Iberian realness just got real. The Wiwi Jury now turns our attention to the eight acts competing in the grand final of Portugal’s national selection, Festival da Canção. First up is Deolinda Kinzimba with “O que eu vi nos meus sonhos” and Fernando Daniel with “Poema a dois”. Can either them make Portugal’s Eurovision comeback? Read on to find out!
Deolinda Kinzimba – “O que eu vi nos meus sonhos”
“O que eu vi nos meus sonhos” reviews
Antranig: This is a beautiful song filled with a lot of emotion. Unfortunately, it’s equally boring as it is beautiful. We already have a million lifeless ballads at Eurovision 2017 and while this is better than most of them, we don’t need another one. Deolinda’s vocals are dazzling but she needs a more contemporary and more energetic song to be able to succeed at Eurovision.
Score: 3/10
Chris: Deolinda has a voice that I could listen to for days. There’s such pure talent here, but tragically it gets lost underneath an underwhelming song. Many people (unfairly) are describing this as the year of “shouty lady ballads”. Deolinda never gets to the “shouty” bit, but the problem is that at Eurovision, this song would be overwhelmed by its “shoutier” contemporaries. Hopefully, she returns next year with a killer song.
Score: 4/10
Deban: From start to finish, Deolinda Kinzimba kept me spellbound. Her dreamlike melody evoked the right emotions, and at the right moments. Her vocal control is equally impressive. Yes, she can sing the house down but this melody — which unveils her hopes and dreams for unity — doesn’t call for that. Accordingly, she applies a measured approach in her delivery, and boy does she sparkle! In a field of amateurs, Deolinda Kinzimba is sufficiently upskilled to deliver a master class to established musicians.
Score: 9/10
Jordi: I got real Whitney Houston realness with Deolinda. Her voice is truly mesmerising mixed with a quite dated ballad, but it’s still magical. The overall result is impressive, but this year is still heavy with ballads from women. Would Portugal be competitive enough with an act like that? She oozes soul out of every note singing with a beautiful moving voice. It’s emotional, but I’m missing the hook.
Score: 7/10
Luis: Deolinda’s voice is gorgeous, and her stage presence is delicious. Sadly, her song is just another dated ballad. The whole act comes across as totally delightful, but there’s little of this that would appeal to the wide Eurovision audience. I really wish Deolinda comes back another year with a better song, because she is a brilliant performer and her voice is pure gold!
Score: 6/10
Robyn: Festival da Canção is taking us on a journey of 20th century popular music styles. This time Deolinda is delivering an elegant 1960s-style ballad. And it really works well. She has an incredible voice and the song has a slightly quirky side to it that elevates it beyond its modern equivalents. I don’t know if there’s also an English version floating around, but this would also work with English or bilingual lyrics.
Score: 7/10
In our Festival da Canção Wiwi Jury, we have 14 jurors but only room for six reviews. The rest of our scores can be found below:
Bernardo: 6.5/10
Gökhan: 4.5/10
Josh: 5.5/10
Jovana: 6/10
Matt: 8.5/10
Mikhail: 2.5/10
Natalie: 2.5/10
Zakaria: 6/10
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: 5.54/10
Fernando Daniel – “Poema a dois”
“Poema a dois” reviews
Deban: “Poema A Dois” encapsulates the essence of intelligent songwriting. Unlike most love songs, the subject matter here isn’t obvious. Also, instead of a chorus looping in and out of the verses, the song structure here deliberately omits a chorus. Fernando Daniel sprinkles youthful star quality on this classic composition, whilst taking listeners on a poetic journey. Although the core elements of this submission stand tall, bad wardrobe choices and poor staging dampen its magic.
Score: 8 /10
Josh: Oh, my darling Fernando Daniel. You have such a natural talent in your voice, but this song isn’t stirring anything within me. Fernando is destined to be on the Eurovision stage at some point, but “Poema a dois” is not the song to get him there. I was hoping with the rule changes to Festival da Canção, it could bring something contemporary and modern and less “stereotypical” Portuguese, and I was relying on Fernando to bring that element to the contest. Needless to say, I’m disappointed.
