Today the Wiwi Jury – our in-house panel of music unprofessionals — continued our tour of Switzerland by visiting the first ever host city of Eurovision, Lugano. After a long day of sightseeing, we took a break to review “Redlights” by Vanessa Iraci – her entry for Die Entscheidungsshow 2018, the national selection for Switzerland at Eurovision 2018. Is Vanessa’s song a red light telling us to stop listening? Read on to find out…
VANESSA IRACI – “REDLIGHTS”
“Redlights” reviews
Bogdan: Vanessa and her song remind me of Tove Lo. She may lack the Swedish singer’s punch, but that could come alive on stage – after all, the Voice of Switzerland 2014 winner already proved that she’s got what it takes. Neatly packaged as a polished, stage-ready product, “Redlights” ticks all the boxes that would make Vanessa Iraci a successful Melodifestivalen act. It may be a bit generic, but the bold, unapologetic lyrics make it stand out.
Score: 8.5/10
Chris: A good singer with a good song, that in any other year would probably cruise to victory in the Swiss selection. It’s testament to how big an improvement SRF have made that “Redlights” mostly just fades into the background. There’s just nothing memorable about it, whereas most of the other entries make that impact. But Vanessa is a great vocalist and if she nails the live performance, this could still contend.
Score: 6/10
Jonathan: “Redlights” is definitely a good song, and probably could have won any of Switzerland’s national finals in the past three years. Yet, it feels like there’s something missing. The verses get me intrigued and I love their more ‘mysterious’ quality. But the chorus doesn’t quite give me the climax I’m looking for, and the ‘redlights’ refrain feels slightly laboured. In the end, I’m left slightly underwhelmed. Hopefully Vanessa will be able to elevate the song and convince me with her live performance.
Score: 7.5/10
Luis: There’s nothing wrong with “Redlights”, but there’s nothing excessively remarkable neither. Vanessa’s voice is smooth, powerful and kind of sexy, but it’s not strong enough for the whole act to rely on it. A strong staging could make this soar. She could do well if she is lucky in the running order as well. However, there’s too much “if” here, and Switzerland needs a bold statement to come back to the final.
Score: 6/10
Robyn: “Redlights” is a decent song, but it is so generic. It feels like in Switzerland’s search for not another non-qualification, they’ve gone for songs that are decent but don’t have a specific Swiss flavour. But if qualification is all that matters, “Redlights” could do it. It promises bold staging and plenty of potential to bring the house down.
Score: 8/10
William: Gravel in the voice, fire in the delivery, Vanessa carries something special. She’s running those red lights and oozing passion in the process. And while I love her, the song itself grows rather monotonous in the second half — though the bridge does bring it back to life a bit. It’d be great on a soundtrack, but not as a lead single.
Score: 7/10
Our jury for 2018 consists of 16 jurors, but we only have room for 6 reviews. The remaining 10 scores are listed below.
Antranig: 7.5/10
Barnabas: 6/10
Bernardo: 7/10
Deban: 7/10
Jordi: 7/10
Josh: 7.5/10
Jovana: 6.5/10
Lukas: 8/10
Rick: 8/10
Sebastian: 6.5/10
The highest and lowest scores are dropped prior to calculating the average score. This is to remove outliers and reduce potential bias. We have removed a low of 6 and a high of 8.5.
Interesting voice. The song is ok, not sth wow though.
6/10
Uhmmm…it’s ok. But it’s hook is not catchy enough and the chorus is too short. This is the weaker Red lights song!!
A 6/10.
here is a contestant to watch closely. An excellent song that can grab many, many points. And an artist with a lot of charisma. If she wins the national selection, for me it will be without a doubt one of the favorites of the competition.
She didn’t win The Voice by the way, she “only” made the semi-finals.
Not interesting enough to qualify but there is some quality there (Copy and paste for other Swiss entries as appropriate). Might be the best song in a very boring selection.
My review is basically Robyn’s review. I love the emotive harmonic structure of this song, and the hook is great. But everything is a bit generic round the edges. 8/10