Poland goes for radiofriendly pop dance with producer Gromee
After Poland hit rock bottom with a last place in their semi final in 2011, they decided to take a two year break from the Eurovision Song Contest. Since they came back in 2014, they haven’t missed the final of the contest once with an 8th place in 2016 as their best recent result. This year, Poland decided to go all contemporary and radiofriendly on us with the dance pop track ‘Light Me Up’ by producer and DJ Gromee and vocalist Lukas Meijer. Is another top 10 result in sight?
Poland seems to be doing better with the televoters than the juries in recent memory, possibly thanks to the Polish diaspora around Europe. Their entry this year has potential to do well with both juries and televoters, as the juries have proved to appreciate contemporary productions that echo the sound that is popular in the charts at the moment, like Norway’s entry last year. Although ‘Light Me Up’ is catchy on first listen, it does not stand out on its genre. The chorus is decent and the production is slick, but we heard it all before and better too. The performances the duo has done so far, show that vocally there is some room for improvement as well. I think there is a reasonable chance this song is going to qualify from semi final 2, but it seems to forgettable to make a lasting impression on Saturday night.
Review of Semi Final Performance:
The Polish delegation paid close attention to what is hot in the charts these days. Gromee and Lukas Meijer perform ‘Light Me Up’, a tune that mixes dance, house and pop and could easily have been played on European radio. It is not particularly strong within its genre though, but what really killed their chances of making the final (diaspora or no diaspora) was the live performance. Lukas simply sounded out of tune in the high notes (and some others too) and when you are already struggling vocally, running around the stage usually is not the best idea. DJ Gromee made the performance awkward to watch too with the ‘dance moves’ he is performing while grinning into the camera. Their failure to qualify might have been one of the surprises of the night if you look at bookmakers and other predictions beforehand, but after that performance it should not have been that big of a shock. It turns out that televoters placed Poland 10th, but juries only gave them the 15th place. They finished 14th overall.
Read our other Eurovision 2018 reviews: ALBANIA – ARMENIA – AUSTRALIA –AUSTRIA – AZERBAIJAN – BELARUS –BELGIUM – BULGARIA – CROATIA – CYPRUS –CZECH REPUBLIC – DENMARK – ESTONIA – FINLAND – FRANCE – FYR MACEDONIA – GEORGIA – GERMANY – GREECE – HUNGARY – ICELAND –IRELAND – ISRAEL –ITALY – LATVIA – LITHUANIA –MALTA – MOLDOVA – MONTENEGRO – THE NETHERLANDS – NORWAY – PORTUGAL – ROMANIA – RUSSIA – SAN MARINO – SERBIA – SLOVENIA – SPAIN – SWEDEN – SWITZERLAND – UKRAINE – UNITED KINGDOM