O melodie pentru europa Doinita Gherman Felicia Dunaf

The Wiwi Jury — our in-house panel of music unprofessionals — has touched down in Chisinau, where we will review the 16 acts competing in Moldova’s O Melodie Pentru Europa 2018. First up, we listen to Doinita Gherman & Onevoice with their fiery “Dance in flames”, and Felicia Dunaf with her power ballad “Alien”. Are we dancing in those flames with these songs or would we rather be abducted by a UFO?

Doinita Gherman & Onevoice – “Dance in flames”

Antranig: I must admit I’m a big Doinita fanboy. She does everything right every time she enters the Moldovan selection. “Dance in Flames” is no exception. This is a classy effort and the change of language is quite unexpected and makes the song pop out. Doinita Gherman needs to get to Eurovision eventually and with a strong song and not much competition, this might be her year.

Score: 9/10

Bogdan: Doinita has had better songs in Moldova’s national selection in previous years. If I didn’t know this was her, I wouldn’t pay much attention to “Dance In Flames”. It’s awfully dated and poorly produced. It turns out, Doinita cannot turn everything into gold. And that’s too bad, because she really deserves to go to Eurovision — but this won’t be her year.

Score: 3/10

Kristin: Sweet Doinita. Why won’t the people just let you go to Eurovision? “Dance in flames” is — like so many other songs — inspired by the Latin invasion that ruled last summer’s charts. But there is a lovely plot twist of bilingual English/Moldovan lyrics, which gives the song stand-out status. Of course, my girl Doinita is just giving it all, and is pretty much flawless. You go, girl! All the way to Lisbon, for that matter!

Score: 8/10

Luis: When the first line of a song sounds like “walking in the toilet”, things can only go oh so wrong. Right when you thought “La esencia del sur” was the cheapest thing in Moldova, here comes Doinita with something even worse. She’s tried so many times to go to Eurovision that it would be unfair for her to go with this song from 2002 that someone found in a drawer and handed to her.

Score: 3/10

Robyn: One day Doinita will make it to Eurovision, but please, not with “Dance in Flames”. It’s a fun reggaetón tune, but there’s little to distinguish it from all the other children of “Despacito” that have been popping up in the 2018 national final season. The second semi-final is going to be a killer and Moldova would need a stronger song than this to survive.

Score: 6/10

In the Moldovan Wiwi Jury, we have 10 jurors but only room for 5 reviews. The rest of our scores can be found below:

Aline: 7/10

Barnabas: 7.5/10

Bernardo: 2.5/10

Jonathan: 3.5/10

Lukas: 5/10

 

 

 

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 2,5 and a high of 9.

WIWI JURY VERDICT: 5.38/10

Felicia Dunaf – “Alien”

Antranig: “Falling in love with an alien,” might be the most… unexpected lyric of the 2018 national final season. This is weird lyrics on steroids, even by Moldovan steroids. I appreciate that she is trying to do something out of the box but she didn’t need to go out of the world. Felicia Dunaf is a good singer but she needs to uninstall her intergalactic Tinder.

Score: 5.5/10

Bogdan: Felicia treads similar waters as she did with “You and Me”, the “Runnin'” sound-alike. I don’t know what to say about “Alien”, except I’ve heard it all before. The alien/universe/different planets metaphors are overplayed and they fail to impress. The only thing that Felicia can do to get a good result in the national final would be an interesting staging, but even that won’t propel her to Lisbon.

Score: 6/10

Kristin: First, could somebody please give this woman Liam Tamne‘s number? Dating an astronaut would be a lot simpler than dating an alien. You know, keep it in this solar system, and save money on space gas. Second of all, because of her broken English, it sounds like she’s falling in love with “Elliot”, which is rather disturbing since Elliot is merely a child. Third of all, if she doesn’t show up with Lidia Isaac’s space-suited dancer, I will be disappointed. And finally, this just isn´’ working…at all. Good voice, bad song, cringeworthy lyrics. Bye Felicia!

Score: 4/10

Luis: Well, “falling in love with an alien” is an… interesting metaphor. Now seriously, this entry is very respectable in Moldova’s field, yet it would so get lost on Eurovision. Felicia brings solid vocals to the table, and it should grant her a top three finish in O melodie pentru Europa but not take her to Lisbon. She can be proud of this, though.

Score: 6.5/10

Robyn: “Alien” takes too long to get going, but once the chorus kicks in, the song suddenly gets interesting. That’s musically interesting. Lyrically it needs work. It’s treading the same turf as Katy Perry’s “ET”, but somehow Felicia’s song seems less about an unusual person and more about an actual extraterrestrial.

Score: 6/10

In the Moldovan Wiwi Jury, we have 10 jurors but only room for 5 reviews. The rest of our scores can be found below:

Aline: 7/10

Barnabas: 7/10

Bernardo: 5/10

Jonathan: 6/10

Lukas: 7/10

 

 

 

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 7.

WIWI JURY VERDICT: 6.13/10

See our list of O melodie pentru Europa 2018’s rankings here

READ MORE MOLDOVA NEWS HERE

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AngieP
AngieP
6 years ago

Dancing in flames: I like it’s upbeat. It’s a good song. 6/10
Alien: The studio version is fine but I think this song is better live. It’s ok. 5.5/10

Colin
Colin
6 years ago

Both of these songs are apparently among the fan-favorites to win in Moldova. Unfortunately, I don’t like either of them.

Dance in Flames – kind of catchy, but cheap, alike a bar song. Nothing we haven’t heard before. 4/10

Alien – Another weird metaphor love song, plagued with really thick accent. 4/10

Kris
Kris
6 years ago

Dancing in flames: 6/10
Alien: 5.5/10