They gave us two women in a hamster wheel, a drag queen wrapped in tin foil, and a singer with one very stunning LED tree. So naturally we’re all wondering who Ukraine will gift us this year for Eurovision 2017. Vidbir 2017, its national final, will take place tomorrow, and of course the Wiwi Jury — our in-house panel of music unprofessionals — is ready to judge each of the acts. Finally we look at O.Torvald with “Time”. Read below to find out what we think about it.
O.Torvald – “Time”
“Time” reviews:
Robyn: Well, here’s the good rock. O.Torvald is an established Ukraine rock band and that shows in their slick and confident performance. “Time” is a decent rock song, and takes a number of Eurovision lyrical cliches (time to shine, y’all!) and flips the script. Of all the songs in the Ukraine national final, I’d most like to see this rocking the home crowd in May.
Score: 8.5/10
Chris: “Time” works its genre well and they’ve cast it in the Eurovision mould. It’s perhaps not on the level of Manga, for example, but certainly wouldn’t be an embarrassment. That being said, the lead singer makes this song a struggle. His vocals don’t have the required passion and, to be frank, aren’t really good enough. It drags the whole thing down a couple more notches.
Score: 5/10
William: The chorus is a loud, brash and irritating — and that hardly fits with his theme of love and peace! While I enjoy the visuals — an edgy man covered in tats with an exploding chest and an LED that gives The Simpsons a cameo — I feel this is style over substance. Not impressed.
Score: 6/10
Mikhail: I get the feeling that I’ve heard this somewhere before. The melody is neither innovative, nor memorable, and feels like any old pop-rock song. The live performance did not transmit any energy and it stirred next to no emotion in me. Despite all the banging, it passes me by like background music.
Score: 4.5/10
Jason: “Time” is a decent rock song performed with conviction by O.Torvald. Although rock is not one of my favourite musical genres, I actually quite like this song. It is always good to see a variety of musical styles at Eurovision, and I could see this appealing to a large number of people.
Score: 6.5/10
Antranig: “Time” is a mediocre attempt at Eurovision rock. The lyrics are quite cringeworthy at times and it is difficult to take the song seriously. Musically, it is a sound song, albeit a little safe — the instrumental has to be the best part of the song. We have to consider all aspects of the song and with lyrics like those coupled with the very sombre staging, “Time” is a bit of a mess.
Score: 3.5/10
Natalie: Oh, how I love the sound of strong rock music in a Eurovision song. There’s definitely a lot of experience and passion behind this — it’s not world-class stuff, but it does have great energy and a sense of style — the solo in particular was very nice to hear. Many marks have to be taken off for the lyrics: any song that makes me think of Googling “what rhymes with…” is pretty much criminal. All that aside, I’m very happy to have this in the Ukrainian final.
Score: 7.5/10
Stanislav: O.Torvald is popular in Ukraine. But I cannot understand those fans who voted for this performance looking only at the group’s name. We must look first at the performance itself and its chances at Eurovision. And when we do that we’ll see that this song is good — but not right for Eurovision.
Score: 6/10
In our Ukraine Wiwi Jury, we have 17 jurors but only room for eight reviews. The rest of our scores can be found below:
Dayana: 7/10
Erdi: 7.5/10
Forrest: 4/10
Jordi: 6.5/10
Josh: 3/10
Kristin: 7.5/10
Luis: 6.5/10
Zakaria: 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 3 and a high of 8.5.
I can understand why the jury ranked Melovin so low – because the song is raw, he doesn’t have enough power in his voice, backing vocals didn’t blend with him well, and the song’s production overall should be improved.
@Polegend Godgarina
I think so too.
The finale will be interesting)
Brilliant song! Great rock. Hopefully the winner!
And I find I Love You painful to listen to
Why the Ukranian jury hates Melovin? Someone can explain this? Melovin should win! He has the televote on his side, maybe if the jury changes his mind…
@ Polegend Godgarina : ”I just don’t understand why they use juries at national finals when the televoters have better taste. First in Spain, now here” But you’ve said that in Eastern countries jury is needed because labels buy televotes. Now you like televotes because is good for Tayanna. I don’t think that jury hates Melovin, did he sung with Jamala at some point? Maybe the jury is waiting the final to tell him that he is better now. Like in Hungary where Caramel cleared the way for Papai Joci, because they are friends and Caramel produced one video of… Read more »
Reminds me of Placebo.
@ vlvikin – I think it’ll go like:
Televote
6 Tayanna
5 Melovin
4 O’Torvald
3 Illaria
2 Salto Nazad
1 Rozhden
Jury vote
6 Salto Nazad
5 O’Torvald
4 Rozhden
3 Tayanna
2 Illaria
1 Melovin
They can’t possibly rank Tayanna lower than that…
I really hope Melovin wins 🙁
I still hope Melovin can win this. He has the most interesting song of the bunch. Nobody is terrible, though. Even that silly O Mamo song has some charm to it.
@Polegend Godgarina
I agree. I can compare Tayanna with Szpak 2016.
But I think what OTorvald will be second and thirt and this will be enough for win. Will see
@ vlvikin – except it’s the ONLY outstanding female ballad. It sounds nothing like the others, it has powerhouse vocals, and the lyrics are more real. It’s going to stand out, and the televoters of Ukraine seem to know that.
Either way I’ve done the math and, given the televote percentages from the semi-finals, it seems pretty obvious that Tayanna has the televote in the bag and that Melovin will be either 2nd or 3rd, while Illaria and O.Torvald will be 3rd/4th. Rozhden and Salto Nazad got very low televote figures in their respective semi-finals, and I’m not expecting the public to suddenly start loving them because they truly have bad songs. So the juries need to put Tayanna last in order to make her lose, considering that at the Ukrainian NF the televote favorite wins in case of a… Read more »
@Polegend Godgarina
It is women ballad
It is like 90% of songs we have for ESC 2017.
It is like 90% of Ukrainian songs what was for ESC early.
It is like many others songs.
It is good, but nothing else
This is a quality rock song. I love it.
@ vlvikin – why can’t the jury just recognize that Tayanna has the best song and that she’s what the public wants? They’re so annoying for trying to make that “O mamo” song happen when it’s bad and nobody’s here for it literally.
I think what “Salto Nazad” and O.Torvald it is the main favorites. Taiana will receive a low score from the jury, Rozden from audience
i can’t believe i said this but i really love this!