Score: 5/10
Luis: Talking about great singers, there’s no wonder why Fernando Daniel’s audition for The Voice is the most seen ever! I find “Poema a dois” quite enjoyable, but the performance felt half-done. Even his look didn’t suit the song. Vocally, he is on point, and musically, the song is not bad at all. But this needs a big dramatic performance to stand out, and maybe, due to the design of the semi-final stage, Fernando didn’t really bring everything he has to offer. Let’s wait for the final. Meanwhile, he could kill those electric guitars with fire.
Score: 7/10
Natalie: The Latin strings at the start are utterly enchanting, but unfortunately that’s about it. Midway through this song I was hoping, praying, begging for this song to offer a bit more – it just never did. Even if it did rise up a tiny bit at the end – and electric guitars are always welcome – it never really got out of being just another samey and dragging ballad. We seriously need something else.
Score: 4/10
Robyn: Fernando Daniel needs to go to Eurovision, but not with “Poema a dois”. He’s a great singer, but his song comes across as an entry engineered for drama at the expense of an enjoyable tune. Parts of it are nice, but the overall performance feels overwrought. But he’s promising changes for the grand final, so we might hear an improvement.
Score: 6/10
Zakaria: A very good and dramatic song but an underwhelming performance. Don’t get me wrong, Fernando is an incredible vocalist but he fails to connect with the song and thus the audience. “Poema a Dois” merges intelligently classical and modern sounds and Fernando’s voice fits in very well. The staging needs a lot of improvements to bring the song to life, otherwise Fernando will struggle to make an impact.
Score: 7/10
In our Festival da Canção Wiwi Jury, we have 14 jurors but only room for six reviews. The rest of our scores can be found below:
Antranig: 4.5/10
Bernardo: 7.5/10
Chris: 4.5/10
Gökhan: 4/10
Jordi: 7.5/10
Jovana: 6/10
Matt: 6.5/10
Mikhail: 4/10
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 8.
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Oh dear, they keep repeating the same formula, when will they realise it wont work? Deolinda and salvadoe are sooo terrible.
My hope is on PEDRO.
Deolinda is the better of the two.
Her song is nice, but I think it misses something in the chorus.
Seriously, I just love Deban reviews… Thanks for the reviews 🙂 all of them were nice
Really overrated, it seems wiwibloggs don’t want to be very harsh with Portugal in its comeback. I don’t see any of the 8 songs qualifying, but at least Pedro Gonçalves would be a modern, decent choice, fresh ir for Portugal.
Salvador, Fernando and Viva la Diva have only chance to go to final .
Fernando together with Salvador are maybe the most decent entries for Portugal at the moment!
If Fernando had got a good and contemporary song, he’d kill the competition. His voice is everything. Unfortunately, “Poema a dois” is a bit dated and I don’t quite get what it wants to be.
Pedro Goncalves for Kyiv.
These songs are so overscored LMAO. Fernando is my choice for Portugal, but I don’t love it.
None of these 8 songs in the portugesr final would even make it to a Melodifestivalen final, so dont expect to do something at eurovision.
Fernando is great!! I love him. He has a great voice and is SUPER cute, which can definitely help in Eurovision!!
Erratum: Meant to wrote “timeless quality” as “enduring quality”. lol 😀
Songs going traditional doesn’t necessarily equates to being outdated. If that was the case then a genre that reflects Portugal’s cultural identity such as the fado would not have survived the test of time.
Fine example of a timeless classic: “Cancao do mar”. The song have been around since the 50’s has that timeless quality that still sounds fresh. One notable cover of it was from Dulce Pontes and that particular version was used as theme for an American TV drama series.
Maybe that can be done to any of the songs winning that’s not Pedro’s.
🙂
*of something new
Ugh they just to get someone in from abroad to make everything more contemporary. As everyone repeatedly says in all the Cancao articles – they are just so outdated.
Fernando is a great passionate singer and some of his song sounds contemporary but then there are some parts that are straight out of 1995. Whoever wins needs their song revamped to make it more 2017
Yes to Fernando’s wardrobe change. I was thinking that if he’s going to perform a modern Portuguese ballad, his styling would need to match it while at the same time won’t make himself look too old-fashioned. Maybe a bit more dapper with a mixture of something as well as some dynamism instead of being static throughout those three-minutes.
Together with Salvador, these two are they only hopes for Portugal not to be bottom of the barrel. I guess both songs are bit ”dated” (as people in the comments would note), and none if an outstand like Senhora do Mar, but they are lovely to listen to and could maybe make Portugal go to the upper half or my list, or at least around the middle.