The Wiwi Jury — our in-house panel of music unprofessionals — continues to rate and review the 41 songs that had been selected for Eurovision 2020. Next up, we take a look at the winner of Croatia‘s national final Dora 2020 Damir Kedžo and his song “Divlji vjetre”. Were we blown away by his song? Read on to find out!
Damir Kedžo – “Divlji vjetre”
“Divlji vjetre” reviews
Angus: The best ballads from the Balkan region knock your socks off, the worst make you switch off. “Divlji vjetre” falls somewhere in between. It has some properly stirring moments and Damir sings it superbly live. But in other parts the energy drops and the whole song sags.
Score: 2
Deban: A love poem wrapped in folklore, “Divlji vjetre” is bold, melodic and beautiful. The song structure here is stirring— allowing Damir Kedzo’s voice to take flight. His backing vocals give his solo runs the right weight, and helps to curate a well-rounded traditional sound. Despite not understanding a word of Croatian, “Divlji Vjetre” still sounds complete. This is the ballad Eurovision 2020 needed, and Damir is an artist I would love to see live in 2021.
Score: 8.5
Pablo: This is a chore to listen to, and I think I know why. It doesn’t go traditional enough for fans of such ballads, nor does it go modern enough for pop fans to replay. Damir sits on this awkward middle that tries to appease but ends up appealing to no one. I really doubt “Divlji Vjetre” would find its way in many playlists, let alone any Eurovision grand final.
Score: 1.5
Renske: The orchestral score behind “Divlji veter” is beautiful and gives the song another layer. However, I feel that this song does not differ much from what we’ve heard at Eurovision before and therefore does not stand out from better songs of its genre. But I am totally ready to hear more from Damir, as he’s one of the most powerful voices in Croatia.
Score: 7
Tom: A classic power ballad. Yes, I feel like I have heard this song before but Damir’s voice is electric and flawless. I have no idea what he is singing but when he sings I can’t help but feel captivated. The stage show does nothing for me – that could have been elevated in Rotterdam but I love a bit of passion and the passionate chorus really gets my fists pumping.
Score: 7.5
Damir Kedžo – “Divlji vjetre” rankings
In the Wiwi Jury we have 22 jurors but only have room for five reviews. The remaining scores are below:
| Antranig: 2.5
Åri: 1.5 Barnabas: 7 Bernardo: 5 Calvin: 4 Esma: 5.5 Florian: 4.5 Jonathan: 7 Lucy: 4 |
Luis: 7
Natalie: 5 Oliver: 5 Robyn: 3.5 Ron: 5 Sebastian: 6.5 Tobias: 5.5 William: 7.5 |
We have removed the highest and lowest scores prior to calculating the average. This is to remove outliers and potential bias. We have removed a low of 1.5 and a high of 8.5.
Wiwi Jury verdict: 5.13/10
What do you think of this song? Share your own score and review below!
Angus gave a 5/10, not a 2/10
I will give a 5/10 for this
Croatia – 5/10 (34th/41)
I love it more every time I watch. I’d say this is the most romantic song of 2020 – what is more emotional than love blowing away, out of your reach, a death – performed with a perfect balance of soul and dignity. If this were a Swedish production, say, the singer would make sad faces and overact, but Damir lets the music and his strong, vulnerable vocals tell the story. It would never have won Eurovision, but it has won my heart.
Lol, I’d like to hear a detailed explanation for their score from disrespectful a-holes like Pablo or Ari. The sole fact that a song is created and that someone worked hard on it already puts it above the rating they gave. 1 or 2 should be a rating for songs that are literally unlistenable and/or have no clear melody and I don’t think we had a song like that in years at Eurovison. Some people should be kicked out of here since they are a complete, irrelevant bunch of entitled nobodies who obviously think highly of themselves.
There is not romantic people anymore. Sad day.
Lowkey kinda love this song idk why
Very underrated song. I love a good Balkan Ballad. My fifth overall!!! 9/10
This is one I can’t remember. It reminds me to those dreadful entries back in 2009-2011 that got lost in the SFs and I didn’t get to know them after a few years later . I mean, it’s not that bad, but I’m sure he wouldn’t have qualified. 2. Australia – Montaigne – Don’t break me (8) 4. Romania – Roxen – Alcohol You (8) 5. Spain – Blas Cantó – Universo (8) 7. Bulgaria – Victoria – Tears Getting Sober (7.5) 11. Italy – Diodato – Fai rumore (6.75) 13. Cyprus – Sandro – Running (6.75) 14. Belgium –… Read more »
I absolutely love this. Every time I watch his live performance, I get all of the feels. While I will admit the studio version is not nearly as good, to give this a 1.5 or a 2 is absolutely insulting. Although, I’ve been rewatching the Wiwi jury reviews from 2018, and Angus just gave AWS a 2/10, another song I absolutely love, so maybe I should just take his scores with a grain of salt 😉
He reminds me so much of Roxxxie Andrews, but I am #teamjinkx, so bye!
It’s not the worst ballad this year, but for me I completely forget how it even goes. I don’t think it warrants a crazy low score, though. Croatia haven’t put out anything interesting since 2016 for me, but I do hope that next year they can throw something out that’s more memorable.
not the best song, but still very underrated
It’s not a classical Balkan ballad, like “Lane moje”, but I reckon it has enough elements that are typical for that genre to be classified as such. It’s still an emotional ballad characterized by a unique, sentimental tone, adressed to a loved one, sung in Croatian, with hints of string intruments in the instrumentation and a very distinctive usage of backing vocals.
