Eurovision Throwback: Sopho – Visionary Dream

Today’s throwback takes us back to 2007, where the contest featured a record 42 nations, including 4 debuting countries. One of those was Georgia, which will be the subject of our scrutiny in today’s throwback. Georgia internally selected Sopho Khalvashi, and a national final was held to decide which song would be sung at their debut Eurovision performance. The national final featured 5 songs, however Visionary Dream (which was then called My Story) won convincingly with 51% of the vote.

Fast forward to their Eurovision performance, which was a fairly successful debut, reaching 12^th in the final. The song Visionary Dream is a bit of a strange case for me, where I don’t necessarily enjoy listening to it, but find myself singing it after it has ended. What I do enjoy is the traditional sound throughout the song, and especially through the intro of the song. I also like how the song changes throughout the three minutes, the different beats and sounds give the song more dimension. At some points, it borderline sounds a bit disjointed, but overall it somehow seems to work.

As for Sopho’s vocal performance, perhaps this is what puts me off this song. I find her voice to be almost too bold. It suits the song, but to hear something so intense for three minutes is draining. Would be interesting to hear the song performed with a different tone of voice, perhaps Sofia Nizharadze who represented Georgia in 2010.

The stage performance was very Eurovision, featuring a bit of sword fighting from the backing dancers. I can’t say I liked their backing visuals on the screen, but I do have to keep reminding myself that it’s 2007. For the song, I think having an over the top stage performance works as the song is very intense as it is.

Overall I do think this performance was better than some at Eurovision 2007, but I do also think it beat a whole bunch of good songs in the semi-final. It’s a song I think is fairly average in quality, and I don’t actively choose to listen to it again, but I can see the charm in it. With that said, I’m going to give it a 5.5/10.