As part of the Big 5, Germany automatically qualifies to the final each year. Similar to the other Big 5 nations, it seems to be a curse that they can’t shake, as year after year, Germany specifically, have failed to make a big impact on Europe. The last two years have been especially rough for Germany, after coming last in both years, and 2015 finishing with the dreaded nul points. This year, they hoped to recreate the same process that gave Germany their most recent win with Lena and Satellite. The national final featured 5 artists that are up and coming in the German music scene, and two songs were specially written for the national final titled Perfect Life and Wildfire. Each of the artists had their own take on the songs, but Germany decided on Levina with Perfect Life.
I have various problems with this entry, and the first comes with the actual selection process. The actual national final produced four identical interpretations of the songs from the female performers, and only Axel seemed to perform the entries in a different way, which automatically made me support him over any of the other vocalists. I think giving artists the same pre-written songs is a process which undermines the talent of the actual artists, as it’s not giving them the chance to actually show their full potential in the styles that they would regularly perform in. Furthermore, the actual two songs that were commissioned for the national selection were, for the lack of a better term, pretty horrible. Their attempt at creating a modern pop song didn’t quite work for me, and in comparison to the entries from nations such as Serbia, FYR Macedonia, Bulgaria and Cyprus, all of which have had a rocky past in Eurovision, Germany just doesn’t compare.
Overall, I find the actual song to be dull for the entire three minutes, and I find Levina as a performer to also be quite lacklustre. For me, the only song and artist combination which could potentially bring Germany off the bottom would have been Axel with Perfect Life due to the soul tones and big band feel he brought to the song, and he really was the only one to actually interpret the song in a different way.
As for the staging, I can envisage them choosing to go with a similar look to the official video, which would look super cool on stage, but doesn’t change the fact that this isn’t a song that is bound to do much on the results table.
I really don’t think this will do well at Eurovision this year. I didn’t mind Ghost, or even Black Smoke, I preferred those two over this, and those both came last, so I’m not overly hopeful about this song, and it’s a shame, because I do want Germany to be on par with what the other nations are bringing to the contest.
With all that said, I can only really give this a 3/10 and that’s fairly generous.
