Armenia still remains as one of the most successful Eurovision nations when it comes to qualifying to the final, and in their history at Eurovision, they have reached the final all but one time. Last year they dazzled Europe with Iveta Mukuchyan, and this year, they’ve kept with the girl power theme and chosen Artsvik, who was chosen early in the national final season. After months of waiting for a song, we finally got Fly With Me, but will it soar to the top of the results table?
At first, I didn’t think much of this song. I found it quite underwhelming and disjointed – which I also felt about LoveWave last year. What is also common between these two entries is that I grew to really enjoy them. Once I made the realisation that Fly With Me is more of an artistic or performance piece, I started to appreciate it more. It’s not about how catchy it is, but rather how traditional and modern elements combine to tell a story – just as Artsvik sings in the first line.
I have to applaud Armenia for keeping this song quite traditional in terms of its instrumentation. The introduction of the song, as I refer to it, still does feel a bit disjointed to the rest of the song, but does a good job at catching your attention and creating that interest to see what will happen as the song progresses. Once the core part of the song begins, we can immediately hear the ethnic features of the song which are a core element of the entry, and arguably the best element.
Knowing that it’s a performance piece, we can be assured that Armenia have something super special planned for the staging of this song. Artsvik has already proved she can sing live, there won’t be many problems there, but they do need to exploit these ethnic elements to get the best out of their performance. The video clip for the song mixes the two, the traditional and the modern, and potentially we could see some similar choreography, which I think once again plays upon the combination of old and new.
This song is growing on me the more I listen to it, but it’s also the type of song which will impress first time viewers and listeners. I think this is a fairly safe qualifier, and wouldn’t be too worried about this not seeing this on the Saturday night. It has that Eurovision flair that Armenia is pretty good, they know how to make an entertaining song whilst still keeping the cultural elements at the core of what they are doing, and I do wish other nations would take a page from their book and give the European and Australian audiences a display of cultural flair.
Although it isn’t my favourite song of the year, I’m still going to give this a 7/10 because I can appreciate the song for what it is, and think it’s a worthwhile listen.
