Montenegro sends vocal group D Mol to Tel Aviv
Montenegro has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest ten times, but only made it to the final in 2014 and 2015. From 2016 on, they failed to come close to qualification for the Saturday night. For their 11th participation, the country organized a national final which was won by vocal group D Mol, consisting of the young singers Tamara Vujačić, Mirela Ljumić, Željko Vukčević, Ivana Obradović, Emel Franca and Rizo Feratović. They will perform their song ‘Heaven’ in the first semi final in Tel Aviv.
Bad news for Montenegro if we want to believe what the Bookmakers are saying. At the time of writing, the country is at the very bottom of the 41 songs participating and also marked as the least likely to qualify from the first semi final. Unfortunately, I do agree with this prediction. To put it bluntly, ‘Heaven’ is simply not a strong composition. The chorus is flat, the same melody lines keep repeating over and over again and even the parts that could be considered somewhat catchy, start to get on the nerves, because of how repetitve it all is. The delegation from Montenegro came up with a new version of the song when the music video launched, which was a slight improvement with some native instruments and a bit more of a build up, but it could not change the fact that the composition itself is lacking.
Most members of D Mol are capable vocalists and they bring their part of the song with passion, but I doubt that will be enough to convince the juries and televoters. I would be surprised if Montenegro even comes close to qualifying this year, but then again it is Eurovision and stranger things have happened. If Montenegro want to play a serious part in next year’s competition however, they simply need a better song.
Review on the semi-final performance:
Going into this semi-final, D Mol was the act with the least chances of qualifying according to the bookmakers and it is not hard to hear why. ‘Heaven’ is full of cliche lyrics, lacks any sort of build up and the hook is simply not attractive in the slightest. Vocally, they individually did a decent job, but together it sometimes sounded messy. The staging was just as poor as the song, almost like we were watching a school play. All six of them did their best to sell this song, but it was never going to be enough to qualify. They finished 16 out of 17 contestants.
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