Eurovision 2019 spotlight: North Macedonia's Tamara Todevska with "Proud"...

It's time for today's spotlight on the countries and singers competing in this year's Eurovision Song Contest being held in Tel Aviv, Israel next week. You can check out the rest of the series so far by clicking here. And now we come to a country competing with its new official name for the first time this year...

Last year the former Yugoslav Republic was competing under the name FYR Macedonia (FYR=Former Yugoslav Republic) as it had been since 1996. Their entry, "Lost And Found", had a lot of fans for its striking and adventurous arrangement vacillating from a reggae song to a new wave jam, but in the end horrible staging left it behind in the semi-finals, as it had happened in the five years before. This time the newly-dubbed North Macedonia (after a long-standing feud with Greece was resolved) returns with a singer whose been to Eurovision once before. Can she prevail?

North Macedonia - "Proud" by Tamara Todevska

Tamara, from the North Macedonian capital and largest city of Skopje, was selected by the country's Eurovision broadcaster to represent North Macedonia in this year's competition, but back in 2008 she had won the national final Skopje Fest along with rapper Vrčak and producer Adrian Gaxha with their song "Let Me Love You", which they entered Eurovision in neighboring Belgrade, Serbia. However, even though they came in tenth in the semi-final, which these days means they just made it, there was an arcane rule at the time that the juries can choose who is the tenth for the finals, leaving behind Tamara and the boys. In 2014, Tamara's sister Tijana entered Eurovision as an internal pick with "To The Sky", and ended up 13th in the semi-final. Now Tamara is back, and opposed to those two previous dance-pop entries, she's here with a self-empowerment anthem for the women of the world, "Proud". Written by producer Darko Dimitrov, Robert Bibliov, and Lazar Cvetkoski, the ballad has sweeping classical structure which uses crescendos on every line to build the emotion until the end...

There are a lot of self-help records in this year's contest but this is the one who carries the most emotional weight, helped by Tamara's strong delivery and heart-tugging chord changes which "Balkanize" the ballad nicely. And if her first rehearsal yesterday in Tel Aviv is a sign, she is definitely a force to be reckoned with, suddenly appearing in the top ten of bookies odds for winning the semi. She will have neighbors Croatia and Albania to be able to vote, but with Bulgaria sitting out this year it's going to be a tough one, but hopefully the buzz around this song in the rehearsals (only second to Azerbaijan, who we'll talk about tomorrow) will generate enough votes to get her through. (Rating: 8/10)

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North Macedonia (or FYR Macedonia) has been in Eurovision since 1996, where they missed the final on their first try. In the eight times they have reached the finals (or there were no semis), their best showing so far came in 2006 when Elena Risteska ended up in twelfth place with "Ninanajna"...

As for my personal favorite, it's from 2015 with "Autumn Leaves" from Daniel Kajmakoski, which was also co-written by Bibilov...