Earlier today, the Wiwi Jury— our in-house panel of music unprofessionals — visited Murcia, where we went for a walk at the salt lakes and chatted to home girl Ruth Lorenzo as we reviewed the contestants of Objetivo Eurovisión, Spain’s National Final for Stockholm. Today, we are commenting on Xuso Jones’ song “Victorious”. Did we crown Xuso as Spain’s next winner or did we awarded him a copper medal? Read on to find out…
XUSO JONES – “VICTORIOUS”
“VICTORIOUS” REVIEWS
Angus: This is a knockout. In “Victorious”, Xuso has the song that we all expected Edurne to have last year and predictably the entire piece is all conquering. The vocal is crystal clear, nuanced, paired with crazy good hypnotic beats and one of the best guest Spanish verses in Objetivo Eurovisión.
Score: 9/10
Bernardo: A safe bet for Peter Böstrom. A Nordic influenced powerful pop track with strong vocals from Xuso Jones, “Victorious” is now in constant loop in my playlist — it has Eurovision written all over it. It’s impossible not to enjoy it! He wants to stand victorious? Well, Xuso, I bet you will. I can see a Danny Saucedo’s “Amazing” perfomance slaying the competition in Objetivo Eurovision.
Score: 9.5/10
Diego: Is it Spain, right? ‘Cause it could be a Swedish entry from a few years ago that could easily do very well back then, but not anymore. I agree with many of my mates here, it’s a safe bet from good old Peter Böstrom, but I don’t think we should stick to the overused formula of Scandinavian pop songs instead of going all the way for a real change. It would get a good result for Spain, but for sure it wouldn’t make us “victorious”.
Score: 6/10
Josh: I’m sure that I speak on behalf of most Eurovision fans that basements do flood globally whenever we hear or see Xuso Jones. During the snippet, I did think that it seemed like “Victorious” sounded like an Eric Saade track. Then I found out Peter Böstrom was behind it. It’s safe. It’s a formulaic pop song. It’s harmless. It will probably be received quite well and I do like it. Just some fine-tuning to make it a little more original could make this a great song, rather than a good song.
Score: 7.5/10
Judit: I can’t wait to see the live performance. But I’m being cautious, holding back with my points. Hopefully after I see it live, I’ll give you a total 10. This boy is a heartthrob, the song is so catchy, and radio will love it. Good luck, Xuso!
Score: 7/10
Luis: The safest bet for this year’s Eurovision, but probably the less original. While “Victorious” is a good song, and Xuso provides great vocals, it fails to make a big impression. Unless the staging does that job (much like with Heroes), I think his chances of standing out in front of Europe are little, especially if we think about all the singers we’ll see in Stockholm with similar songs. Maybe in the last year or two, it would have been a bang for Spain, but now it’s not the time. Trying to mimic the winning formula of the last year is habitually a bad idea.
Score: 6.5/10
Rezo: Yes, this song is an excellent choice for the national final but not for Eurovision. By the way, it’s similar to “Glorious” by Cascada. We’ve already listened it. But I’ll note that I really liked the combination of English and Spanish in this song.
Score: 5/10
Robyn: This is a well-written song, but it feels a bit too safe, too deliberate, trying too hard to hit the right buttons. Xuso is a great performer, the song’s dynamics are good (most of the other Objetivo Eurovisión songs are relentlessly full-on), but despite the powerful adjective at the heart of the song, “Victorious” comes across as only a good Eurovision song, not a great pop song.
Score: 5/10
Sinan: Someone said that this song is similar to ‘Heroes’, are you serious?! I mean I dont see any similar thing in that song. It’s just an amazing song for me! Well done, Xuso! The beat, lyrics, voice – love, love, love everything, and that part where he sings in Spanish is just great! Spain really needs “Victorious” in Eurovision this year!
Score: 10/10
In the Spanish Wiwi Jury we have 22 jurors, but only have room for 9 reviews. The remaining 13 scores are below!
Antranig: 7/10
Bogdan: 6/10
Cristian: 4/10
Deban: 8/10
Denise: 8.5/10
Edd: 5/10
Mario: 7.5/10
Max: 5.5/10
Mikhail: 5.5/10
Patrick: 8.5/10
Sami: 9/10
William: 10/10
Zakaria: 7/10
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 4 and a high of 10.
@AM Casablancas
Couldnt agree more.
Sad thing is I know a few people who think that all Eurovision entries should be dance/ pop crap.
Sorry but that’s not real music.
I’m just not a fan of his song but he looks deserving to represent Spain in Eurovision.
