The Wiwi Jury — our in-house panel of music unprofessionals — continues to rate and review the songs competing in the andra chansen round of Sweden’s Melodifestivalen 2020. Next up, we listen to Paul Rey with his track “Talking in My Sleep”. Did we think the song was a sweet dream or a nightmare? Read on to find out!

Paul Rey – “Talking in My Sleep”

“Talking in My Sleep” reviews

Antranig: “Talking in My Sleep” is very by-the-numbers and it achieves what it sets out to do. However, in a semi competing against Dotter’s aurora and Anna’s warrior army, it’s easy to see why Paul Rey went to andra chansen. The visual package here was flat. If you’re not going to reinvent the wheel musically, you need to stand out in another way. It’s still a good performance of a decent song but the best word to describe the whole package is average.

Score: 6/10

Jonathan: In all honesty, moody male ballads have never really been my sort of thing and I don’t think “Talking In My Sleep” is going to be the one to change that. Paul does his best to give life to the song with his movements on stage. Sadly, in the end, I find myself drifting off and disengaging from the performance.

Score: 6.5/10

Natalie: Hmmm… an understated ballad. How original. Seriously, there’s nothing explicitly wrong with this song. The production is solid and rich, Paul sings well, and the lyrics are nice. I’m sure it’ll be very pleasant buried in an album amongst ten other more interesting and fun songs. But representing Sweden in Rotterdam? I think there’s better. Also, I think Paul takes this song far more seriously than necessary. Next time, maybe bring something actually groundbreaking that you can gesticulate yourself too.

Score: 4.5/10

Ron: Paul Rey is a very good singer and his song is not bad either. However, this performance didn’t really manage to leave a high impact (although the video effect was cool). Paul’s moves on stage are quite strange at times and throw me a bit off. One minute he’s all jumpin’ on stage, and right after that he stands still, sings softly and gets emotional. At the end of the song, I’m left a bit confused. It’s nice, but at Melodifestivalen nice is not enough.

Score: 6/10

In our Melodifestivalen Wiwi Jury, we have 14 jurors but only room for four reviews. The rest of our scores can be found below:

Angus: 6/10

Åri: 8.5/10

Barnabas: 7/10

Florian: 6/10

Lucy: 4/10

Luis: 4/10

Pablo: 4/10

Robyn: 4.5/10

Tobias: 7/10

Tom: 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 4 and a high of 8.5.

Wiwi Jury verdict: 5.54/10

Read all our Melodifestivalen 2020 Wiwi Jury rankings here

Read more Melodifestivalen news here

15 Comments
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Jonas
Jonas
4 years ago

It’s like the opposite side of Lena Philipsson’s classic, Talking in Your Sleep. I never would have put them together.

Pierre
Pierre
4 years ago

Sweden is so overexposed on wiwbloggs. Why would a blogger from NZ write about a song that lost in the semis?

Héctor
Héctor
4 years ago

Underrated.

Euroboy
Euroboy
4 years ago

I liked the snippet of the song (the first minute), but then heard the whole song and I was disappointed. After the acoustical beginning it becomes Sam Smith’s and Ed Sheeran’s ripoff. I don’t think he has chances against Malou. She was in trending on youtube, and has more streams played. He even has lower amount of views than Klara. It must have been a battle between these two in semi-final two for andra chansen place.

Grafton
Grafton
4 years ago

Malou has to eliminate him.

blueeyed
blueeyed
4 years ago

This is the best song at this year’s Melodifestivalen. It stands out from other overpolished typical Swedish pop songs which all sound the same.

Jack Pricefield
Jack Pricefield
4 years ago

Underrated song, the production and creativity is excellent and Paul Rey brings a lot of life into the track but I was hoping for something more uplifting like “What Good is Love”

Briekimchi
Briekimchi
4 years ago

It is not a potential winner but I think it could have been appreciated more had a more convincing performer delivered it. Paul Rey just doesn’t sell this the same way Felix sold Every Single Day, for example.

Polegend Godgarina
Polegend Godgarina
4 years ago

that haircut doesn’t do him any favors. the song itself has a good instrumental, but that’s where the praise ends.

Shay NayNay
Shay NayNay
4 years ago

Trying to drag his looks but he’s better looking than you sus… you wear a nasty ass wig

Pierre
Pierre
4 years ago
Reply to  Shay NayNay

Relax, people are allowed to dislike a haircut. Its tv not radio.

Inti
Inti
4 years ago

So underrated. I’ve been listening to this on repeat since it was released. Such a beautiful song and Paul has unique voice.

Colin
Colin
4 years ago

I quite like this song. He was definitely my third favorite in what turned out to be the most difficult semi. The issue here is that he just doesn’t sell it the right way on stage. I think he’s trying to be cool and turn on his swagger, but this is an emotional ballad which isn’t the right vessel for that. My advice to Paul is more Duncan Laurence and less Luca Hanni on stage. Other than that, it’s good and too bad it’s up against Malou, as both of them would deserve to make it.

Purple Mask
Purple Mask
4 years ago
Reply to  Colin

I like how the staging of this song captures the living essence of the man rather than overdramatising his feelings. Obviously in the song, he misses someone in reality, but at the same time is very happy in his dreams. The staging would seem to snapshot both aspects of those feelings quite well, and still stay true to the man himself.

Erik
Erik
4 years ago

I really like the studio version. But he is lacking the stage presence. He has one of my top songs this year. Maybe he’ll step it up against Malou