The Wiwi Jury has reached its second stop in Switzerland and it’s time for Die Entscheidungsshow diva Ginta Biku to face our panel of music unprofessionals. With her bilingual number “Cet Air La”, she’s bringing major international flavour and some fierce dance moves to boot. We’d expect nothing less, as the number was put together by renowned choreographer Brian Friedman. Is Ginta winning our votes? Read on to find out…
Ginta Biku – “Cet Air La”
About Ginta Biku
Ginta brings a wealth of global experience to the Swiss selection. Though she’s lived in Lugano most of her life, Ginta was born in Kaunas, Lithuania. She’s not just an experienced singer, as she is also the winner of numerous beauty contests in both Switzerland and Italy. Ginta also fuses music with technology: her “Cet Air La” project aims to provide the “next level of entertainment”. We can’t wait to see that unfold at the final. Beauty, intelligence and a strong voice — Ginta could be the total package!
“Cet Air La” Reviews
Edd: The woman has it: Catchy melody, strong vocals, fierce stage presence and the only song in the Swiss selection with a genuinely interesting musical production, as well as some sort of Swiss identity via the French language. Last year we certainly saw the Måns effect, and this year we can be expecting a contest full of serious, dark, mysterious entries. So what are viewers going to prefer: a Romanian girl singing a Swedish ballad, or a tropical princess singing an enthralling pop explosion? This really is a no-brainer, Switzerland.
Score: 9/10
Anthony: Ginta’s one talented lady and she oozes sex appeal. But “Cet Air La” feels like a throwaway entry from her home country’s selection process. The French lyrics in the chorus add a touch of elegance, but she enters “Love Unlimited” post-chorus territory afterwards. Switzerland might want to sort out the latter if Ginta gets the ticket to Kyiv.
Score: 6.5/10
Luis: Switzerland’s answer to Angelica Agurbash is a bit out of place in 2017. “Cet Air La” is not exactly dated, but the concept of the performance is so mid-2000s. Ginta is a seasoned performer and her voice is perfectly fine, but everything else in the performance is so off-putting. There’s a passé diva feel to this that turns me off completely. Moreover, there’s the instrumental — which should be a strong dance floor statement, but sadly passes as the background music you’d hear at a shopping centre.
Score: 4/10
Robyn: “Cet Air La” has a fresh modern sound but — sigh — the chorus is instrumental. It adds up to almost one minute where Ginta isn’t singing, a foolish move for a song contest. But to its credit, the brilliantly bonkers staging of Live Check helps to save it. If this were being judged as a stage performance, it would slay. But it’s not. It’s a song contest and regardless of what the men in capes are doing, the song isn’t good enough.
Score: 5/10
William: Ginta wants to sing and dance — and I’m happy to watch her to do both! This euro-pop banger harks back to pre-jury Eurovision when artists weren’t afraid to have fun. She’s thought about staging, serving Phantom of the Opera dance floor realness! Some will say it sounds cheap. Others will say it’s very eurotrash with its mix of tropical sounds and the French language. I take those as compliments. This is the kind of song people watch Eurovision for and I’m happy to go la, la, la along with this lovely lady. Get it, gurl.
Score: 8.5/10
Chris: Of all the 2016 songs that I was expecting to see reappear in some form, “Loin d’ici” was not high on the list. Yet here’s Ginta with “Cet Air La”. The song makes two mistakes. The first is that it loses the innocence and joy that Zoe achieved, mainly through those painfully long instrumental breaks. Secondly, Ginta suffers from the same issue that Saara Aalto discovered in the X Factor: don’t let Brian Friedman overshadow you (and Ginta is a strong performer) with the staging.
Score: 5.5/10
Bernardo: The beginning of this song serves Lion King, Timon and Pumba realness. The visuals had me engaged from the very first second. “Cet Air La” builds and builds — it has an amazing pre-chorus — and when you’re expecting a pop explosion for the chorus, it transforms itself into the song you listen to while shopping. However, Eurovision is not just about the song. Ginta works what she can with what she has and makes it fierce. *guilty pleasure alert*
Score: 7/10
Jason: “Cet Air La” has buckets of potential. It is almost where it needs to be. With a little finessing of the production, I think that this could surprise the haters. I for one like the fact that the chorus is instrumental: it gives Ginta a chance to werk the stage and serve us some sass. Stage presence is super important, and Ginta has it in excess.
Score: 8/10
In our Swiss Wiwi Jury, we have 19 jurors but only room for 8 reviews. The rest of our scores can be found below:
Antranig: 7.5/10
Dayana: 5/10
Florian: 4/10
Forrest: 4/10
Jordi: 5.5/10
Josh: 4/10
Jovana: 4/10
Matt: 8/10
Patrick: 4.5/10
Ramadan: 5/10
Sinan: 8/10
Before calculating the average score, the highest and lowest scores are dropped. This is to remove outliers and reduce potential bias. We have removed a low of 4 and a high of 9.
I like the English verse – French chorus. I think at a big stage with a good staging we’ll have a good entry for Switzerland. Personally, there’s sth I don’t like about the music. I would give it a 5/10.
This one is growing on me. It’s fun, even though I’m still not a fan of the instrumental in the chorus. Ginta looks very pretty and she has a great voice and stage presence.
6.5/10
A beauty queen she is, but a strong singer she is definitely not. Whenever the range goes higher she hands it over to her brilliant backing singers who cover the melody. Instrumental break is too long and no amount of staging will save this song from sounding dreary all the way through.
It’s obviously Ginta vs Timebelle.
While Apollo might be a superior composition, Ginta brings a more honest and unique offer. With a righr amount of reworking, this could also be better than Apollo.
The song has the cheapest post-chorus breakdown I’ve ever heard in my entire life. A blatant – and failed – copy of Zoe which doesn’t stand a chance to do well at the Swiss selection, let alone the contest.
I don’t think that Lithuania cares about Ginta being born there, but her family left during the hardest times for the country. Lithuania has other friends, not ex-pat Ginta.
This song ”Cet air la” is nothing special.
I like this, it would be my second choice after Timebelle. It would definitely need a revamp though, the instrumental is tragic and could be much stronger.
Still, I don’t see (us) the Swiss voting this to Kyiv.
“Timon and Pumbaa realness…” I’m dying Bernardo <3
Moving on to Ginta, I know that Apollo is a superior song, but I still prefer "Cet Air La"! It's a throwback to various decades and is so many shades of dated, and Ginta's live vocals are questionable, but if staged well I can see the public getting behind this (and if Switzerland and Lithuania are in the same semi there's a guaranteed set of 12 televoting points). However this would do dismally with the jury, a la Sebalter.
As I said, all 6 Swiss finalists are somewhere in the middle of the road for me. I like the sexy French vibe this song has, but it still doesn’t stick out as a particularly memorable entry. I am afraid Switzerland will struggle once again.
I guess this songs gets 6/10 for me.
This song is bad, her french is bad, this is cheap and one of the worst options for the contest. Zoe’s french, yes, Ginta’s french, no!
Zoe dressed in black. I think I prefer Austria 2016.