusing for the rest of Europe to take. I wonder if the trio themselves are aware of the issue – watching Rezo’s YouTube interview with them, I’m on the fence. (They seemed genuinely surprised that they were the Wiwi favourites.) One… Read more »
Trio Mandili remember the Rybak’s girls from Belarus couple years ago. Same type of voice. Why Rybak’s song that year ddidn’t the same high numbers of this jury that year ? Sounds the same for me.
you are my sunshine <33333 chaotic mess but such a guilty pleasure
I can’t wait until Georgian National Disaster is over. Most of the songs are absolute garbage and there’s way to much coverage of them on this site. Seriously, why even bother reviewing the entries when they are this bad. If the artists didn’t care enough to put the time to create something good neither should you. With that said, I hope either Maliibu’s We Live Once or White Horse Run wins. Those are the only two songs I can stand.
Stop calling “Me da Shen” a Georgian folk song. It has nothing to do with traditional Georgian music. This garbage is made by Russian producers. It’s a shame its #1 in your rating.
ME DA SHEN is not a good song to be in first place! For sure!
I don’t think Me da shen is a good song (it’s slightly headache-inducing), but I need several songs with lyrics in unintelligible languages. I remember that in 2016 many people here in Italy were complaining on Twitter about every damn song in the final – except for Austria’s – being partially or fully sung in English, and I feel like only 5 or 6 of the finalists sent something representative of their country. Most of the entries were pretty much songs that could’ve been from anywhere, I guess? Literally only the Netherlands, France, Italy, Ukraine and Armenia had songs that… Read more »
Why can’t the Wiwi Jury show respect the entries that they find annoying? 🙁
Moby is even weighing in on who he likes for the Georgia NF, which I was surprised to see. He is pushing for CRIME. I tend to like CRIME, but a better studio version could help with the vocals more in the front. ME DA SHEN seems like it would be a lot of fun to see performed.
Wiwi jury are you drunk? Me da shen – even is not georgian folk song and its the worst song in our national selection.
“Me da shen” to Kyiv, please. By far the best.
Add some more rock guitars, and a more edgy indie feel to “Crime”, and you have a great song. I agree with some of the reviewers here..It has potential, but doesn’t quite let it out totally. Needs a bit more energy and “punch”. The dance beat seems somewhat lost here (and I like some dance music too)
Trio Mandili’s song is funny.