Eurovision 2019 spotlight: Moldova's Anna Odobescu's "Stay"...
And now I come with the former Soviet Republic of Moldova, who have been doing their best in the last couple of years. Along with the triumphant return of "epic sax guy" in Sunstroke Project in 2017, last year the country surprised most everyone (including myself) with their act DoReDos, who used a simply cheap stage prop to tell a story and give life to a song that ended up in the top ten, "My Lucky Day". Here's the video that split screens the live performance with the rehearsal behind the prop doors. Mind you, they may not have been perfect in their vocals, but in pure entertainment value this was a showstopper...
So the last two years they've had top ten success with quirky but entertaining numbers. Do they try to make a hat trick or do they take a left turn?
Moldova - "Stay" from Anna Odobescu
Short answer, no. In this year's national finals, big-voiced singer Anna Odebescu won the trip to Tel Aviv with her power-ballad "Stay". Anna, like DoReDos and the lead singer of the SunStroke project Sergei Yalovitsky, hails from the city of Dubăsari in the breakaway region of Transnistria, who aren't recognized as an independent nation, and whose population of almost a half of million people mostly have dual citizenship with either Moldova, Ukraine, or Russia, the latter whose culture pervades this region greatly. That also explains the heavily "Russian" sound in their music that infuses even their dance numbers. Anna, a music teacher, is an amazingly strong vocalist in the Celine Dion/Lara Fabian category, and the song, written by Greek/German journalist, songwriter, and Eurovision superfan Georgios Kalpadikis, along with Thomas and Jeppe Reil and Maria Broberg, admitted does take one back to the early 1990s adult contemporary music, but not in a way that sounds out of place. Yes, it's dramatic. Yes, the music video is telenovela, but it's done earnestly and well. The song has gotten a lot of slack for being "ordinary", but it does present a lot of what the juries, who determine half the score, are looking for, so counting this out may be a losing game (to quote another entry)...
(Why didn't he just drive back?)
Anyhoo, yes, the lyrics teeter on ESL simpleton, but Anna can sing the hell out of them, and being a big ballad in English will make it stand out more than people are aware. If she can bring it on stage (without much distractions around her), this could very well be a sleeper. neighboring Romania and Russia will be voting in this semi, as well as reliable voters in Azerbaijan and Sweden, and I truly think the juries will be drawn to this enough that it could squeak through to the final. (Rating: 7/10)
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Moldova, who gained independence in 1991, has been competing in Eurovision since 2005, and has reached the top ten in the finals four times (with another two placing in 11th). Their biggest success so far came in 2017 when the return of the Sunstroke Project and "epic sax guy" won them third place in a very very strong year with "Hey, Mamma"...
As I said before, DoReDos is by far my favorite from the country, but after that would be Aliona Moon, who brought the "big dress" before anyone with her song "O Mie" ("A Thousand"), and came in 11th in 2013, not bad for a song done in Romanian...
But on the other hand, the country has sent its share of WTF-ness, twice in the case of their first entry, gypsy-punk band Zdob și Zdub, who performed in 2005 and 2011, coming in 6th in Moldova's first year with this trainwreck for the eyes, "Boonika Bate Doba" ("Grandma Beats The Drum") like a local Red Hot Chili Peppers tribute act..
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