Anna Odobescu sings power ballad ‘Stay’ for Moldova
Moldova has been very successful in Eurovision in the past years. They reached a respectable 10th place last year with ‘My Lucky Day’ by DoReDos while Sunstroke Project finished 3rd with their track ‘Hey Mama’ the year before. This year the country selected their participant through a national final once more. This edition was won by Anna Odobescu with her power ballad ‘Stay’. She will represent Moldova in the second semi final on the 16th of May, but will we see her big in the final too?
Odobescu’s ‘Stay’ starts out with just piano and is built around her powerful vocals which truly shine in the chorus. She belts for her life in those parts especially towards the end, but convinces in the more toned down parts in the verses as well. Live, she sounded great during the national final and she knows how to sell the song on stage as well. My doubts about ‘Stay’ are mainly focused on how dated the song sounds. Although Odobescu does what she can, I can’t see televoters all over Europe fall for this. I am pretty certain she will receive quite some points from the juries, who will at least stop her from finishing all the way at the bottom. At the same time I would be surprised if she makes it to the final with this track. I don’t detest the song, but I hardly ever come back to it. I wish Odobescu had a more exciting song to show off her massive voice. Even if she makes it into the final, I don’t see her come anywhere near the Moldovan successes of the past two years.
Before the rehearsals started, the bookmakers seemed to agree too. At the time of writing she was 37th of 41 participating countries with only 21% chance of making it to the final.
Review of the semi-final performance:
Anna Odobescu gives a vocally excellent performance, but it was not enough to change the fate of ‘Stay’. Neither was the sand artist they brought out. Ukraine already brought a similar concept to the Eurovision stage back in 2011 during Mika Newton’s performance and did it better. Anna sang her heart out and other then her poor English pronunciation, she made the best of it, but ‘Stay’ was simply not strong or memorable enough to reach the final. Juries however, voted her in 8th place, but televoters let Moldova down with a 13th place, resulting in her finishing 12th overall.
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