The Wiwi Jury — our in-house panel of music unprofessionals — reviews the three songs by Darude feat. Sebastian Rejman that will compete in Finland’s national final UMK 2019. Finally we take a listen to “Look Away”. Did the song grab our attention? Read on to find out!
Darude feat. Sebastian Rejman – “Look Away”
“Look Away” reviews
Antranig: “Look Away” is not my favourite but I connect with the message of the song more than the others. The chorus is repetitive and basic but it sounds like what you would expect from a Darude song. Sebastian makes the verses his own here and “Look Away” showcases both artists in a better light than the other songs. This would be a good entry for Finland.
Score: 8/10
Essi: “Look Away” has a good and global message, something that we all can relate to. The rhythm is nice and I also feel that Sebastian’s vocals also sound the best in this track. For me, Look Away is the best out of these three, if I would have to choose, I would send this to Tel Aviv. Like I said, it’s nice, but then again, nothing special. It’s not horrible but it doesn’t give me a wow feeling either.
Score: 5/10
Julian: It seems that he heard the people worrying about Finland getting a spot in the final! The third and last song is my favourite one even though it’s not far away from “Superman”. This one is a cool dance pop song with electronic piano vibes by David Guetta. You could call it dated — it probably is — but with a good staging I think this could maybe end on the left half of the scoreboard.
Score: 7/10
Lucy: There’s something more provided with “Look Away”, and finally we have a song that suits Sebastian’s voice. The tempo changes in the bridge before going into a big chorus, and we needed the “let the Beat. DROP.” moment this song has, something surprisingly lacking in the others considering this is EDM. It does still feel like it’s five years old and not quite fitting with 2019, but out of the three, this has got to be the one for Finland, surely.
Score: 6.5/10
Luis: “Look Away” feels the entry most tailor-made for Sebastian’s vocals. It begins mysterious, and then it booms into a big EDM tune. The only problem here is the constant repetition of “Look away, look away”. It gets uninteresting by the second pre-chorus, basically because you know what’s coming from there till the end of the song. Out of the three this could well be the best choice. While musically, “Superman” is more reminiscent of “Sandstorm” (and thus, superior), “Look away” has a good hook, which “Superman” lacks.
Score: 6.5/10
Robyn: There’s a lot of promise in “Look Away”. The verses and pre-chorus seem to be building up to something that’s bold and thrilling but the chorus doesn’t quite deliver. It’s still a good chorus, but a song with a message needs to say more than just “look away, look away, look away”. The ending seems abrupt, making the whole song feel more like a demo than a fully formed Eurovision entry. Still, there is a lot that works.
Score: 6.5/10
In our UMK 2019 Wiwi Jury, we have 11 jurors but only room for 6 reviews. The rest of our scores can be found below:
| Barnabas: 6
Oliver: 6/10 Jack: 6.5/10 |
Natalie: 6.5/10
Pablo: 6.5/10 |
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 5 and a high of 8.
Even the party songs this year have to be gloomy?
Finland is too much hated on this blog. Darudes all songs are much better than the many of the other countries songs.
It is not important to qualify or win ESC btw
No hate at all! Darude’s songs are just… meh! It’s like not much effort has been put on them. And the lyrics are so bland and cheesy (specially Superman’s). Still, I have to admit that they are better than many of other countries songs, but that is just because this year many of the songs are really awfull, not because Darude’s songs are particularly good…
Here are the sneak peeks of tomorrow’s UMK staging! https://www.instagram.com/p/BueYxCQh6zD/
However keep in mind that these are from rehearsals, those aren’t the outfits they will wear and the audio isn’t proper yet. But the staging will look nearly like that. 🙂 And that’s only 5 seconds of the each song!
Very disappointing and uninspired! Also, the prechorus reminds me so much of Kim Wilde’s version of “keep me hangin’ on”. When he sings “how can we go to sleep at night and lay there in our beds?” I’m expecting him to continue “’cause you don’t really love me. You just keep me hangin’ on!”…
I’m not an expert but should’t it be “lie there in our beds”?
True. My English is not perfect, but as I speak 4 languages I believe I am allowed to make a mistake from time to time. I appreciate your correction though 😉
My favorite out of all three. It has that euphoric yet nighttime vibe and I really live for that. I hope to see this in ESC.
I’ll be looking away when they perform
very pleasant and refreshing!
we need songs like this in this year’s contest with all the ballads that have already chosen
The three of them sound the same.
FInland will be Top 10 in the final because yesterday they showed us teasers of how these songs will look on stage and they were SO GOOD. Trust me guys, live performance will elevate these songs big time.
And today we should be getting proper 10 second snippets! Can’t wait, the staging really did look good!
Saara Alto had great staging too and look where she ended
Saara Aalto had terrible staging in UMK. Believe me, the whole Finland hated it and demanded a change. I saw it all. Her staging in Eurovision was good but not top 10 worthy.
Darude and Sebu will go far. 🙂 The staging is much better than Saara’s.
Unfortunately any of the songs are even worse than “Monsters”
Best of the worst
the lyrics make me wish i didn’t understand english