Today, the Wiwi Jury — our in-house panel of music unprofessionals — travelled to the town of Tsaghkadzor, Armenia. After frolicking in the snow atop Mount Teghenis and riding the ski lift to the very top of the mountain, the Wiwi Jury listened to two more Eurovision hopefuls. Were we waiting for the sun under all the snow? Did we unearth a hidden gem that Armenia was hiding?

Amaliya Margaryan — “Waiting for the Sun”

“Waiting for the Sun” reviews

Antranig: There’s something to be said about beautiful Eurovision ballads sung without shouty vocals and full of delicate emotion. Amaliya plays to her strengths and does her own thing without trying to make her song fit the “Eurovision formula”. You can hear her strengths and weaknesses through her raw vocals and if she can perform this live, it will have an outside chance of winning Depi Evratesil.

Score: 6.5/10

Jonathan: Amaliya has a great voice and she may be able to amp this up live. But at the moment in the studio version, I’m constantly “Waiting For The Sun” to actually arrive and give this some life. It takes way too long to get going, and even when it does the climax is a bit weak and doesn’t go far enough. There’s potential here, but there are stronger ballads in this selection.

Score: 6.5/10

Luis: Amaliya brings a tasteful ballad. It sways you with her beautiful harmonies and the epic instrumentation. She goes from whisper to a couple of high notes. The thing here is, you couldn’t possibly say anything wrong about it, but in the same way, you even won’t be able to hum it. It’s a delight for the ears while it’s on, but then it goes with the wind.

Score: 6/10

Bernardo: Amaliya’s voice captures my interest from the very first note and when the classical instrumentations kick in I’m already immersed in it. For some reason, the song takes me on an emotional journey for three minutes and it builds up to an intense climax. The flute flourishes gave me chills but it isn’t enough for a 10. I would see it as an outsider to win the ticket to Lisbon.

Score: 8/10

Robyn: Amaliya has a lovely voice, serving delicateness and strength in equal quantities. The trouble is the song. “Waiting for the Sun” has a very slow build which seems to promise a huge climax. But when it comes, it’s just Amaliya being shouty for a bit then the song dies down. It could make the final, but there are better songs in the competition.

Score: 5/10

Deban: A delicate ballad sung beautifully. Amaliya does this song justice by creating a wave of peaks and valleys with her voice. However, there is something amiss here. This song plays a long waiting game for something greater to unfold. It needs more than three minutes.

Score: 6/10

In our Depi Evratesil Wiwi Jury, we have 17 jurors but only room for 6 reviews. The rest of our scores can be found below:

Barnabas: 8/10

Bogdan: 6.5/10

Chris: 6/10

Cinan: 5.5/10

Edd: 6.5/10

Erdi: 8/10

Lukas: 7.5/10

Natalie: 7/10

Rezo: 9/10

Sebastian: 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 5 and a high of 9.

Wiwi Jury Verdict: 6.71/10

Arman Mesropyan — “What You Hide”

“What You Hide” reviews

Chris: Because what you really want to hear coming from Armenia at Eurovision is a whiny ballad! The song almost doesn’t register as playing until the key change. It only starts to then because the schmaltz can’t be ignored. Just far too bland to connect.

Score: 3.5/10

Robyn: “What You Hide” is reminiscent of a 1990s boyband ballad, except that’s really doing a disservice to ’90s boybands. The song never really gets going. It just plods along for the obligatory three minutes and does little to engage the listener. The most thrilling moment is the key change at 2:25, but even that gets bored with being exciting and goes back to the plodding.

Score: 4/10

Bogdan: “Why did you ignore my love,” Arman belts out. Well, if his loving is as good as his singing, I am not surprised she did. It’s nothing to write home about, plain and uneventful, just like the song, a typical love ballad about a man scorned which fails to elicit empathy or any kind of emotion in the listener. Sometimes, a good voice, just like love, is not enough — you need a certain oomph to make the heart flutter.

Score: 4.5/10

Cinan: Nope I’m hiding nothing (as he asks), but I wanna hide myself from this song, even he has a very good voice. I don’t know why, but Armenian men have really good voices, which is absolutely amazing. The song is another ballad for me — nothing special, sadly. But I wish him much luck and keep slaying!

Score: 6/10

Natalie: Arman can’t hide his clichés. The “oh oooh ooh” hook at the start, the big drum beats leading to the chorus, the slow drawling singing, those rhymes. There’s even an instrumental break in the final chorus… It’s quite difficult to take a soft emotional ballad seriously when it’s forced like this. And it kinda does feel at the end like they only just realised that they have a three-minute time limit. Honestly, this all feels so rushed and half-baked. Can’t get into it.

Score: 3/10

Edd: If you’re gonna do a ballad at Eurovision, it needs to be excellent. Unfortunately “What You Hide” is not. Cheap music can work if it’s entertaining, but this is pure dirge. This would sound 10x more professional if Arman sung in Armenian, but all emotion from the music is lost with such a strong accent and poor lyrics. I’ll give a point for the “oh ooh oh” part.

Score: 1/10

In our Depi Evratesil Wiwi Jury, we have 17 jurors but only room for 6 reviews. The rest of our scores can be found below:

Antranig: 3/10

Barnabas: 7.5/10

Bernardo: 3.5/10

Deban: 3/10

Erdi: 5.5/10

Jonathan: 4.5/10

Luis: 3/10

Lukas: 6.5/10

Rezo: 4/10

Sebastian: 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 1 and a high of 7.5.

Wiwi Jury Verdict: 4.21/10

See our list of Depi Evratesil 2018 rankings here

Click here to follow all our Armenia Eurovision news

4 Comments
Newest
Oldest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
AngieP
AngieP
6 years ago

“Waiting For The Sun”: Nice intro, beautiful voice. Just an ok song. 5/10

“What You Hide”: I like the melody and the atmoshere it creates. Beautiful deep voice. It’s a decent song. The chorus is good but I feel it’s a little “too much”. Also, he needs to improve his english. 6/10

Ron
Ron
6 years ago

Amalya’s song is my 5th favorite after Asmik, Tamar, Kamil and Sevak. It’s a beautiful ballad and Amalya is easily one of the best vocalists in DE. I really hope she returns back to DE with a stronger song next year. I’ve heard her covers of Polina Gagarina and a few other artists and she’s just incredible.

8/10 for me.

Kris
Kris
6 years ago

Waiting for the sun: 7.5/10
Good effort would have been my winner had it been in Moldova or Belarus

What we hide: A song is the answer
3.5/10

Yerevan is calling
Yerevan is calling
6 years ago

Amalya is safest choice for Armenia and she can sing this nice song. Here is a great not official video for Waiting for the sun. 8/10
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTKDioo5WMc