Hate this Song,a completely generic pop trash
1-Barei
2-Maria Isabel
3-Salvador Beltran
4-Electric Nana
5-Xuso Jones
6-Maverick
I love it. But I dont think it will be the winner sadly…. spain are very conservative when it comes to the language.. i hardly think they will send a song in 90% english…sadly……
I would give my left leg to see Xuso win the spanish NF but I think Barei has the more original song that stands out than “Victorious”
again, angus with a very crappy musical taste, if Europe were to give him the chance to select every single song the contest would have only pop-dance numbers, the swedish ones.
The song it’s crap, I hope Spain doesn’t send this one.
I hate fairytale too and i am in my twenties
Song and singer xD
My last fav winners were loreen (but euphoria for me is just Ok, not wowwwwww), the russian guy with believe, denmark with the celta song and conchita (but my fav was the netherlands) .
NickC, I feel your pain, here is something for you: Zoe and Salvador Beltran…. ^-^
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFmgcUdv1Nw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsYnpSwBvTQ
I think there is much more generic cr*p to be delivered especially from the East and the North, so let us cherish the original flavours so far….
I guess I should not speak, because I am the ESC fan who never liked “Fairytale” and “Euphoria”. Maybe it is my age (I am much older than you guys), but I find this AWFUL. I actually find most of the songs you like AWFUL (including Donny Montell’s song, Ira Losco’s song and Nicky Bryne’s song). I am getting more and more depressed with this ESC season. All of these songs sound exactly the same to me: Standard Pop songs with cheesy lyrics and no real melody. They touch nothing inside me, and I think songs like this is why… Read more »
So, if I didn’t misunderstand you, countries such as Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Azerbaijan, Romania, Russia, and even Cyprus with its ‘La La Love’ are allowed to sing in English and to exhibit this style of music and give a great show. However, Spain has to restrict to Latin music or great voices with Mediterranean flavour. Okay… I dunno, I like Barei’s song, I like Maria Isabel’s, but I like the most this one. I’ll be proud of my country whatever we finally choose, but I just cannot keep on reading that “this does not sound Spanish, it’s rather Swedish”, as… Read more »
My problem is not the performer, actually he’s really good. The issue is the SONG itself. Just because it comes from techincally the same team behind Loreen’s killing “Euphoria” that does not secure a win or a Top 10, and ESPECIALLY TO SPAIN! If Spaniards go ahead and choose this, they can expect a failure similar to Edurne’s. This will not work. Hopefully TVE can surprise us and give us a killer staging (which could save the whole deal), but knowing how they are, I don’t expect ANYTHING from them at all. Anything “Made in Sweden” rarely works OUTSIDE Sweden.… Read more »
Do not send this.
It’s ticking Eurovision boxes and nothing else.
This is the worst song of the selection imo. Too cliched and boring. My favourite is Barei with “Say Yay!”.
So formulaic and boring.
Han, it was a problem in 2011, when a dozen of uptempo fan favourites got massacred, and a mediocre song sang out of tune prevailed over a jazz tune, that no one expected to do well….
If Spain want to do well they must send this boy. The song is good, it has potential to have an awesome staging, and we know very good that lately in the contest good stagings can get better results than the substance of the song (Måns, Polina and many others can talk about this). This song has something that none of the other songs have, it’s memorable, catchy, well produced. Does it has similarities with other songs? Yes, but when has that been a problem though?
If this song will represent Spain, then it will fight possibly with Lithuania’s Donny Montell, Iceland’s Greta Salome and Ireland’s Nicky Byrne for last place in the final. The battle of formulaic songs that tick every Eurovision box will be sad to watch and painful to listen to. Sending a solo male uptempo act is the worst idea for ESC 2016. As ESC this year will return to the sign of Taurus, a vocal act will win over the rest.
Tonight we will be …. VICTORIOUS (not)
With more Spanish lyrics, and a hint or Spanish musical influence in the arrangement, the song would suit Spain.I have to admit it’s a catchy song …like many we ´ve heard on Melodifestivalen. I wish they had had Brequette back.Her song “Más” was just phenomenal !
Waching this review and Donny’s one with a similar kind of song, I can see my main concern about Xuso’s entry. I kinda like The song but it wouldn’t score high having the likes of Donny, Sergei… I agree what you said but even my favourite is Barei, I think that having Xuso or even Electric I’d be happy to represent my country but I believe we have more chances with Barei. #TeamBarei
So I didn’t especially like Euphoria, and it went on to smash it home so maybe I’m wrong here, but… this song is crap. It has zero personality. I’m not talking national flavour, but *human personality*. It’s generic, dull, and repetitive; inoffensive but totally uninspiring.
This song doesn’t represent Spain
Good choice for countries like azerbaijan, a sweden production copypaste with safe result.
0 risk, 0 emotion and 0 spanish personality here.
Nooo thanks.
My top:
1. Braei
2. Maria
3. Xuso
4. Salvador
5. Electric Nana
6. Maverick