Wiwi Jury: Belgium’s Amaryllis Uitterlinden with “Kick the Habit”

Earlier today, the Wiwi Jury – our in-house panel of music unprofessionals, gathered in Antwerp to discuss the contestants participating in Eurosong 2016, the national selection for Belgium. Today we start with Amaryllis Uitterlinden and her entry “Kick the Habit”. Did she inspire us to live clean, or did we lapse back into old habits ? Read on to find out…

Amaryllis Uitterlinden – “Kick The Habit”

“Kick the Habit” reviews

Antranig: Amaryllis is obviously a very captivating performer – I love watching her on stage. Unfortunately “Kick the Habit” is the definition of mediocre. The song is ridiculously repetitive and not in a good way. I like the fact that the song powers up in the last minute but it’s not enough to save it from being the weakest entry in the Belgian field. I’m going to kick the habit of listening to this song.

Score: 3/10

Deban: Channeling Purity Ring but without synthpop, Amaryllis oozes vintage confidence. Slightly repetitive, yet positively memorable, “Kick the Habit” slams the beat into your second nature. You’re singing along before the song is over! Belgium has been historically toxic with its low Eurovision placings in recent years. Loic Nottet was the exception. Amaryllis could be the second exception.

Score: 7.5/10

Edd: In the snippet it sounded awful, but when you listen to it all together, it’s actually rather enjoyable. The violins tickle over the catchy beat, as Amaryllis swerves charismatically around the stage. It does maybe go on for a minute too long and have a chorus that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, but in my opinion it’s better than anything Belgium has sent in the past five years.

Score: 7.5/10

Josh: I’m really struggling to get behind Amaryllis’ entry this year. Sometimes a vintage throwback is funny, sometimes it’s cute, and sometimes it dies. The lyrics in “Kick the Habit” are repetitive and dull, and Amaryllis doesn’t have a powerful enough voice to make this song memorable.

Score: 3.5/10

Renske: I don’t need to kick the habit, but I do need to kick the headache I get after every listen to this song. Amaryllis is a very talented woman and is definitly ready for the Eurovision stage, but this song is just like that moment when you put a DVD in your old DVD player and it starts to act its own way. It simply doesn’t work.

Score: 6.5/10

Robyn: For a song about being caught in the throes of (love) addition, Amaryllis comes across as a very polite, mild-mannered junkie. She has a lovely voice, but the song is desperately missing an edge. The middle-eight – which I assume is meant to be the song’s emotional peak – sounds like it was pilfered from a 1980s musical, at odds with the electro soul sound of the rest of the song. It just doesn’t quite work. And I really hope Amaryllis ditches that weird shoulder dancing by Sunday’s final.

Score: 6/10

William: This vintage throwback is cute, if not amazing, and its producers and songwriters have laid out a route with real potential. Sadly Amaryllis’s delivery falls short: she gives us hills and troughs when what we need are mountains and valleys. She seems less woman scorned and more lady who is kind of upset. The verses need more power — and a dash of vengeful psycho — to make this worthwhile.

Score: 7/10

In the Belgian Wiwi Jury we have 18 jurors but only have room for seven reviews. The remaining 11 scores are below.

Bernardo: 6/10

Cristian: 7/10

Denise: 3/10

Francheska: 4/10

Luis: 6.5/10

Maria: 5.5/10

Mario: 7.5/10

Mikhail: 5.5/10

Ramadan: 6/10

Sinan: 3/10

William C: 4.5/10

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 3 and a high of 7.5.

WIWI JURY SCORE: 5.56/10

FOR OUR LIST OF EUROSONG 2016 RANKINGS, CLICK HERE

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