Of course, any of the elements I mentioned can be found in many non-Balkan ballads, but it’s the concentration of them all that makes this song sound Balkan to me. There’s also a much bigger emphasis put on the person the protagonist is singing to than in an average love song. And the backing vocals play a much important role than in an ordinary ballad – they’re not just supporting the main singer, they almost function as an instrument, building up the atmosphere and vastly diversifying the song’s sound, I think it’s especially visible in the chorus. I don’t know,… Read more »
The term Balkan ballad has been used incorrectly for every slow song from any Ex-Yugoslavian country. Even Voda has been called a Balkan ballad and Slovenia isn’t even a Balkan country.
Good looking handsome sexy lad
But I’m sorry I can’t like the song at all.
Often im am the person with the outsider opinion: i absolutly love this. I don´t know why most of the Eurovision fandom not really like this. For me that gerne (Balkan ballad) completly belongs to Eurovision and this songs done it in the best way i´ve heard it for a long time. My score would be an 8.5
Probably a blessing that this won’t have to qualify because it definitely wouldnt have done.
Croatia 7/10
9/10
“Divlji vjetre” may seem like a typical Balkan ballad, but in my opinion it goes beyond the boundaries of genre. While most Balkan ballads tend to have relatively straightforward and simple lyrics, “Divlji vjetre” is a lot deeper and darker. It keeps the nature theme prominent in many songs from the ex-Yugoslavian countries, but it doesn’t go for the hackneyed metaphors and similes. Instead, it transforms complex feelings of sorrow, yearning and pensiveness into a beautiful, sensual autumnal landscape and depicts love as a powerful and destructive force one cannot control. I think so far only “Adio” has shown this… Read more »
“I have no idea what he is singing” says one of the jurors, well if you want to review the song at least make little effort to search for lyrics translation (Tornike K. would like to say few words lol :P) Lyrics are one of the reasons why I like this entry, in addition to great vocals. I think he has incredible voice control (kudos to backing vocals as well) and put his heart into this song, you can feel sincerity and sadness in his voice, but expressed in dignified manner, which correlates with melancholic lyrics about lost love. This… Read more »
Bland and boring. If you’re gonna bring a ballad in Eurovision, you must do it correctly. Croatia didn’t.
Overall:1/10 (37th)
Just to let you know, every year, I pretty much go back and re-rank the previous Eurovision selections, sometimes because my tastes have completely changed and sometimes, because a song has really grown on me. What I have found, is that when I go back, the classier entries tend to move up in my rankings whereas the novelty, gimmicky entries end up moving down as more time has passed. I mentioned that because this year, Croatia just about gets into my top 12. However, I have the feeling in 2-3 years time, this will be comfortably much higher. If there… Read more »
That’s a really nice review, Briekimchi! 🙂 Yeah, I really like it too. It’s now my 21st.
I really think that I’ll start re-doing my 2006 – 2016 lists. There has passed some time since I checked them and it was a time before doing detailed reviews and scores for Wiwi comments. I assume there will be some changes, especially among 15th-30th placings.
Think of it this way, how many years are you going to have this much free time during Eurovision season? 😉
21. Croatia – 7/10 – A powerful, dramatic, shamelessly masculine performance. Strong vocals ensure heartfelt emotion pours out of it a plenty. There is a yearning mysticism throughout. I don’t like the chord progression at end of the chorus where i feel the song loses its impact a little at a crucial time. But overall this is a very enjoyable experience. We are over halfway through now so these are my results so far: 1. 2. Romania 3. 4. Bulgaria 5. Moldova 6. 7. 8. Russia 9. 10. UK 11. Australia 12. Israel 13. Ireland 14. 15. 16. 17. Serbia… Read more »
Same place and same rating for Croatia! 🙂
I have shown ratings, but not places on the list, so’ll give you my placements:
Top 10:
1. / 2. – Italy and ???
3. Romania
4. / 5. – ???
6. Bulgaria
7. Poland
8. ???
9. Russia
10. ???
My bottom 5 include San Marino, Belarus, Serbia and two more.
Interesting times ahead Colin! There are some big hitters still to come: Lithuania, Iceland, Switzerland, Norway, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Germany, Sweden, Malta – they can’t all get in your top 10 so who is going to miss out? And will there be any surprises?
I can make a guess on your bottom 5 as I have two absolute stinkers still to come – but I may be wrong!
These 9 songs you mentioned indeed would be ”heavy hitters” in the contest. Five of these songs are somewhere in my top 15, while one didn’t break my top 26… There is one song in my top 10 I am fairly sure won’t be there for many people.
I am interested in which will be your 1st… as well as which two ”stinkers” you are referring to. There is one in particular I know has to be in my bottom 3.
Talk what you want about the songs, but Balkan countries always serve vocals!
CROATIA – I felt the sense of relief when this won Dora. Not only that it’s a huge improvement over last year’s song, but it’s a really nice ballad in it’s own right. The lyrics are very poetic, the melody is nice and Damir can truly sing! It might not be the most current or the most daring song there is, but it’s still a respectable one. I can feel the emotion in the delivery. There is a nice flow to the instrumental and the final chorus really pulls a punch. I’m not sensing it being on many radars, so… Read more »
It is underrated.
The Wiwi jury seems quite split on this one. Personally, I think it’s great!
All the best to the artist for the future. 🙂